Tag: mobile app

Mobile app development initiative by Intel will support African startups

| March 11, 2014

The massive corporation hopes to intensify its engagement within the continent.

Intel Corporation has recently revealed its intentions to enhance its African engagement by making strategic investments in local startup businesses in order to help to promote software and mobile app development within the region.

The growth of the internet economy in this continent has been considerable and is handing the company an opportunity.

According to the vice president and general manager, EMEA at Intel, Christian Morales, the primary reason behind Intel’s choice to plant its feet more deeply in the local mobile app development is the growth that the online economy is seeing there. He explained that the company is making highly strategic investments of its capital into startup businesses that have been growing their experience over the last three or four years and that now require a “world-wide footprint”.

Investments into these mobile app development businesses will be of a minority nature.

The goal is to allow the startups to have the capital that they require to expand, without actually taking them over. According to Morales, Intel is making this move because “we see the potential in local applications and software in Kenya and other countries in Africa.” This announcement was made alongside the company’s unveiling of its two new microprocessors.Mobile App Development - Africa

Those new microprocessors are a quad-core mobile Atom and a duo-core 64 it Atom. They have been launched with the promise to help to boost the experience for mobile users in terms of performance, speed, and energy consumption. Intel has placed high hopes in this tech in order to give it the power it needs for a more significant share of the mobile market space. The company, said Morales, was encouraged in this arena by the success of its Yolo smartphone, which was released in Nairobi in 2013.

Beyond its intention to invest in African startups, Intel has also shown interest in working with local mobile app development companies through its Developer Zone Program. That program provides local software and application developers with free support and tools by way of training to create their apps based on Intel’s own architecture.

Mobile gaming comeback effort launched with Zinga’s FarmVille

| March 7, 2014

The mobile app development company is putting everything into resurrecting its social game.

Not too long ago, Zynga dominated the Facebook mobile gaming scene, with its hugely popular app called FarmVille, which was the social equivalent of what Candy Crush Saga has become, today.

That said, the flood of smartphone apps available to consumers has knocked the pins out from under the company.

The competition among mobile app development companies is tremendous, and leading hits has become a nearly impossible feat for the vast majority for firms. After having been king on Facebook, Zynga’s dominance has since eroded to a massive degree. Many would consider the company to be on the edge of altogether irrelevance. However, the company is now hoping to launch an effort that will send itself back up to the top of social and mobile gaming.

Mobile gaming enthusiasts will soon be able to find a second version of the game they loved, in FarmVille2.

Zynga is also hoping to reboot two of its old smartphone and tablet based apps, “Zynga Poker” and “Words With Friends”. Don Mattrick, the CEO of the mobile app development firm, has acknowledged that the last little while hasn’t been easy for the company, particularly due to the massive number of competitors in the race. However, he also feels that they are on their way to catching up, once more.Mobile Gaming - Social Game

He explained that “You’ve got to keep innovating; you’ve got to give people things that cause them surprise and delight.” That said, he also went on to point out that “But the first thing you’ve got to do is get your content there.”

Mattrick is a veteran of Electronic Arts, having been an executive there. He had also previously run the Xbox division at Microsoft, before he left that osition in order to replace Zynga’s co-founder, Mark Pincus. Now, it is his intention to debut as Zynga’s CEO in San Francisco at an investor conference of Morgan Stanley. This new leadership will coincide with the company’s efforts to fulfill its promise to make a larger push into mobile gaming and, it hopes, to bring itself back to unquestionable relevancy.