Description: A survey by online job board Dice shows that tech employers and recruiters face a shortage of qualified mobile-software designers
Source: Businessweek.com
Date: Oct 21, 2010
Almost 57 percent of employers and outside recruiters that hired for mobile-related jobs this year plan to boost such hires in the next 12 months, the survey, conducted on behalf of Bloomberg Businessweek.com, showed. More than half the respondents described the supply of quality mobile-software designers and engineers as “scarce.” Click here for rest of story
Questions for discussion:
- Why factors contribute to the mobile app market growing so fast and large?
- How should educational institutions respond to this market indicator of a shortage off app developers?
- What options does business have to deal with this surge in demand and lack of supply in this area of mobile commerce?
Erika
I think it is apparent that technology is always evolving. The quick changes from year to year produce the need for talented engineers that are continually adapting to the ever changing field of mobile technology. Mobile apps have been so widely accepted because they have brought convenience that people twenty years ago never could have imagined. To be able to have so many options in the palm of your hand is quite an achievement of the human race. Because people’s preferences as to what classifies as a necessity are so diverse, the creation of apps to produce added convenience will never end. Such a high demand could mean a constant shortage of mobile software developers.
Josh F
The reason for mibile applications growing so largely is becasue of how fast these smartphones have taken off. Poeople now uses their phones for everything; and having these applications availiable to them makes everything from work to personal lives more convenient. Most of these smart phones have over 10,000 different applications availiable to them, while iphones have over 100,000. Any consumer who purchuses a smartphone is sure to find an application that will benefit them in some way, and make their lives easier. I think that applications for these phones will really take off in the workplace, because to be able do keep in touch with customers and do your work while not at the office will benefit firms greatly.
Chuqiao(Emma) Yu
It looks like more and more tech employees are needed in the nest decade, which maybe means we are almost pass through the Internet bubble (2000-2002). With the expansion of the wireless network and the smart phone, the market growing so fast and large, more Telecom Terminal Product are needed. Because of this, almost 57 percent of employers and outside recruiters that hired for mobile-related jobs this year plan to boost such hires in the next 12 months. Fortunately, the school educational institutions has been tough IT for many years and there are a lot high quality graduate every years. However the school institutions still need to be changed to adapt the new quick-change environment. They should create more chances for the students to connect with the tech companies to make sure they know and understand what is really going on in the world.
Fiona Jin
There are a lot of reasons why the mobile app market growing so fast in these years, but the key reason should be contributed to the widespread using of smart phone. People become to realize that carrying laptop is not convenient enough. It always takes a while to log in, and it is still to heavy compare to smart phone. As more and more people become to use smart phone, the needs for the application increased. Although people increase the demand for the mobile application, there is a shortage of application developers. The educational institutions should offer some courses to explore new application.
TracyF
Educational institutions at all levels should take this app developers shortage as a sign – workers continually require technological expertise. As long as we have technology, we will need people who are able to develop new programs, create complementary devices, fix and repair hardware and software, etc. This sort of work will only expand and educational institutions must respond. As early as elementary school, attitudes toward technology need to change. Teasing involving the word “geek” should be outlawed and computer usage / lessons should be on the rise. This must continue throughout the school system and high school students should be informed of technological career options. Technological institutes, universities, and colleges must be ever adapting their courses and programmes to keep up with societal changes. I’m not the only one who believes we need additional IT courses offered in areas such as social networking, use & troubleshooting of technological devices, etc. If educational institutions don’t start to make changes now it will be hard to catch up with societal needs in the future.
Michelle Zeng
I worked for one of the world’s biggest mobile social networks for two years. The company mainly developes mobile webpages using perl, it also develops widgets for all kinds of platforms. Most of the peopel we hired do not have mobile platform developing experience. However, for a developer who already knows quite a few languages and has good programming exprience, it is fairly easy to train the developer to work on the mobile platform. I think most of the companies are looking for work-ready developers, despite it probably takes less effort to train one.
I think there are many post secondary schools already have program specially designed for mobile development. The school i attended before has a program in wireless application development, mainly learning java for mobile platforms.
I think the dearth is going to be a short term thing. I believe when there is high demand, there will be a lot of programmers willing to take one or two courses on mobile app development and add that to resume. However, seasoned mobile app developers will still be on shortage since it takes time to build up the knowledge. Yet, it is just like any other field, seasoned worker is always hard to recruit.
