HTML5 vs. The Native App
There’s been a lot debate lately about whether we’re entering an era where the web continues to lose importance with native mobile apps dominating the mobile web and general web landscape. A recent NYTimes article makes the opposite case stating that the quickly evolving HTML5 standard will bring the web back to prominence.
Our view is that this debate misses the point and, as in many cases having to do with the web, it’s not a winner takes all battle. Although it may make life tougher for companies who need to develop for a variety of platforms (in addition to the web), we believe that each platform has its advantages and is appropriate for different audiences and, if companies want to reach these audiences, they’ll have to offer their digital experience on the platform that each audience prefers with some audiences requiring multiple platforms.
This doesn’t mean that HTML5’s evolution isn’t excited. It might seem self-serving for us to have this world-view as we provide our clients with talent to develop applications on a multitude of mobile(thanks to Rhodes which we know pretty well) and web platforms. The reality is, that if we thought we could serve our clients better by steering them towards one platform, we would organize our company to be successful in such a world.
The reality is different, however, and we don’t feel that would be sound advice. Customers have a lot of power and more and more, they are demanding to use the platform or platforms that they choose and not the one that makes it easier on developers. So, while some experts are bullish on HTML5’s ability to make native web apps less necessary, we feel that all the important platforms (including HTML5) will see tremendous growth and customers will reap the benefits.
