IN-DEPTH: Siva Vajjhala, VP & Global Head - Travel & Transportation Industry Group, MindTree offers an insight into the app development and submission process for different operating platforms, mobile revenue models and HTML5 technology

Published: 13 Apr 2011

IN-DEPTH: Siva Vajjhala, VP & Global Head - Travel & Transportation Industry Group, MindTree offers an insight into the app development and submission process for different operating platforms, mobile revenue models and HTML5 technology

By Ritesh Gupta

Mobile revenue models differ widely, from advertising-based, to app sales, to in-app purchases, or the one based on generating leads.

These models are not one-size fits all -- each business should examine the trade-offs and choose the model that works best for them.

“Truly, this (mobile revenue model) depends on the business of the entity that is creating these apps,” says Siva Vajjhala, VP & Global Head - Travel & Transportation Industry Group, MindTree.

Vajjhala pointed out that for a supplier (air, car, hotel), their revenue model is very straight-forward: the intent is to develop an additional channel for direct sales.

“In a sense, it’s like a “second wave” of what happened when the Internet opened up as a channel for ecommerce. Again, if you look at an intermediary or an outlet such as a travel agency or a travel management company, their intent behind a mobile app could be to provide better usability to the customer and also to drive conversion,” said Vajjhala.

Meta-search engines employ a combination of advertising-led and supplier referral fees to justify their investment in mobile. “These are the fundamental inputs that go into creating your mobile strategy,” Vajjhala told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta.

Vajjhala spoke in detail about the app development and submission process for different operating platforms, HTML5 technology and lot more.

Excerpts:

As far as the mobile activity is concerned, a section of the industry believes one should focus on driving unique experiences, which will eventually lead to channel preference. What’s your viewpoint regarding this and what is key to achieving the same?

Siva Vajjhala:

Yes, it is indeed all about the experience. There’s no doubt that the richer and closer to real life we can make the experience for the consumers, the stronger the channel preference for wireless devices. What’s most critical to deliver that experience is to satiate the “right now―right here―all I need” expectation that has become the norm.

Travel industry, and indeed all others as well, needs to become more “context aware” in that sense. No longer is it sufficient to just know the physical location of the user – we’ll have to go much beyond that and be aware of other nuances in order to provide the complete experience consumers expect and deserve. ‘Context’ should include things such as pattern of past activities, future bookings, weather, social network, preferences, etc. And, another key to driving unique experience is to build mobile applications that will transform the device into a multi-functional one, such as using it for airline and hotel check-in process, airline boarding, room key, airport and hotel property information, etc.

Specialists point out that Mobile platforms range from more structured and protected, such as Apple and Nokia, to more unstructured, such as Android. Can you provide an insight into the app development and submission process for different operating platforms?

Siva Vajjhala:

First of all, I assume “unstructured” means “more open” because it wouldn’t be right to say that Android is unstructured. Each operating platform has its own set of guidelines and processes to test, certify, and distribute applications.

Distribution of application on iPhone will require working with Apple AppStore for certifying the application. The application needs to be signed as required by Apple App Store using appropriate distribution certificate. Submission of the application for certification by App Store must include an app icon, text description, company’s website URL, and multiple screenshots of the app, and the latest build.

Distribution of application, if through the Android Market, will require working with Android Market for certifying the application. The application needs to be signed as required by Android Market using appropriate distribution certificate. The signed application will need to be uploaded to the Android Market with a couple of screenshots and a description of the application. The type and category of the application, the pricing, copy protection, and location preferences for the app will also need to be included along with the other app publisher details.

With regards to self-certification and distribution, Android, RIM, Windows and some other applications can be distributed by enterprises without going via an app-store. iPhone applications can be distributed within an enterprise (on phones owned by company or company employees) without going via app store approval process.

Building and promoting successful apps is much harder than websites. It is being pointed out that travel companies have already been very resourceful about using Web, native-app, and hybrid techniques in their mobile strategies, and the continued acceleration of Android and iOS is going to reward this. How do you think emerging technologies are going to impact the progression of high-fidelity mobile web experiences?

Siva Vajjhala:

HTML5, with its ability to provide geo-location, cleaner multimedia support, etc. is one technology that is going to revolutionise mobile devices, tablets in particular. We’ve already seen some great results that are coming out to tests of HTML5 on devices like the iPAD2 and the Motorola Xoom.

