However, in this age of social networking, rapid communication and instant gratification, customers want their software to behave exactly the way they want. This is especially true for enterprise or business applications for which the customer has paid a significant amount of money. The expectation for an application to do exactly what the customer wants is directly proportional to the cost of the software.  Product managers have to make difficult compromises about what features to add to the product, the cost and time these features will incur, and the incremental business or customer satisfaction that will result from the inclusion of the features. 

This challenge has become more acute with the rapid adoption of the smartphone beginning with the introduction of the Apple iPhone in 2007.  Smartphone and tablet usage has exploded, and they are fast becoming the default hardware devices for interacting with many software applications. On top of all this, there are now the additional challenges of deciding which platform to support among the three leading contenders (Apple iOS, Google Android and Windows Phone 7.x), and whether to go for native or HTML5 applications.  These choices further increase the complexity and the cost of achieving a high level of customer satisfaction.

Chatty Apps combined with service oriented architecture (SOA) offers a perfect solution for “last mile personalization” while at the same time enabling the application to run on all popular mobile platforms. The solution is simple and elegant and does not compel the ISVs to deviate from the strategic path many to them have already adopted, which is to deploy SOA. Chatty Apps is able to deliver the holy grail of software applications because of its three key characteristics:

1. Chatty Apps allows users to create cross-platform applications, either native or HTML based
2. Chatty Apps are created without programming or scripting, making it a “do-it-yourself” product for  power users
3. Chatty Apps provide seamless and robust integration with Web Services, whether they be SOAP or REST-based, and is agnostic to the platform.

Propelled by the need for easier integration, many ISVs have already adopted SOA as an important element of their strategic product roadmap. This entails exposing the functions of their software applications as Web Services, providing a security and discovery infrastructure around them, and then enabling other products to consume these services as a part of a business process.  Many ISVs have either completed their SOA initiatives or are well into the deployment phase. This SOA infrastructure is available for Chatty Apps to use.

ISVs with the typical 80% solution can offer Chatty Apps to their end users to create the remaining 20% of features which are unique to their needs and requirements and solve the riddle of last mile personalization. As illustrated in the diagram below, on one side Chatty Apps allows users to create cross-platform interfaces that work on desktops/laptops as well as the gamut of mobile devices. On the backend, Chatty Apps integrates seamlessly with the Web Services already deployed by the ISV. In its role as middleware, Chatty Apps controls the sequence of interactions between the Web Services on one side and the user interface on the other. Chatty Apps orchestrates the execution of the business process by making use of its built-in capabilities which makes it easier for the end user to personalize the business process to their exact requirements:

1. A flow chart to graphically define the sequence in which web services are called and user interface steps are invoked
2. A rules engine and designer to provide the smarts to make intelligent, context-aware decisions in real time that can alter the sequence and optimize the behavior or response based on live data
3. An actions designer which enables the definition of smart, rule-based actions which perform a specific function and can be invoked at any point in the flow. For example, simply pointing your finger on a label in your iPhone could invoke a server side action that calls a web service that reads data from a back-office system makes some decisions based on rules and then updates the screen of the iPhone.
4. Web Service action designer that enable the definition of actions that invoke Web Services. These actions may also be invoked from any place in the application.

This powerful combination of Chatty Apps and Web Services means that power users can build their own Chatty Apps to implement features and capabilities that are unique to the user. While 80% of users will be happy to keep using the standard features and capabilities provided out-of-the-box in the software application, the remaining 20% who are not satisfied can create the missing capabilities using Chatty Apps. Furthermore, since business requirements are always in a state of flux, the flexibility and ease of use of Chatty Apps also means that business can rapidly change their apps to adapt to the changing needs.

While we have talked about ISVs in this article, the benefits of using Chatty Apps combined with Web Services are equally applicable to companies that have their own customized applications and those that have hosted solutions for Software-as-a-Service applications. These companies also face the challenge of last mile customization which can be ideally tackled by Chatty Apps.

