In this interview at IBM Innovate, Leigh Williamson, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Software Group talks about IBM’s latest announcements, including the capability for mobile developers to record and playback functional tests.

Leigh goes on to explain that DevOps is important for any development organization, but it's especially important for mobile development where release cycles are so fast (e.g. every few weeks) and organizations need to automate and orchestrate deployments. UrbanCode which IBM just acquired has enhanced its support for IBM's mobile portfolio and there is more to come soon.

Leigh points out that IBM has the broadest enterprise mobile portfolio in the industry, but suggests, given the relatively nascent nature of the mobile industry, there is still room to grow.

In terms of key skills needed by students, coding and implementation skills such as Java and HTML5, and knowledge of plaforms like Android and iOS are of course important. But students also need to understand how data is handled. An area that isn't as crucial with traditional and web apps, mobile sluggishness is often due to how data is passed between devices and backend systems.

A high priority coming up is the delivery of mobile platform capabilities as services to take advantage of quicker deployments.

Follow Leigh on Twitter @leighawillia

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Tags:  devops urban-code ibminnovate