Here at Micrologic Group we have three categories of mobile applications:
Free Apps
If you know how much time it takes to polish a mobile application you will understand our point of view that free applications are not really free. Someone has to give. Our intention is to not add advertisements or other annoying banners in any of our applications. We will show part of the features and allow only parts of data to be presented to the end-user. Practically, the free application is just to give you an idea of what we deliver. Some “cool” features are not even visible. In exchange, we explain what will follow in the paid version.
Paid Apps (we call them App+)
Paid apps are the extended version of the free ones with all the bells and whistles. If you have an idea how many people have to buy your app in order to break even you will understand that Google Store and iTunes are the winners here, all app publishers are simply promoting their skills and hoping to get a real gig. For some companies, the paid apps are just a front to collect data about your usage of the app (see Yelp,Linkedin, etc…). You are the cell sending data and being monitored. In our case, paid app are good for the intent of the project and users can benefit from them. The price is symbolic and promotional. An espresso at Starbucks costs more than any of our mobile apps but we comply with the standards (that we have the chops…).
Paid Apps ( App PRO)
The effort for supporting and integrating the application is different at this level. The app is just a tool for an organization to collect data and impose a business process (like time tracking, job dispatching, etc…). The main difference (from App+) is the level of integration with an interactive back-end solution. We provide the back-end and have also the front-end. The App Pro can have many facets:
- we can modify the App+ to connect to customer’s back-end, basically is a two way communication. Very few businesses are inclined to follow the path because of the technical requirements and the resources required for integration.
- we can deploy a cloud version of the application and the customer can manage the apps from a web console. Based on the level of details required, the web console has reporting capabilities or even more advanced analysis tools.
- we can act as a gateway for the mobile apps and offer basic Restful services for third party companies.
At this level there is a different benefit (for our customers) and we charge based on the real effort involved. The mobile app is just a small part of the project we can deploy or integrate.