Alfonso DeCicco
Mobile technology is coming along way, every year there are tremendous enhances. The mobile application market is growing so fast due to economic factors as well as the need for handheld computing and custom application, but overall the wide spread usage of smart phones across the world. Almost all developers have knowledge of many programming languages like perl, java and etc. The demand for applications is growing especially when it comes to business’s wanting custom phone software. Educational institutions should see this as a way to attract more individuals to train as a developers and increase potential amount of students they can have per year. Also they need to adapt their course’s; being an IT guys myself, there is always lots of changes and we have to spend a lot of our own time keeping up with changes in terms of development. Now for the surge of demand and lack of supply i’m sure some of you have already caught onto this but most large business’s now actually hire their own application developers to supplement for the lack of supply for contracts. Over the summer i worked as an network analyst and we had a work phone with alot of custom app’s that were developed by in house programmers to save money and time, which in my opinion is an excellent way to to deal with the lack of supply for capable developers. Also as well as you notice we are in the time where all the baby boomer will be retiring, so there will be an abundance of programming jobs and not enough individuals to fill these positions
Adam G
The biggest factor that has made the mobile app market grow so fast is the huge ownership of smart phones by so many people. Since the demand for smart phones has gone up so has the demand for applications that can only be run on them. I’d also argue that Apple and their iphone is another big factor that has increased the market for apps; the iphone has an insane amount of apps for it and apple has definitely made them popular. Now google and RIM are frantically trying to catch up to apple and have more apps created for their phones’ operating systems. I believe if institutions should implement a program or expand the one they already have directed at software engineering. It is a good solid career with a lot of popularity, as the report showed evidence of this, that needs more positions. I believe businesses and institutions need to work together to promote the software engineer career and get more students into the programs; it is a win win for students, businesses and institutions. If a business grants an institution to develop their program a student gets an excellent education, the institution gets a grant as well as more students, and finally the business gets another software engineer.
There are already situations where companies have tried to get more people into institutions, especially after a recession where more people have started to attend post-secondary institutions, and the amount of software engineers will rise shortly.
James
Technology is so addictive, especially when you can have it at your fingertips. People want the next newest thing and they want it now. The consumer wants to have faster computers, sexier programs, and the best functionality. Smartphones are the epitome of these factors,technology is speeding processing up, while reducing the size of hardware. Applications when built appropriately look good, are easy to use, and do the job that you want them to do. Almost everybody wants them. Educational institutions should have specific classes that teach how to use this technology in business as well as how to create it, if they don’t already.
Nadine
I think that technology ahs done nothing but evolve into something so great that people can not imagine living with out it. What ever and whoever has the most cutting-egde peice of technology is the one who ends up on top of the market. The ability for people to purchase apps that make life easier is one of the best thing that have come along, in my opinion. They have grown extremely popular because of the effiency and easy to use ability. I think that educational institutes should take advanatge of the app market and use thier products for schools all over the country. They should create learning games to make learning a particular subject fun.
Nadine
I think that technology has done nothing but evolve into something so great that people can not imagine living with out it. What ever and whoever has the most cutting-egde peice of technology is the one who ends up on top of the market. The ability for people to purchase apps that make life easier is one of the best thing that have come along, in my opinion. They have grown extremely popular because of the effiency and easy to use ability. I think that educational institutes should take advanatge of the app market and use thier products for schools all over the country. They should create learning games to make learning a particular subject fun.
Breann L
The mobile app world has grown so fast in such a short time because of the growth in the smartphone markets. Every company is developing smartphones and as a result customers buying new phones or wanting the new technology will all acquire smartphones and the access to mobile apps. There are so many apps out there that it is inevitable that each smartphone user will find numerous apps that appeal to them. Creating a great marketplace. The shortage of app developers should create a response from educational institutions to place a larger importance on technology based education. The always changing field of technology requires continuous education to allow industries to have the required technology workers to keep new products going. Without the opportunity to gain app developers from educational institutions businesses will have to start training and educating workers themselves in order to mend the divide between the supply and demand for these workers.
Matthew K
More and more consumers are moving toward the trend of ultra-mobile computing. Smart phones fit their need of having being able to do almost anything on the internet, but at the same time fit the palm of your hand.
Educational institutions should respond to this by pushing application and software development. A shortage in the field almost always guarantees an excellent job straight out of school, and ensures they will be paid generously.
Business’s could look to outsource the jobs to other part of the world where there may be an abundance of talent in the field. Aside from that, they could offer incentives to people training in the field such as CO-OP programs and 2+2 programs to give students a broad view of the field before they graduate.
In summation, the field of mobile computing is going to explode in the future, gaining more and more popularity among consumers, which leads way to excellent job opportunities and massive expansions for companies in that field.
Craig H
Smart phones have taken off tremendously in todays market. Everyone wants their information faster and more convient. The days of using a land-line phone are over, me personally (born 1990) will never in my life own a land-line phone which goes to show the change from my parents generation where everyone has land-line phones. I recenently switched to using the Iphone and i can 100% see why the mobile market is taking off at the rate it is and the demand for new apps and new ideas is so strong. Being able to use a smart phone efficently and effictivly can be very benefical to someone working in and industry that requires lots of communication/technical skills. Who ever thought there would be an app like “GottaGo”, an app designed to give you a fake phone call incase you need to bail on a date. So do we need all these apps? no, but companys like apple and google are going to continute to try and out do eachother in this developing market.
Tyson Baldrey
It would seem as though the biggest selling point for mobile products is their convenience. Now when you take other products that make us more efficient and cram them into a device that never leaves our site, your profits are only limited by how well you play the capitalist game. In fact, I am writing this reply from my Iphone during some down time at work. Without the access point and software capabilities of this phone I would likely have brushed my intent to comment off to the side; where it would have been forgotten about. The nature of our society demands more and more of us in a smaller time frame. The logical solution to which is developing methods of doing more and more at a quicker pace. Globalization has forced us into a mile a minute mindset and that presents a golden market capitalization opportunity. All these companies need to do is show us how their product can save us time and why they are better than the next guy. Our societal demands will take care of the rest of the marketing for them.