1. The evolution of enterprise informatization
If we trace the path of enterprise business informatization, it becomes clear that there are roughly several stages
Before the rise of the Internet, are mostly desktop software as the carrier, and organize for local area network (LAN) As the Web popular, after becoming mainstream, enterprise business Web is changed into the mainstream With the development of the mobile phone, we entered the era of mobile Internet, mobile first become a consensus, enterprise and push the business to the next era, all things connected?
Among them, in the era of mobile Internet, enterprise mobile digitalization has experienced different development models, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, presenting a situation of coexistence of multiple models, until today, there is still no mainstream.
Although the Internet of everything is very hot, but we are still in the era of mobile Internet, this paper briefly on the enterprise information mobile to do some analysis and thinking.
- The development history of mobile technology
Sorting out the general process of enterprise mobile digitization, we can roughly get the following patterns
(1) BEFORE the era of intelligent mobile phones, J2ME was popular
(2) With the emergence of smart phones, native development becomes the mainstream
(3) H5 is increasingly becoming the first choice for native development
(4) The performance of H5 is criticized, and the Development mode of Hybird appears
(5) Small programs rise to prominence
(6) Attempts and breakthroughs in cross-platform development technology
(7) Competition of enterprise mobile platform
2.1 J2ME era
If we go back to the era before smart phones, many young people may not know much about that era, but they must have heard of another famous company, Nokia.
In addition, programmers like me who used The Java language in the early days must also know that Java is divided into several versions, including J2SE, J2ME and J2EE, among which J2EE is mainly responsible for back-end WEB development, while J2ME was the main mode of mobile development at that time.
Have you ever used J2ME programs on Nokia?
At that stage, of course, I remember domestic is tencent, before go to compare, QQ was always supporting the Nokia mobile phone, there is another application is also very famous at that stage, for it is UC WEB, combined with the mobile phone network is slow, UC WEB do network traffic to save and compression, superposition of some features, For example, mobile WEB pages have rapidly become a very popular browser, which has occupied a large share in the browser field until the emergence of smart phones today.
Of course, at this stage, enterprise business is not mobile, at this time the network is slow, mobile phone performance is poor, the screen is also small, far from being called the era of mobile Internet.
2.2 Interest in smart phones, native development becomes mainstream
In 2007, iOS debuted with the iPhone, and in September 2008, Android released its first commercial smartphone, the HTC Dream. No one could have predicted how quickly we would move into a new era of mobile connectivity.
Although there are some smart phone systems before iOS and Android, such as Nokia’s Symbian, Blackberry and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, the emergence of iOS and Android still has a breakthrough significance. Supported by the open source mode, Android and iOS have developed rapidly under the mode of better experience under the closed ecosystem. The old Symbian, blackberry and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile phone system have rapidly retreated. Some early challengers, such as Microsoft’s Windows Phone and Ubuntu Touch, failed to make the cut.
With iOS and Andorid rapidly becoming the mainstream, constantly releasing new versions, combined with the faster and faster network construction, Internet access is becoming more and more possible, and more and more users, we can say that we have gradually entered the era of mobile Internet.
At the beginning of this stage, when the performance of H5 was still poor, native development based on the SDK provided by iOS and Android was the mainstream development mode. Most advanced enterprises tried to use native development to push their businesses to mobile phones, becoming the mainstream way of enterprise business mobility. Mobile development also became an emerging group at this stage, and became an influential group in the programming industry.
However, in the course of practice, more and more enterprises are finding that mobile native development has a number of disadvantages, mainly including
(1) The same business needs to develop both iOS and Android. With the emergence of iPad, some businesses have to develop another set specially for iPad, and the cost of original development is high
(2) Mobile terminal shelves, release, update, BUG modification and other costs are high
(3) Limited by the above two points, rapid business mobility and trial and error cannot be carried out
(4) With the decline of mobile Internet and user freshness, the cost of promoting and marketing native APPS is getting higher and higher, and users are becoming less and less willing to download new apps
Under the influence of these shortcomings, different modes of solutions have emerged successively.
2.3 The rise of HTML5
Around the end of 2014, the HTML5 standard was released, putting an end to the chaotic HTML standards of the HTML4 era. Before that, using CSS or JS in different browsers required a lot of different compatibility work, which was a headache for front-end developers.
