Max Katz

If you have been following the industry, there are over 30 Backend as a Service (BaaS) providers out there. BaaS makes it very easy and fast to create a (mobile) backend for an app. Features include an app storage (database), Push notifications, server code, user management, file management, and many other features. There is no double BaaS makes it very easy to setup a backend for your app. However, you will need more than just a brand new mobile backend when building an app. Equally important is being able to build a nice UI (HTML5, hybrid, native) for the app fast, and quickly connecting to any 3rd party APIs from the app. This includes connecting to enterprise data already exposed via APIs within your organization. As more and more enterprises start building mobile apps, connecting to existing enterprise data sources will become of the highest priority. The future mobile app platform will include: app dev. tools (UI) + BaaS, + APIs (enterprise, 3rd party). A good example of this direction is Facebook acquiring Parse. Facebook obviously provides a very rich API and now it also has a BaaS option.