If you ask me to pick one emerging technology that will have most significant impact on mobile web experience, I’d pick HTML5. Having said that though, while seamless experiences due to tools like HTML5 are the buzz today, relatively older ideas like app-USP and simplicity in UX are going to continue to play a large role in increasing stickiness and good mobile web experience

One approach to consider while building mobile strategies is to first consider using mobile web to evaluate device usage and understand the device preferences of your customer base. Once that is done, you’ll have better ROI by investing in apps for those device platforms.

Overall, in 2011, how should hotels go about budgeting and planning for mobile website enhancements and mobile marketing initiatives when it comes to their 2011 budgets?

Siva Vajjhala:

It is a catch-22 situation – we’ve got to do both. It depends where one is on the continuum; my personal order of priority would be to create presence, aid travel planning, market mobile platform, transact and expand offerings. Common business sense says go for the ‘quick wins’ first.

It is being acknowledged that most of the platform vendors promise to support HTML5, but the concern is that — on the mobile side especially — HTML5 could be a lowest common denominator technology while the true innovation occurs (fragmented) platform-by-platform. What’s your viewpoint regarding this?

Siva Vajjhala:

Standardisation versus innovation is one of the longest standing debates in the technology or product world. Over the years, we’ve seen path breaking products through innovation backed up by standardised technology and platforms. But there’s no doubt that large device coverage is becoming an important consideration when considering a diverse set of consumers. Today, there are many different approaches identified to provide an optimised way to device coverage, such as Hybrid, Interpreted, Mobile Web (utilise power of HTML5 and JavaScript to develop an appropriate solution), and “No platform” (where you code for each platform, but use optimised development techniques so that multiple platforms doesn’t immediately translate to duplication of effort for each).

Many of these frameworks are developed around the HTML/Javascript/CSS and utilise the power of platform’s browser engine. Such platform browser engines with support for HTML 5 provide capabilities such as GeoLocation, Direct media support, local storage (enables offline) among many other features.

Since applications built using cross platform frameworks come with their own limitations, we recommend a measured approach considering the business objective and its potential future evolution before suggesting a native application development or cross platform application development methodology.

How do you assess efforts related to an approach that integrates rich content, geo-location, social networks and features like Augmented Reality? How do you assess the current efforts to simplify the overall user experience in the overall planning and booking process?

Siva Vajjhala:

Rich media will surely help the planning process (or the homing-in process). The ‘Offer’ part of a booking process is still maturing on the mobile platform; today it is still not as user friendly for itineraries other than point-to-point air travel. UGC and feedback loop is pretty much in place social networking angle, however more innovative ways of integrating social networks will continue to happen. We are still in the experimental phase right now – nowhere close to the curve of maturity and wholesale adoption.

If you ask me from a personal standpoint, I love the augmented reality as a feature on my Google Phone. If you look at it from a business standpoint, there are tremendous opportunities to use this technology. When you integrate the technologies described here, look at the value you can provide to customers. For example, if you’re a hotel, provide the view from a particular room. From a hotel’s standpoint, being able to provide this information can influence the planning process. In my view, the influence on the booking process primarily will be for the “nomadic traveller” who does more of on the spot booking where location based search of hotels for “one night, one person” stays will be the key.

From travellers’ perspective, they are expected to continue to adopt smartphones and tablets at a rapid pace this year. How do you think looking the industry is looking at ways to better support emerging devices such as tablets, Windows 7 along with developing a tiered mobile web experience?

Siva Vajjhala:

I see these emerging devices as more of an evolution than a disruption. Different players in industry have taken different approaches for supporting consumers on the go. The most common factor in support of Tablets is to make existing websites and web applications compatible with them. This usually is a simple task requiring removing flash and “mouse over” from the application to make them work in touch screen mode. The product and services vendors have started releasing software which is aware of touch screen.

Some enterprises adopt MEAP and MCAP – Mobile Enterprise Application Platform or Mobile Consumer Application Platforms – which may come with a pre-built suite of applications exposing enterprise applications to mobiles. These platforms provide “write once – deploy everywhere” capability. But lot of the behind the scene plumbing has to be in place to support a tiered web experience.

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