Candidate 7- App programming language

App programming language is broad terminology for various programming languages for application development on different platforms. App programming languages are characterized as fourth generation languages and thus very mature (appendix 21.2). The innovation is placed in the plateau of productivity.

Ranking factors:

Scale of benefit: Qwiki is a group of ICT entrepreneur that produce programming codes in their daily living. From their previous actions to release QR for iPad and QM for iPhone, it is clear that they have chosen a single direction for app programming only suitable for Apple’s products. Adopting the innovation in terms of other app programming languages for different platforms like Android and

Figure 21 - Ranking candidate 6 - GPS-positioning

95 Windows is very important if they are to pursue their business need to targeting other markets and platforms. The benefits of getting their product out to more users across different platforms are huge and a persistent business need (Page 83).

Current maturity: As mentioned the programming language is at the stage of Plateau of productivity and as innovation maturity it is within the mainstream stage, everyone can principally learn the languages and it is widely used with nearly 1 million apps available, meaning the maturity is very high.

Low time to value: Programming in multi languages with the purpose of reaching more users across platforms can make the time to value moderate or high. It took Qwiki about a year to develop the QM app, and will at least take the same amount of time for each new platform to pursue. The high time to value is based on the fact that Qwiki’s team either need to learn new programming languages and develop the QM in these languages or acquire these capabilities e.g. by hiring new personnel. The new personnel would to get a thorough understanding and indoctrination of the Qwiki vision and mentality.

Time to value is considered moderate to high.

Risks: Adopting the app programming innovation areas unknown to Qwiki potentially raises the risk of performance whether they choose to hire personnel or learn different languages. They are familiar with the iOS SDK (software development kit), but there is a risk in developing QM for other platforms where the performance might not be acceptable. Qwiki’s has very talented iOS developers and the risk associated with this innovation is low to moderate.

Low cost: Pursuing too many app platform at once would introduce high costs for a short period of time since the needed level of skills and resources to develop these apps simultaneously would be high.

Pursuing one platform at a time would only introduce moderate costs.

From the estimation above the app programming language innovation is very beneficiary for Qwiki to pursue in order to get a large user-base and contribute to the overall of QM platform solution. The maturity for this innovation is high, and the time to value, risks, and costs are moderate if Qwiki pursues one platform at a time.

Figure 22 - Ranking candidate 7 - App programming language

96 13.3.8 Candidate 8 - Mobile broadband

Since 4G LTE mobile broadband became available, video content starts making sense. This technology is many times faster than older generation 3G. The only problem with the innovation is the limited suppliers offering the solution and devices capable of exploiting it. 3G is the primary standard today and will not be phased out before the 4G innovation reaches the whole market. But with 4G LTE being many times faster, the traditional complications of download, uploading, and streaming data and content are being resolved (appendix 21.1). The innovation is limited to a narrow market segment and therefore in the early stages of slope of enlightenment.

Ranking factors:

Scale of benefit: Qwiki currently relies on mobile broadband in the QM solution. Without it users cannot share content. Adopting this innovation is not really something Qwiki can do, since it is only available for ISP (Internet service providers) to adopt. However it is important for Qwiki to track the maturity and diffusion of this innovation as it has the potential of enabling new and better features in their QM app. For the time being it takes about 20-30 seconds to upload a generated qwiki to their servers. With 4G the time needed is greatly reduced with would enable Qwiki to offer their users to generate longer qwikies as opposed to the 30 second limit today. The loading time for viewing a qwiki can also be long on slow broadband connections. With better mobile broadband the quality of combined content in the qwiki can also be enhanced, which benefits the users.

Current maturity: the maturity of the fourth generation of mobile broadband is lower than its predecessor. The third generation mobile broadband is in the plateau of productivity while we estimate the fourth generation to be in the slope of enlightenment. Qwiki can therefore not yet rely on 4G LTE as it is not available to everyone.

Low time to value: The third generation mobile broadband is fully matured and accepted as a standard for smart-devices. Before Qwiki can harvest and exploit the innovation it needs to become the primary standard, and this will not happen for another few years or so. Time to value is therefore rather high.

Risks: Currently the risk associated with the fourth generation of mobile broadband is performance.

Should Qwiki pursue to adopt the 4G LTE technology and exploit its benefits, then users who this innovation is unavailable to will face performance issues with a slow app. The risks are moderate since many users can potentially leave the platform if performance is undesirable.

97 Costs: The costs of developing enhancements to the QM in terms of better quality content and allowing longer qwikies are very low. In terms of extra resources needed to store larger qwikies are estimated to be moderate.

Qwiki cannot adopt this innovation directly, but they can choose to act upon the smart-devices industries adoption of this innovation and enhance their products. The benefits are large exploiting this innovation, but the innovation is still moderately mature and introduces moderate risks and low time to value.

Having ranked the different candidates identified, the STREET process continues to the evaluation stage. As we discussed earlier, evaluating the different candidates and selecting which of them Qwiki should pursue to adopt is not possible, as we do not have the ability to discuss this in person with the Qwiki teams. Cutoff thresholds could not be established either, meaning we cannot say how important a candidate is perceived by the Qwiki team and how much risk and costs they are willing to take for each candidate. Instead, we will evaluate the candidates in the next section according to their scores of the ranking factors and how these innovations can affect their business model should they choose to adopt them.

Figure 23 - Ranking candidate 8 - Mobile broadband

98