A CEO Who Wishes He Had Switched to Cross-Platform Earlier

A Story of a Bitter Experience

📅 2021.09.17 - 👤 Borbély Viktor

Not using cross platform is a guaranteed failure. Guaranteed failure is certain. Source: Pixabay, @Kanerori

This article was born based on a real conversation. The identity of the CEO is of course not public, but that is not the point. Numerous similar cases can happen to anyone who does not switch to cross-platform in time.

I will clarify the concept in advance of what cross-platform (cross platform) is.

Cross platform: a technological solution with which a solution that works on multiple devices can be created while minimizing the time spent. This means that instead of 2 developers, employing 1 developer may be sufficient.

Native or cross-platform solution?

The following case happened to a partner of mine, which I think is not unique.

He started developing a mobile app with two teams for two platforms, Android and iOS. Classic development practice when both operating systems need to be supported simultaneously. We need to entice the Android camp due to rapid user base growth and the iOS camp due to willingness to pay.

Then it happened that the two teams could not progress at the same pace with the task. One already had the features, but the other got stuck. If we communicate 1 product to users, then a half-baked solution is not acceptable. This of course disrupted the project plan. The presentable version will be expected later. They have to wait longer for revenues.

The trouble was further compounded by the fact that one of the teams could not continue the work. That platform got stuck. So there is already a half-finished product on one side, and nothing at all on the other. It’s clear that this will be a very costly continuation very quickly.

I won’t even talk about what happens when the two teams have to negotiate which one’s solution should remain final? The interface doesn’t look exactly the same on the two operating systems, there are differences.

The end of the story was that both native solutions had to be thrown away and restarted in a common cross-platform framework. This ended up being Flutter (any would have been suitable). It’s clear that in the end it greatly increased development costs and time. This is every CEO’s nightmare.

I’ll show you some familiar solutions that could come into question as a lifeline.

These have proven themselves with cross-platform solutions

The first such cross-platform was the Java language. Write the application once and run it on multiple operating systems. Whether it’s Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. In recent years, the Kotlin language has been on the rise alongside Java. You can write safer code in it, and it uses the same ecosystem as Java, the JVM.

On the web, the diversity of browsers quickly emerged. Developers fiddled a lot with a given appearance until it achieved its final form on the better-known browsers. Who doesn’t remember this period when in the early 2000s, that darn FrontEnd code had to be written multiple times to be pixel-perfect everywhere. Standards then regulated this, and today it has become easier. And frameworks took the burden off developers’ shoulders.

In the mobile world, several solutions exist.

Such as React Native, Flutter, Cordova, Xamarin, Native Script. Each has its own right to exist. They have one thing in common: if a team knows any of them, they can progress faster in apps for Android and iOS operating systems.

What will happen to today’s working cross-platform solutions in 5 years?

It’s difficult to predict several years ahead in IT. Today’s fashionable or popular procedures and programming languages quickly become unpopular. Developers abandon them and they are no longer as attractive. After that, it will be difficult to find a professional who can fix or further develop our existing product.

This is a trend and not new. This is inevitable and will likely catch up with a product. You can choose carefully among different programming languages, but there’s no guarantee. A good solution can be to look around at what developers use a given language for and choose based on that.

If the language can be used not only for a specific, special area, then there’s a good chance it will remain attractive years later, and there will be those who use it. Such is the popular JavaScript language, which began to spread in the early 2000s after its 1996 appearance. Today, server-side code is also written in it, not just FrontEnd for browsers. Although many don’t like it, it will likely be with us for a long time.

If you want to avoid the above bad scenario, or the trouble has already happened but you want to gather more information, contact me through one of my contacts. With a short conversation, we’ll see what would be to your advantage.