Then came the smartphone tsunami, starting with the Apple iPhone in 2007. The dominant hardware platform for personal computing started shifting from desktops/laptops to smartphones and mobile devices. On this new platform the modern Web apps started looking old in comparison to what the mobile world is clamoring for:

1. Web apps designed and optimized for full screen laptops/desktops simply do not fit the small displays of smartphones.
2. Large web pages of typical Web apps take a much longer to download because smartphones have lower network bandwidth and processor speed. Longer downloads and slower speed correlates with poor user experience.
3. Web apps designed for the connected users became difficult to work with in the mobile world where network disconnections or other interruptions are frequent.
4. The user interface design of Web apps aimed at providing as much relevant information as possible to the user. This design -the antithesis of minimalist design– is not suitable for mobile devices where users simply do not have the time to absorb all the information and make quick decisions or actions. The best smartphone software was based on a minimalist user interface as exemplified by the apple iPhone.
5. The smartphone is more than a computing device. It is also a device for communications, navigation and imaging. Web apps of the day optimized for laptops/desktops that did not have these capabilities, were not designed to make use of any of the additional functionality of smartphones.

In this void created by the surge in smartphone use the software industry seems to have moved backwards.  Proprietary native apps for different smartphone platforms are back in fashion.    The “app stores” of the major platform vendors that generally exclude competitive products have become major players, in contrast to the openness of the Web. Native apps have the advantage that they are developed using proprietary tools provided by the platform vendor which gives them access to the hardware functionality of the smartphone. Thus native apps provide a rich user interface that far exceeds what can be done inside the browser that constrains Web apps in its sandbox, and also greater functionality by providing seamless access to voice, camera, geo location and memory of the smartphone. It is for this reason that the smartphone app market has surged and there are hundreds of thousands of such applications.

Today these native apps have become the new modern apps and threaten to relegate Web apps to the passé category of legacy apps. A large number of companies of all types, ranging from lone developers to the largest corporations, are clamoring to introduce the next killer native app for smartphones. This despite the fact that native apps are a throwback to the early days of the Personal Computer when applications were proprietary, distribution of applications was headache, maintenance and upgrades was a nightmare, and frivolous games and poor-quality apps dominated the landscape; the same problems which afflicts smartphone native apps today.

To avoid becoming legacy apps and a thing of the past, Web apps have to adapt to the reality of today which is that the smartphone is the hardware platform of the future replacing the personal computer which is fast becoming the platform of the past. This adaption requires Web apps to become Mobile Web apps, which means that they must provide a rich user experience to mobile users and cater to their discontinuous work patterns and short attentions spans. Mobile Web apps can accomplish this only if they are able to deliver the following:

1. Behave like native apps on small displays
2. Adjust to the size and functionality of different smartphones
3. Allow users to work in a minimalist UI so that they can work in short, discontinuous sessions which is often the only way they can work
4. Enable users to change to the most convenient device even in the middle of their work
5. Leverage the hardware functionality of smartphone such as voice, video,  and geo location for delivering rich and useful applications

As I noted in my post Why Smartphone Apps Need HTML5, the growth of HTML5 will go a long way to addressing the last requirement and deliver rich applications that can fully leverage the hardware functionality of smartphones. As for the other four capabilities, Chatty Apps by Chatty Solutions provide an excellent platform for rapidly smartphone-enabling Web applications.

Rashid N. Khan

Chatty Solutions

In my opinion the app store model is greatly inferior to the Web model that the software industry has evolved to. While all software started as proprietary, it gradually became more and more cross-platform. With the emergence of Web applications it became truly cross-platform. Software vendors, who chose the Web model, as more and more were doing, only had to write one version of their application and the application would run on virtually any platform. Second, the Web model promoted freedom and innovation. Companies do not have to register their application with anyone but the ultimate consumer. Consumers have the freedom to use the Internet to select and use any Web application. Finally, Web applications are much easier to support and maintain as there is only one version running on the Web server. Changes made to this one application are immediately available to all users. All these factors increase innovation, reduce cost and work to the benefit of the end customer.

