Lately, I
had some interesting discussions with my colleagues at sicap on how to best
facilitate the on-boarding of service providers whose applications will be
offered and promoted by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) via their stores and
used via their wallet. Well, actually there seem to be two schools: one of them
says that service providers should develop just one piece of software per
mobile operating system (so-called native
applications). The second one says that service providers may prefer a development
using widgets which are independent from the mobile operating system. Let’s
look at it more closely:
The widget is integrated into the wallet
solution the operator is using and hence needs specific commands to be used.
Widget based applications have to be developed for every operator (wallet) the
service provider wants to add to his eco-system. So normally, NFC applications for
instance will have to be developed for all major operators in a country and
maybe even abroad. In addition, with widget-based apps, the service providers
can introduce new features only if and when corresponding features in the
wallet are available. MNOs should also keep in mind that using widgets may add
an additional layer of risk, workload and extends the time to market.
Native applications have the advantage that they are
operator-agnostic, since they are programmed independently from any
operator-specific wallet/widget requirements. This means for the service
provider that only one version of its NFC app per mobile operating system is needed
to run with any operator. Also existing solutions do not need to be changed. Native
applications immediately benefit from innovations of the respective language in
which they are written. Maintenance can partially be covered by the services
integrated into the specific operating system.
Mobile
operators should think twice before deciding whether to choose widgets or
native applications to be supported by their wallet. I think that for MNO’s as
well as for service providers that want to push their applications via MNO’s
wallets, there are quite a few advantages when using native applications
instead of widgets.
Armin L. Rau
Managing Director EMENA & sicap France
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