This is also a period of rapid development for mobile systems, which support the HTML5 standard very well due to the lack of historical baggage. As a result of the shortcomings of native development, some companies and developers are experimenting with another model, which is to migrate business from native to mobile browsers based on the evolution of the desktop.
H5 development has its obvious advantages over native development
(1) There is no need to adapt to multiple terminals. It is developed once and suitable for different mobile phone systems, even some minority mobile systems
(2) The update and maintenance should be controlled by ourselves, without the review of Apple and Google
(3) It is easy to promote and operate. There is a browser on any mobile phone, which is fast and convenient to visit without downloading App
Although the H5 model developed with overwhelming momentum at the very beginning, it was gradually found that it still had some irreparable shortcomings
(1) Speed and experience cannot be compared with native. This is still the most important reason. The H5 still feels a beat slower than the original
(2) It is difficult to cache data locally, and it needs to be reloaded every time. Although H5 has some local storage technology, it is really applied very little
(3) Without the accumulation of user loyalty, the loyalty of users who download an App and use it frequently will be higher than that of users who visit a service in the browser, which is more like a temporary solution.
Because of these shortcomings, the Hybird hybrid development model emerged.
2.4 Hybird mixed development
Based on the advantages and disadvantages of native development and H5 development, a new development mode is gradually formed, that is, the combination of native +H5. This pattern is more evident in enterprise apps.
That is, some solidified parts that change slowly, we call it the base or shell, and use the original to achieve experience optimization. And some very fast changes, updates frequently implemented with H5, embedded in the front shell to load. This model is collectively known as Hybird Hybrid development.
This mode combines the best of both modes, allowing for both experience and support for rapid change. A scheme that quickly went mainstream.
In 2012, our company also developed a product chameleon based on this model. It is the predecessor of WorkPlus Lite, but it is slightly different from WorkPlus Lite. WorkPlus Lite is more of a platform, while Chameleon is more focused on development level support.
In practice, some development tools of Hybird framework have strong coupling and binding characteristics, and development depends on their specific components or controls. In recent years, the development of front-end technology can be said to have advanced by leaps and bounds. This type of Hybird development framework has certain limitations in its adaptation.
Another disadvantage is the lack of personalization of App. Because the shell is stable and rarely changed, it means that the shape of the entire App is like this and rarely changes. Most H5-based apps are also presented in a mode similar to application or workbench, which is either grid or list style, and it is difficult to personalize the App according to business.
Therefore, this model is more popular in enterprises, but is not very suitable for the TO C group.
2.5 The rise of applets
Although it seems likely that Hybird will become a mainstream development model, it has the advantages of native development and H5 development, making it a better model for enterprise development.
However, in recent years, a new model has emerged rapidly, which quickly becomes a mobile business development model that cannot be ignored.
The first is the applets.
In the beginning, wechat released small programs. In fact, small programs are strictly the continuation of the Hybird model, but the shell of small programs is wechat or Alipay and other national apps.
Compared to Hybird, applets have the following advantages:
(1) There is no need to develop the original App shell by yourself. Using wechat or Alipay or other carriers means that your business can reach almost every possible customer
(2) Do not care about or be responsible for the update and maintenance of the native APP
Small programmers also have all the benefits of H5, and because it only supports specific apps, it is further optimized for performance, making it possible to achieve a very close to native experience. (Wechat’s small program boasts an experience close to native)
Later iterations, like Google’s Quick apps on Android and Apple’s Clips on iOS, are similar to mini apps.
2.6 Cross-platform development technology attempts and breakthroughs
The Hybird development model is still a relatively mainstream mobile development model at this stage. The advantages have been mentioned above. However, in recent years, there has been a new attempt to achieve a native experience while reducing the cost of developing on different platforms: cross-platform development technology.
React Native and Flutter are the main trials of cross-platform development technology.
These cross-platform technologies typically have the following characteristics:
(1) Both of them support the writing of one code, which can be adapted to both iOS and Android platforms to reduce the cost of development on different platforms
(2) They both achieve this goal as close to native as possible by adding their own mechanisms to translate your code into near-native performance. To achieve almost the same effect as the original.
Among other things, Facebook’s React Native mechanism parses your code into Native code, meaning you write JS code that will eventually be translated into Native code by the framework. Flutter is even more radical, building its own framework and UI on top of the underlying apis provided by iOS and Android platforms instead of the native framework and UI.