Looking at it another way, software applications used to have a middleman, be it the hardware vendor or the installation partner. As we know in this day and age no one likes a middleman.  Web applications got rid of the middleman and all the inefficiencies associated with the middleman. Smartphone app stores have brought back the middleman. The reason why the smartphone platform vendors can force themselves as middlemen is due to the clout they have because of the sheer number of users using their platform, and some continuing limitations in technology.

Web applications basically commoditized hardware and reduced the clout of the hardware vendors and software OS platform owners. If everything could run inside a browse, and all applications can be distributed and used easily on-demand, there is not much use for the rest of the OS other than running and supporting the browser. The one disadvantage that Web apps did have was that the UI was not as robust as native applications. When smartphone came along with the introduction of the Apple iPhone three years ago, it exacerbated this problem in two ways:

1. Browsers running in smartphone are not as powerful as browsers running on desktops
2. Browser apps did not have access to platform resources such as voice, camera, geo location and contacts database, etc.

Native apps developed using the software development kits of the platform vendors did not have any such restrictions, even though they were proprietary. Developer latched on to this and developed tens of thousands of platform-specific rich applications. This momentum carried the app stores to become the most vibrant and fast-growing sectors of the software industry. So the ingredients of this regressive development were twofold: technical limitations of the Web applications and the power of the platform vendors resulting from sheer numbers.

While today app stores and proprietary applications are dominant, like in the early days of the PC industry, I believe the pendulum is going to swing back and Web applications will become dominant again in the coming years because of the following reasons:

1. HTML5, while still in its infancy but maturing fast, will equalize the playing field with native apps by giving Web app developers access to hardware and platform resources such as voice, camera, geo location, etc. Web application developers will able to develop rich applications with the functionality of native apps. This, coupled with the fact that Web apps are cross-platform, bypass the middleman, and are easier to maintain and distribute, will make them as attractive for smartphone apps as they were for the laptop/desktop apps.
2. A Web app is not restricted to one smartphone platform, or even to smartphones. They can run on any device which has a browser. So the potential reach of Web apps will far exceed the reach of proprietary apps. Clout will shift back to Web apps due to sheer numbers, for the same reason it has swayed to native apps.

Obviously the key to this is HTML5 which will endow Web apps with like-native functionality and excellent user interfaces which are the hallmark of Web 2.0. On this front I am pleased to note that all major Internet browsers are aggressively adding HTML5 support to their browsers. Even Microsoft, which is often a follower in terms of supporting industry standards, has announced that the new Internet Explorer 9 will have strong HTML5 support. The company considers it to be the future of the Internet despite the fact that it has invested heavily in Silverlight which in many ways competes with HTML5. So I am convinced that the regressive movement of the software industry towards app store-driven proprietary applications will only be a temporary phenomenon.

Rashid N. Khan

Chatty Solutions

The emergence of the Personal Computer liberated the small users and small developers from the high-price-driven dominance of mainframe vendors and their ability to dictate what software could run on the mainframe. Consumers could purchase the PC and use any software of their choice. Developers of all sizes could develop the software they wanted for the millions of new consumers. This liberation spawned the PC industry and brought hundreds of millions of new users and thousands of new vendors to the market. Within the industry, the PC and Microsoft dominated over the Apple primarily because theirs was an open environment and users as well as hardware and software developers had tremendous flexibility and choice. Its openness was the essence of its success. Yes, it did lead to challenges of maintaining quality and support, but overall the industry was able to find solutions to cope with the chaos and indeed flourish from its diversity and vitality.

Freedom of choice and the ability to run across multiple hardware and software platforms was the Holy Grail that propelled the Internet to dominance. HTML could run on almost every platform and the sheer power and reach of the Internet forced vendors who initially did not support it to quickly fall in line and embrace it. The Internet rapidly grew from a curiosity, to the ubiquitous content platform, and finally to the most widely used application platform. With the emergence of software-as-as-service (SaaS) and Web 2.0, the software industry was finally close to reaching the Holy Grail where high quality applications could be delivered easily, instantly and securely to millions of users, and the users had tremendous flexibility and choice in terms of the applications they chose to use. Technologies like HTML5, Silverlight and Adobe Flex were designed in this Web 2.0 era to provide rich user experience for Internet users.

