A recent study of mobile app development platforms and their parent businesses has placed a prominent software developer among the leaders.

Gartner (News – Alert)'s Magic Quadrant studies tech companies in different markets and places said companies into four categories, with "Leader" being the strongest among "Challengers," "Visionaries," and "Niche Players." It’s most recent Magic Quadrant placed IBM (News – Alert) among the Leaders for its efforts in developing and deploying the Mobile First application development portfolio. Phil Buckellew, vice president of enterprise mobile at IBM, spoke in his company's announcement about the recognition and the need for mobile apps within enterprises.

"The need for mobile apps that maximize the user experience and spur transactions is exploding. With that rising demand, organizations need to rapidly build, secure, manage and integrate those mobile apps with their back-end systems to drive better decision making," Buckellew said. "We feel this recognition reinforces how IBM is redefining the mobile application development platform and putting a rich set of tools and cloud-based services into the hands of the world's developers so they can focus on creating exceptional interactions."

Buckelow hints at the capability of the Mobile First suite which allows companies to create and release mobile apps, manage payment structures, and increase the security of their mobile platforms, all while using analytics to develop deeper insights about customers to, in turn, increase return on investment and improve customer satisfaction. One part of the suite is IBM Worklight. This program allows developers to create HTML5-based, hybrid, or native apps for any mobile device. Using popular code bases, developers can create applications that work on multiple platforms such as iOS, Android (News – Alert), and Windows.

Gartner states that Leaders are chosen for that distinction because of the completeness of their visions and the execution of their programs. Mobile First reaches into the business elements of mobile development, security, and analytics and the wide adoption of its services allow IBM to stand out from its competitors. Gartner says "Leaders must provide platforms that are easy to purchase, program, deploy and upgrade, and which can connect to a range of back-end and cloud services, from the same vendor as well as third parties," and it appears that IBM has done that to the benefit of its customers and for its own extensive business model.