Therefore, the advantages of cross-platform development are also very obvious. Although Hybird hybrid development has become the mainstream, different from PC era, mobile terminal is based on a small screen and limited battery, App still plays a very important role in the pursuit of experience, which is also the reason for the emergence of cross-platform development technology.
React Native and Flutter quickly became popular with a large number of developers. Flutter is poised to replace React Native as the hottest cross-platform development technology in a year or two.
However, similar development methods are still unable to replace native or Hybird development models, because they both have difficult problems, such as:
(1) Poor ecology. The ecosystem of similar cross-platform technologies is still relatively poor compared to native and Hybird, and when it comes to needing something, it’s likely to be built from scratch without a mature or superior solution.
(2) Ideal is full, reality is very skinny. IOS and Android platforms are both mobile platforms, but they have different UI specifications, mobile concepts and many other aspects. For example, Flutter has a UI. Is consistent with Android’s Material Design UI design philosophy, which obviously doesn’t exist on iOS.
(3) It is difficult to get rid of the dependence on native. Since these cross-platform technologies are based on native apis and provide a layer of encapsulation, it is likely that when problems arise, you will still need to go to the native layer to find a solution. These cross-platform technologies, which were initially expected to get rid of native mobile workers, turned out to be just as good as they got.
(4) New feature updates are difficult to keep up with the original. With iOS14, for example, diablo, these cross-platform technologies will take a long time to adapt
However, cross-platform technology is still a very good mobile development model to consider. The advantages are so obvious that the performance of developing a suite is close to native.
My advice is that if you have experience developing on multiple platforms like iOS or Android, using similar cross-platform technologies is a good solution.
2.7 Emergence of enterprise mobile platform
In 2012, based on several years of experience in serving large state-owned and central enterprises such as China Southern Airlines, Hengtuo Hi-tech realized the urgent need for mobile platforms for enterprises in the era of mobile Internet. We incubated WorkPlus enterprise mobile platform, and launched WorkPlus Lite for smes at the end of 2020.
This is a scenario that we expect and will inevitably appear. Enterprises, especially medium and large enterprises, will have more and more urgent demand for mobile business. All kinds of enterprise services provided by desktop and browser before must be provided on mobile phones to adapt to the era of mobile Internet. In this context, several enterprise mobile platforms, including WorkPlus, have emerged.
These enterprise mobile platforms typically have several distinct characteristics:
(1) Provide the most basic functions required by the enterprise, such as instant messaging, organizational relationship maintenance, mail, mobile clock, process, approval, forms, documents, voice and video, etc. These functions are to help enterprises quickly mobile information.
(2) At the same time, it is necessary to provide a good access mechanism to connect various internal or external related services and applications to the platform, forming a complete ecosystem. Therefore, these platforms basically appear application and workbench and other access methods.
In our open source free WorkPlus Lite, for example, we provides instant messaging, directory, push, advertising pages, audio & video meeting these basic functions, and also provides the service access platform Api access, services, applications, workbench, isvs ecological capability to access a variety of ways, helping enterprises to form a complete ecosystem.
Of course, if you’re using our Enterprise version of WorkPlus, there’s more like email, documents, and more.
In the beginning, these enterprise mobile platforms mostly serve medium and large enterprises, which is the TO B model. This makes perfect sense because, with the exception of Internet giants, most IT companies do not have the capital TO burn cash. But that doesn’t mean smes don’t have similar needs.
Therefore, in recent years, Dingding and enterprise wechat have emerged. Although it was launched a few years later than WorkPlus, it has rapidly met the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises with the combination of strong technology accumulation, strong capital support and almost free use cost, forming a strong product ecology. And Dingding, to a certain extent, fulfills Ali’s dream of catching up with wechat on IM.
3. Choice of enterprise business mobility
Comprehensive author said above, at this stage, in fact, the choice of enterprise mobile mode is very much, said a variety of development mode, in addition to J2ME because of not in line with The Times has withdrawn, other several exist, and mutual influence.
Enterprises need to choose the best development mode according to their actual business requirements.
In this process, some enterprises need TO build their own ecology at the strategic level, integrating their employees, upstream and downstream partners, and the end users of the enterprise into a platform system, whether their mobile business is oriented TO messagers or TO employees and partners. Different enterprises have different considerations for mobile business.
In the next chapter, we will describe our thoughts and suggestions on enterprise mobility based on our experience and understanding of serving medium and large enterprises for nearly 9 years.