Then came the Apple iPhone and the tremendous success of its app store driven by large number of consumers. It is ironic to note that the initial model for applications that Apple was pushing was the Web model. However, when the app store caught on, Apple changed its emphasis to applications downloaded from the app store and approved by Apple without really dropping or shunning the Web.  Google, Nokia, RIM quickly followed the Apple model, and now Microsoft is doing the same. They all have their proprietary marketplaces, but continue to support the open Web model to cover their flanks.

Why is the App Store model regressive for the software industry? The reasons are obvious.

1. It gives control to a few large app store owners to decide what applications are allowed. Users no longer have the flexibility of choice. This control is likely to be abused.
2. App markets have fragmented the software industry again and taken it back to the old era of proprietary software that runs only on one platform. Application designed for the iPhone Google Android, Windows Phone 7 will only run on these platforms. Vendors who want to support multiple platforms will have to create multiple versions of their applications, which bring back the same old issues of support and maintenance that marred the early days of the PC industry.
3. The app stores are likely to become massive, bureaucratic bottlenecks that could drown innovation and the agility of new developers. When the Apple app store was small with a few thousand application, small developers found it to be very advantageous as a single point for marketing and distributing their applications, and also a convenient means of collecting payments. However, now with hundreds of thousands of applications in the app store, it is very difficult for small developers to stand out from the crowd. To promote their products they will be forced to use conventional marketing channels, and still pay the app store owner a cut of their revenue.

I recently wanted to upgrade to a new version of Skype on my iPhone. So I went to iTunes and found the free upgrade. But when I selected the free upgrade, iTune informed me that the iTunes Terms and Conditions have changed and I must agree to the new Terms and Conditions. On the tiny iPhone screen I did not have the patience to read the fine print of the new Terms and Conditions, so I accepted them without bothering to read. Having done that I found myself back on the iTunes page asking me to select which application I wanted to download! All this for trying to download a free upgrade to a free application! I will have to go through this every time the legal minds at Apple change one or two words in the Terms and Conditions which millions of users like me never bother to read. I miss the days of simply going to the app vendor’s site and downloading the upgrade I want, or better still, to use a Web application that does not need any download to begin with which, after all, was the promise of the Web!

The app store owners, especially Apple, claim that going through their whetting process is the only way to control the quality of the applications. There may be some truth to this, but I do not buy the argument. I think the real reason is that these vendors see it as an opportunity to control the marketplace based on their hold over the hardware. It reminds me so much of the days of the mainframe when a few companies monopolized the hardware and controlled all the software that could run on their hardware. Furthermore, if quality was the primary issue, then I want to remind these vendors that the Internet browser is a sandbox that is supposed to isolate what happens on the Internet from what happens on the rest of the platform. All the app store owners have their Internet browsers like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Microsoft IE. If the only goal is quality, they should focus on making their browsers more secure sandboxes, without impinging on the choice of the consumers or the reach of the application developers.

I hope my pessimisms is ill-founded. I hope that the smartphone app developers and consumers will soon realize that we are on the path or regression. There is hope that HTML 5 will again bring the software industry back to the Holy Grail where consumers have the choice and the power. I will write more about the reasons for this hope in my next post.

Rashid N. Khan

Chatty Solutions

Business and ecommerce Web and SaaS applications also face the challenge of faster response because of the same reasons. Most Web and SaaS applications are designed for the full-screen devices working on high-speed corporate networks or DSL connections. The typical design approach of these applications is to provide as much information as possible on the same screen so that the user has most of what he needs readily available to him. This is optimal because there is plenty of real-estate on the full screen and the network speed is fast enough that large downloads are not a big problem. In fact, I believe that large screen sizes, faster CPUs and higher Internet speeds have resulted in bloated user interfaces. However, when these Web apps are run on smartphones and other mobile devices, they face four problems which make them impractical:

1. The large screen design of typical Web apps simply does not fit the small displays of smartphones
2. Mobile bandwidth is still low as compared to corporate networks and DSL. It takes a significantly longer time to download the bloated user interfaces of Web apps to smartphones. This is compounded by the fact that mobile CPUs are slower than those used in desktops and laptops.
3. Mobile users typically have short attention spans because they are mostly out and about when using smartphones. They do not have the time necessary to digest all the information presented on large user interfaces.
4. Mobile users are likely to be interrupted or lose their network connection. If they have taken the trouble of downloading a large user interface of a Web application and are working on it, they run the risk of losing all their work when interrupted, and having to download the entire user interface again when they want to continue working with it.

