Let me start off by saying that I love the core message that this blog entry is trying to convey - a life-cycle management approach to mobile applications.  You've often heard me talk about the life-cycle management approach to managing mobile devices, but in hindsight, I guess I should have been more clear that the entire mobility strategy should be based upon a life-cycle approach.  This needs to be combined with the core principles of ITSM (IT Service Management), EMM (enterprise mobile management) and Solution Selection crtieria.  Let's talk about the last one here.

The blog post obviously has its own bias (it is coming from a Vendor - and that's OK), but I think the discussion about developing a mobile application strategy needs to be much broader.  Once a business case has been developed to go deploy mobile applications beyond email, organizations must make the “build vs. buy” decision.

In order to do that, organizations need to consider what are the “must have” vs. “nice to have” features and functionality of the solution. This actually ties back to the ITSM framework. The selection of any solution, whether 3rd party or home grown, must include a TCO analysis that includes an analysis of the solution’s impact on the organization’s technology roadmap.

Once that's done, you have to look (from both perspectives) at the:

• Upfront costs
• The impact on the existing IT infrastructure
• The management costs associated to the application (this plays into Mobile Application Management)
• The upgrade/replacement costs of the application

Now there are pros and cons to custom apps vs. proprietary apps vs. MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) apps.  The key - per MobileFrame's blog post - is that you have to take a life-cycle approach to figuring out the complete TCO and value that any approach can provide to your organization.