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These audience questions are from AIIM’s March 6, 2013 webinar; 6 Considerations to Going Mobile. I’d like to thank Webinar speaker Richard Medina, Co-Founder and Principal Consultant of Doculabs, for taking the time to answer these questions.You can also listen to the archived presentation here.

1.    When the industry states that they want "mobile", does that mean in a disconnected state? Or in a connected state with Wi-Fi or 3/4G?

Medina:Great question. Usually it’s both – and a lot more -- because they mean they want “mobility” rather than just “mobile”. David Armanoin the Harvard Business Review Blog Network does a good job explaining the distinction. “Mobility means information, convenience, and social all served up on the go, across a variety of screen sizes and devices.” Mobile is more narrow, the devices and infrastructure that enable mobility.

2.    So is Averail a product company like Moblico?

Medina:I asked the folks at Averail how they see the difference and I agree with their distinction:

·      Averail offers a proprietary app that enables corporate employees secure content collaboration on mobile devices, with a cloud-based management console for administrators to control and audit access to that content.

·      Moblico is an app development platform for developers interested in building custom mobile apps for their business.

3.    What is your take on native mobile apps vs. Web-based in terms of cost, reliability? What type of solution do you recommend to your clients?

4.    Why use a mobile app when they could use a Web application on their mobile device? Covers far more than Apple devices and no extra cost to manage multiple mobile platform applications.

Medina:I’m going to answer questions 3 and 4 together.

The simple answer is that native mobile apps offer depth while Web apps offer breadth.

Native mobile apps are designed to run on a device’s operating system and firmware, and must be adapted for different devices. Web apps are designed so that the software is downloaded from the Web each time they are run, and they can be accessed from just about any Web-capable device. So as the questioner suggests, Web apps are easier to distribute and have cheaper portability. They are better for application developers and publishers, because they are cheaper and faster to develop and maintain.

But native apps traditionally have a better UI, user adoption, usage volume, and duration of each session. Native apps also have better security because they don’t need to connect to networks as frequently as Web apps.

Note that many of the distinctions are blurring. For example, most Web apps provide offline capabilities, and most native apps use Web connectivity.

So far as which approach do we recommend to our clients, both are a best fit for some cases, and both are adequate in many cases. It’s all a function of the diversity of device types (more favors Web), the level of security requirements (more favors native), richness of UI and depth of capabilities (more favors native), and resource requirements (Web requires less time, expertise, and, usually, cost).

5.    Is SharePoint a reliable ECM for mobile devices?

Medina:Yes and it will be significantly better with 2013. There are no technical reasons why SharePoint isn’t good on mobile. Usability, however, has always been the issue with SharePoint, especially on phones. CMSwirehas a good post on what MS is trying to do to address the problem. And here’sa good Slideshare presentation on the same topic.

6.    Wouldn't offline require download of content? Potential break of FINRA, HIPPA, and other regulatory requirements. Also creates multiple copies of the content that could be used in legal cases?

Medina: Mobile and offline definitely pose issues for FINRA, HIPAA, and other regulatory requirements because of the threat of unauthorized disclosure. They also pose nightmare scenarios for discovery because they can make defensible disposition a joke. Without safeguards, users could store problematic information on a variety of uncontrolled devices, or on removable cards or chips. The devices may lack adequate authentication, passwords, or network security. Therefore it’s essential that your organization’s safeguards be administrative, physical, and technical.

7.    Has there been any studies done to see what the main device the industry is looking towards? Android/Apple/Windows?

Medina: Absolutely, and I’ll quote Gartner’sreport on this topic:

By 2015, over 80% of handsets in mature markets will be smart phones. 20% of those will be Windows phones. By 2015, tablet shipments will be 50% of laptop shipments, with Windows 8 in third place behind Apple and Android. Microsoft‘s share of overall client platform will fall to 60%, and could drop below 50%. In smartphones, Windows could pass RIM to be #3 player, and could be same size as Apple in units by 2015. Windows 8 will be “relatively niche,” mostly appealing to enterprise buyers