Chunking is an ideal solution for greatly improving the responsiveness and user-friendliness of Web and SaaS applications. It basically involves breaking up the user interface into small “chunks” of relevant data, and then presenting these chunks to the user in a logical sequence. This is the patented approach that is used by Chatty Apps to deliver rich user experience for smartphone Web apps. Chunking addresses all the problems listed above:

1. The “chunks” of user interface can be small enough to fit nicely in the small screens of smartphones. In fact each chunk can be designed such that it appears like a native app for the device. No force-fitting or shrinking of the user interface is needed.
2. Since the chunks are much smaller than the full screen user interface, they download much faster and increase the responsiveness of the application.
3. Small chunk size means that the user is presented with a concise piece of information or a simple task which he can comprehend and perform quickly. A collection of such chunks can make an elaborate decision or convey significant of information in small bites that are easier for the mobile user to work with.
4. All the data entered is saved after each chunk is completed by the user. Therefore if the user loses mobile connection he can start from where he left. In fact, Chatty Apps allows the user to restart from the same or a different device. It has a sophisticated algorithm that determines the most appropriate chunk to restart from in case the user decides to change device.

Chatty Apps is a complete platform and middleware that enables Web app developers to develop minimalist, chunked user interface for their applications that are fast and responsive to the user.

Rashid Khan

Chatty Solutions

Smartphones are powerful computing devices. Their most obvious benefit is their small size which makes them ideal for mobile users. However this benefit comes at the cost their small displays and keyboards. Mobile users are willing to live with this limitation when they are not in their offices or homes and do not have access to full screen computers and keyboards. However, when they are in their offices or homes, they generally prefer to use their laptops, desktops for their computing needs. So when the user is working on a task using a mobile device, he needs a smooth and quick transition to the desktop or laptop when it is convenient for him to use the latter, and vice versa.  However, most Web and SaaS applications do not enable such transitions. For many web applications, the user has to complete the work before closing the browser, or lose all the data for that session. There are some Web applications that do enable the user to save the work and then login again from a different device to resume their work. However this is not only cumbersome because the user has to go back to the web site and login again,  but also requires the application developer to do a considerable amount of work for session management to enable this.

Chatty Apps by Chatty Solutions provide a powerful and elegant method of allowing users to switch devices even in the middle of their work. For each device, Chatty Apps allow the application developer to chunk the user interface into small sections called ChatBites. These ChatBites are presented to the user in a sequence controlled by a flow chart and rules. Data from each ChatBite is saved when it is completed. The structure of a Chatty App is shown in the attached illustration. This method makes it easy to implement device switching even in the middle of a task or session. When a smartphone user finishes a step on one device, he can always start using another device and point to the same URL that he used to start on the first device. The Chatty App server recognizes the device he is working on and loads the most appropriate ChatBite for the new device along with the data entered in the first device. Therefore users can switch easily between devices.

Easy support for device switching is one of the many benefits of “chunking” the user interface which I elaborated upon in a previous blog “Chunking Enables Better User Interfaces for Mobile Apps”. It is a powerful capability which means that mobile users of Web and SaaS apps can seamlessly and effortlessly switch between mobile devices and desktops/laptops to do their work. This optimizes the use of smartphone and make them more valuable players in the IT ecosystem.

Rashid N. Khan

Typical Web applications are terrible for such discontinuous work patterns because of the non-persistent nature of HTML on which most of them are based. Most web forms require that they be fully completed and submitted. If a user working with a Web form disconnects from the server, either intentionally or as a result of events beyond his control, all the work done is lost. This is okay for laptops and desktops where the user is more focused and connections are rarely lost. However, it is unworkable in the case of mobile devices where loss of connection and interruptions are much more frequent. Users engaged in serious business work will not tolerate such loss of data. Many Web apps do provide the ability to persist data on the server to address this issue. However developing and maintaining such applications is far more costly.

