What developers should know when choosing an MBaaS solution

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Introduction: new architecture for the mobile-first world
  3. The evolution of MBaaS
  4. The building blocks of a mobile application
  5. Why developers need MBaaS
  6. Behind the scenes
  7. Market overview: companies to watch
    1. StackMob
    2. Parse
    3. Kinvey
    4. Apigee Usergrid
    5. Appcelerator
    6. Other prominent players
  8. Factors influencing the cost of a backend service
  9. Key considerations when choosing an MBaaS provider
  10. Conclusion and key takeaways
  11. About Janakiram MSV

1. Summary

Almost every mobile application relies on a few essential services to deliver the expected functionality and user experience. Software development kits (SDKs) and integrated tools simplified the mobile application life-cycle management, but the backend that does the heavy lifting is still left to the developers — those key to driving the adoption and success of new platforms and technologies. Developers, then, need to invest in the right set of backend services that form the core of the application.

A new service delivery model of the cloud, called Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS), fills the gap that exists in the current cloud delivery models and offers a higher level of abstraction than Platform as a Service (PaaS). With MBaaS, mobile developers can consume cloud services in a way better suited to mobile-application scenarios.

In the past couple of years, the number of startups offering MBaaS has surged. While some of the early movers became popular among mobile developers, the recent startups are offering similar services with very little differentiation, making it difficult to choose a specific stack. These companies share another common factor in that they are based on the same Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and PaaS platform.

With the mobile developer community growing rapidly, MBaaS is poised to become the crucial delivery model of the cloud. This may indirectly contribute to high-volume subscription rates of IaaS and PaaS, which result in increasing the overall adoption of the cloud. MBaaS has the potential to become the fastest-growing cloud-services delivery model, surpassing the adoption rate of PaaS.

This report focuses on the following:

  • Helping technology decision-makers understand the MBaaS space better
  • Analyzing the role of MBaaS in the context of existing cloud-services delivery models
  • Comparing MBaaS to IaaS and PaaS
  • Discussing the foundational services of MBaaS
  • Reviewing the current market landscape of MBaaS providers
  • Evaluating the key factors to consider when choosing an MBaaS player

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