"Times have changed since the days when IT was somehow removed from business," says Paul Muller, HP worldwide VP for Strategic Marketing. "To remain competitive, every business will have to become a software business, producing innovative, stable, secure apps. And it has to produce them quickly to stay ahead."
He notes that Internet giants such as Google and Facebook are constantly producing and testing new apps, with tens of new apps being developed daily. "They have multiple versions of apps in testing phase all the time. While most enterprises will not need to roll-out apps at this pace, they can expect to be producing new apps every few days in the foreseeable future."
Muller says no business is untouched by software, and all will have to start behaving like software companies. "Everything from mining - with its moves to automation and robotics - to parking lots, where human cashiers are a thing of the past, depends increasingly on software to stay competitive," he points out.
"This means that the speed at which you can bring a new app to market will become your measure of business agility. The time from idea to execution is your measure of innovation," he says. "And you can deliver new apps only as fast as the slowest component of your delivery chain."
This need for speed is putting pressure on enterprises, he says. "Too many are sacrificing stability, scalability and security in the rush to produce new apps faster. This is not the answer. The solution is to simplify and automate the app development process, and build in solid testing and quality assurance."
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