Chatty Apps are based on a unique approach that is ideal for supporting discontinuous work patterns of mobile users. As I described in another blog ““Chunking” Enables Better User Interfaces for Mobile Apps”, Chatty Apps enable the development of a user interface that is “chunked” into small pieces. The chunks are served to the user in a sequence controlled by a flow chart and rules. After each chunk is completed the data is saved on the server and the user moves on to the next chunk.

Among the many other benefits of this approach, one big benefit is that chunking is ideal for discontinuous work patterns. First, the user is working with a small part of the user interface and is therefore able to comprehend and complete it quickly. Second, the user can stop at anytime. When the user restarts, he is taken to the last chunk that was completed and he can continue from there without interruption or loss of data. And finally, if the user experiences an unexpected loss of connection, he only loses the data in the chunk he was working on and all the data from the previous chunks is not affected. When he restarts, he is taken to the last chunk he was working on and continues from there.

Notice that this approach is very similar to the approach of Chat/IM. A large user interface is converted in to small pieces that can be completed as many small tasks over a discontinuous time period. We at Chatty Solutions believe that this approach makes Chatty Apps ideal for mobilizing Web and SaaS applications because it enables mobile users to work discontinuously which is their natural way of working.

Rashid N. Khan

Chatty Apps offer a different and elegant alternative to this dilemma by introducing and supporting the concept of chunking for creating user interfaces.  Chatty Apps use HTML which enables Web and SaaS application vendors to create cross-platform user interfaces for their apps. The drawback of conventional Web apps is that they do not have the look and feel and appeal of native apps. One Web page does not fit elegantly in all devices with different screen sizes. The result is that cross-platform support is achieved at the cost of an inferior user interface.

Chatty Apps addresses this limitation by providing a powerful means of supporting a “chunked” user interface. I described the concept of chunking in a previous blog titled “Chunking” Enables Better User Interface for Mobile Apps. Basically, the user interface is broken down or “chunked” into small parts or “bites”, the size and content of each bite is up to the user interface designer. In a Chatty App, the chunked user interface is presented to the user in a sequence that is controlled by a flow chart. Rules allow the sequence to be changed in real time, which means that the user interface is dynamic and adapts to the context of the information being entered by the user.

One of the major benefits of chunking is that each set of chunks can be designed to fit the screen size of a specific smartphone. Thus the user interface appears as if it is designed for the smartphone. If the UI designer wants to support a different smartphone, he can simply create a different set of chunks with a different flow chart to control its sequence. In this way any number of different smartphones or devices can be supported, and the UI appears like a native app.

The Chatty App Studio provides the tools necessary to develop such chunked user interfaces in an elegant and logical fashion, which include the following

1. A UI Editor to create chunked user interfaces for each device, including the ability to clone the UI for devices that are similar.
2. Flow Editor to create the flow chart to control the sequence of each set of chunks.
3. Rules Editor that enables the UI designer to define context-aware rules that can alter the sequence of the chunks and make the UI dynamic and context sensitive.
4. The Chatty Apps Server that senses the device that is accessing the Chatty App, and then presents the sequence of chunks that were designed for the device. This ensures that each smartphone displays the user interface for the Chatty App that is designed for the device and looks and behaves like a native app.
5. The Chatty App Server also provides the tools and connectivity to Web and SaaS applications through SOA/Web Services. Thus the Chatty App essentially becomes the user interface front-end of Web and SaaS applications, whereas the core logic, functionality and database continue to reside in the application.

The bottom line is that Chatty Apps allow Web and SaaS application vendors to create and deploy mobile user interface that are not only cross-platform, but also feel and behave like native apps on the smartphone they are running on.

