Today there is vast pressure on business and IT to keep up with user expectations as advanced technology makes its way into the world of enterprise. Users are now demanding various types of sophisticated enterprise apps that not only work on their mobile devices, but have all the same abilities as consumer apps they already know and love. This presentation offers 9 things you should consider to make your best apps.

1. 9 Essentials for
Extraordinary Apps

2. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.2
Capitalize on IT commoditization
Figure out where you stand on the IT
“commoditization curve.”
Save money where you can, but don’t
outsource what makes you different or
gives you a competitive advantage.

3. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.3
Get IT out of the way
With a high-productivity PaaS solution,
you empower your entire organization
to take things into their own hands.
Move away from the practice of
opening work requests and free IT to
spend their time on higher-value work.

4. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.4
Don’t think public cloud first—create the right cloud
Public clouds like Amazon Web
Services, Google and Salesforce
aren’t your only options.
It is possible to set up your own servers
to work as a private cloud or to work in
conjunction with the public cloud with a
hybrid approach. Choose what is best for
your organization’s workflow.

5. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.5
Don’t be mobile-first—think user-first
Don’t miss the forest for the trees!
Mobile business apps are supposed to
make life easier for the user, offering
the same kind of rich experience as a
consumer app.
Always keep the user experience front
and center in your design and
architecture approach.

6. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.6
Integrate your mobile development efforts
Focus on API-first, DevOps approaches
to application development. Break
down the walls between your dev silos
and reuse resources. No need to code
the same thing twice!
An integrated development process
leads to a more consistent cross-
platform user experience and faster
time-to-market.

7. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.7
Don’t separate data and development
Most applications require data to be
pulled from a myriad of sources,
including the on-premise network, the
cloud or both.
Consider from the outset how you will
need to access a wide variety of data
types and sources across your app dev
infrastructure—securely and without
opening holes in the firewall.

8. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.8
Think about your entire software supply chain
Don’t get stuck just thinking about the
development stage of the application
process. Always keep in mind where
your applications fit within the software
supply chain.
Using a holistic approach from the start
lets you manage the entire application
lifecycle gives you an efficient, easier
way to manage and enhance your
applications in the future.

9. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.9
Determine your “XaaS” strategy
Consider your IaaS, SaaS and PaaS
options carefully so that you use the
best “as a service” approach to meet
the technical, business and financial
needs of your organization.
A PaaS cloud-based development
solution may be the best route to help
your organization leverage applications
for competitive differentiation.
IaaS
SaaS
PaaS

10. © 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.10
Pick the right PaaS
Not all PaaS solutions are created equal.
Some deploy and manage completed
applications. Some focus on accelerating
the application development stage with
high-productivity solutions. Others use
high-control environments for a traditional
development approach.
Decide which one(s) will work best based
on your organization’s objectives.

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