ITWire

Melbourne based app developer Outware Mobile, which has developed apps for Foxtel and Seek along with racing and AFL apps for Telstra has a number of seven figure projects on the go. It is also working with one of the big four banks on app development.

Director Danny Gorog explains the motivation for the increasing app spend; “Putting out a quality app for our generation is more important than a TV ad.”

And it’s a costly business. “Building an app is more technically complex than building a website.”

According to technology analyst Gartner 45 billion apps will be downloaded from mobile app stores this year – a figure which will soar to 309 billion by 2016. While the bulk of those will be free apps, for enterprises looking to reach customers or prospects the app market is a hot property with many prepared to invest heavily in order to capture market share.

Mr Gorog said it was a mistake for companies to outsource their app development to a digital agency which then hired a contractor to write the app. Once the app was developed the contractor was often let go – making it hard to keep an app updated and relevant he said.

According to Eytan Lenko another Outware director, apps development is increasingly “a journey rather than a destination” requiring regular updates to keep the app current with rapid hardware upgrades.

Mr Gorog said that there was also evidence that “Apple is cracking down on apps that don’t do enough,” which was forcing organisations to develop richer, more complex apps.  

Despite the fast rising costs involved, Melbourne-based Outware has grown rapidly since it was set up by Mr Gorog and his partners Mr Lenko and Gideon Kowadlo in 2009. With a team of around 30 people the company expects to be named on the next Deloitte Tech Fast 50 list.

However the company acknowledges that it can be hard to find exactly the right talent it needs. “We have to go through 40-60 resumes to find a developer we like,” says Mr Gorog who added that Australia was suffering “A real skills shortage in this area.”

He said that the company’s ability to grow was limited by access to talent.

Mr Lenko said that Outware, which worked closely with clients using Agile style methodologies to develop apps, received around 10-15 inquiries a day, many of which it was unable to service. As to the costs he said that for a “Quality app, integrated with the back end and properly tested, it could easily get to $100,000 and it’s not hard to get to $500,000.”