Rashid N. Khan

Mobile Web applications can benefit an understanding of why Chat is so successful.  They should be designed with the characteristics of Chat to the maximum extent possible, and the technologies exist today to make this a reality:

1. Mobile Web applications should be cross-platform. They cannot be dedicated to one or two mobile platforms because it is impossible to control which mobile device a user will use to access an application. HTML, HTML5 and Silverlight offer this capability today, and Adobe Flex is almost there if Apple and Adobe can resolve their issues.
2. Mobile Web applications must provide a simple and intuitive user interface that can be easily grasped. Mobile users simply do not have the time to understand and work with complex user interfaces.
3. Mobile Web applications can achieve simplicity and intuitiveness, along with many other benefits through “chunking” or breaking the user interface into small and manageable bites. I have described the benefits of chunking in detail in my recent post entitled Chunking Enables Better User Interface for Web Apps
4. Mobile Web applications should enable the users to work in discontinuous sessions. This is essential because mobile users are often interrupted or lose connections

At Chatty Solutions we have give much thought to the benefits of Chat and find this to be a compelling and proven model for developing mobile web applications. In fact we are so intrigued that we have adopted the name “Chatty” for this very reason: a product that enables companies to the develop mobile web applications that behave like and have the characteristics of Chat. Our core product, Chatty Apps, allows developers to create user interfaces for their Web applications that are “chunked” in to small sections. These chunks are presented to the user in a sequence that is controlled by a flow chart, and context-aware rules provide the flexibility for the dialog to take different paths in the “chat flow” depending on the actual context of the dialog. The use of the Chat model results in a user interface that fits the size of different smartphone, allows users to work in discontinuous sessions, change the device even in the middle of their work, and provide faster user experience as the small chunks download much faster. We believe that Chatty Apps enables existing and new Web and SaaS applications to have the potential of reaching millions of new mobile users for the same reasons that has made Chat so popular.

In my next post I will discuss how Chatty Apps accomplishes this.

Rashid Khan

Chatty Solutions

Web applications on the other hand rely on HTML. HTML has the big advantage that it is cross-platform and will run on many devices all the way from basic smartphones to high-end workstations. However HTML does not offer access to hardware functions and is limited in its ability to support rich user interfaces.

This situation is about to change dramatically based on three ongoing developments. First, HTML5, the latest incarnation of HTML, addresses many if not all of the limitations of HTML. HTML5 enables web applications to access hardware functions, work with sound and videos, provide an offline storage database, drag and drop graphics editing, geo location, and others. Second, Microsoft Silverlight now works on several smartphones and Microsoft is committed to making it run on all major browsers including Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Silverlight enables developers to create rich applications using the full power of Microsoft Visual Studio. Finally, Adobe Flex already provides a cross-platform solution for creating rich applications that can run on many mobile devices as well as desktops and laptops. The only limitation of Flex is the friction between Apple and Adobe, which in my opinion is a result of business differences between the two companies rather than any significant technical issues.

Because of these developments, developers will pretty soon have three excellent choices for creating rich Web applications that will run on multiple mobile platforms without the need to write native apps for each platform. Silverlight and Adobe Flex already come with rich development environments, and there will be several development platforms for HTML5. These will empower develop to create compelling applications that take advantage of the hardware functions of smartphones. Furthermore, these applications will have all the benefit of Web applications such as ease of maintenance and access to Web Services/SOA. Already Google has committed to HTML5 and other major developers are eyeing one of these technologies.  In my opinion it is only a matter of time when there will be more business focused Web applications than native applications for mobile devices, whereas consumer applications are like to be predominantly native for a longer time.

At Chatty Solutions our vision for Chatty Apps is to provide a rich and highly function fourth generation development environment for the creation of powerful mobile applications. Chatty Apps will provide the core plumbing to make applications by managing the data, enabling connection to SOA/Web Services, defining and executing rules, evaluating business logic, and orchestrating the user interface flow of applications. Developers can use this plumbing and add the user interface components in Silverlight or HTML5, and develop the core business logic and database to make powerful business and e-commerce applications that will run like native apps on multiple smartphones as well as laptops and desktops. Likewise, developers can take their existing business application and mobile-enable them so they can run on multiple mobile devices.

Rashid N. Khan