G. Why we sometimes need private apps for iPhone.  1.5. Answer the questions on the text

33 
IS Professionals Serve the Role of an Intermediary 
1. To actually program an iPhone app requires fairly extensive 
programming knowledge. Apps are programmed in a language called 
Objective C. This is beyond the scope of most information systems (IS) 
business analysts. IS professionals hire the programmers, rather than 
doing the coding themselves. In fact, most IS curricula teach program-
ming only so that the business analyst is able to communicate effective-
ly with programmers by speaking a bit of their language and under-
standing some of their constraints. 
2. Within a large corporation there will typically be a team of de-
velopers (usually computer science majors) and a team of business ana-
lysts (usually IS majors). The business analysts communicate with the 
business units, such as marketing or finance, to analyze the business 
needs. They then translate those needs into requirements that are deliv-
ered to the developers. The developers program the application and 
then deliver it back to the business analysts for testing. In this way, IS 
professionals serve as the bridge between the developers and the busi-
ness units. The business analyst’s job continues even after the app is 
developed. They test the app extensively when it is delivered back from 
the developer. 
3. Most of the iPhone apps, which you are familiar with, are de-
signed for the consumer market. However, there are a number of corpo-
rations that design in-house private iPhone apps for their employees. If 
you were designing your app for a company you would serve as the 
intermediary between the business unit and the developers. 
4. Some corporations, especially small ones, do not retain a team 
of developers. They rely on the ability to contract out development 
work. With the development of the web, the process of locating pro-
grammers has become much easier. There are a number of portals such 
as Elance.com that allow you to auction off your job much the same 
way that you would auction a product on eBay. Developers then bid on 

34 
your job and you select your preferred developer. To help you in the 
decision, these services also maintain ratings of developers based on 
feedback from previous clients. 
5. The process of bidding out a job to a developer outside of your 
corporation is called outsourcing. Outsourcing comes in two types de-
pending on where the developer is located. Outsourcing to a local de-
veloper is called on-shoring. Outsourcing to a developer in another 
country is called off-shoring. Off-shoring is a popular movement 
among North American companies due to the high cost of skilled labor 
in the United States. Many developers live offshore in countries such as 
India, Pakistan, Russia, and Brazil. 
6. One key factor in outsourcing is communicating clearly with the 
developer. Any documentation that you prepare in advance helps re-
duce the possibility of misunderstandings. That is why we spent time 
planning the app and constructing a mockup. Choosing a developer is 
not about getting the lowest price, but rather about getting the best val-
ue. You want a good developer, but maybe you do not need the best. 
Make sure that your developer has a reputation for delivering on time 
and within budget. Furthermore, you often get what you pay for. 
Cheaper developers may deliver lower quality. 
7. There is a myth of developers in third world countries working 
practically for free. However, as countries such as India, Pakistan, and 
Russia become wealthier, the wages rise. The offshoring process is im-
perfect and some U.S. companies have found that documentation re-
quirements are so extensive, and communication problems so prevalent, 
that it is almost cheaper in the end to hire a local programmer some-
what familiar with the business already. Some portals, such asiPhone-
AppQuotes.com, advertise on-shoring as their com- petitive advantage. 
Many companies provide iPhone quotes. Elance.com is more general 
and worldwide, developing lots of different kinds of systems with de-
velopers all over the world. 

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