The second in a series on Cisco's mobile strategy.

Apps, apps and more apps, is your company experiencing a proliferation of apps?  Cisco certainly is.  We are moving out of the experimental stage of app development and shifting toward measuring 'repetitive usage' as one of the main gauges for on-going support and improvements.

Mobile user behavior is maturing.   We are required to create a delightful experience for a specific task, consider usage rates and development costs for multi-operating systems.  Current challenges include too many app ideas, more mobile devices and user demands.   2014 will be the year where many B2B companies streamline their app development portfolio.  Let's look at a few examples.

Both of these consumer Apps have a delightful user experience (+4 Star rating) and a focused task:

This virtual lighter shows off the accelerometer and touch-screen capabilities of a mobile phone.

This app turns your phone into a flashlight.

These Apps were both very popular several years ago, however which one do you think survived the 'uninstalled' bucket?  Which one has repetitive usage?

The "Flashlight app" has over 400 times more user comments than the virtual lighter, an indication of high usage.  In fact, it's so popular Apple deemed it necessary to build into the latest iOS-7 release.

Over the past year we've seen companies start to streamline their App portfolio such as ESPN, LinkedIn, and Walmart

ESPN

Over the past year there was a reduction of apps to increase focus on 'Fantasy' type experiences (football, baseball, etc.) and video.

LinkedIn

Relaunched a major update and the app now consolidates both news feeds and profile search abilities.

Walmart

Walmart decided a single app for 'In store' and 'shopping list creation' experiences was sufficient.

As app development costs rise, consolidation and retirement will be the direction of many B2B companies take.  Here are some things to consider whether an app should continue?

1. Is the original idea or task a 'daily occurrence for your users'?
2. Are there duplications within your app portfolio?
3. Would a 'responsive web' designed approach be more cost effective in the long run?
4. Are you measuring value against supporting multiple devices & operating systems?
5. Have you established an app scorecard baseline for usage and experience?

What's your favorite Cisco App?  Here are a few of our most downloaded apps:

WebEx

Jabber

Cisco App

Tech Support

AnyConnect

Cisco 3D products