Top app development companies interview: Ranosys

Anand Ramdeo is the Managing Director - EMEA region at Ranosys Technologies. The mobile app development company was founded in 2008 by Rameshwar Vyas and Sushma Vyas and is located in Singapore.

Anand has been in the technology field for a long time. He started his career in 2000 and worked with IT services organisations, IT product companies such as IBM and Amazon, provided consultancy services to clients like BBC, HMRC, Transport for London, Sky, etc. In the testing and agile field, co-founded a product company and now leads the operations for Ranosys in the EMEA Region.

Anand Ramdeo has a deep interest in the software craftsmanship, quality and agility. His focus on the quality is still reflected in the delivery of Ranosys Technologies solutions to the clients. Also, the core principles of agility such as collaboration, shared understanding and adaptability still drives the mobile app development company forward. Finally, their focus on the software craftsmanship allows developers to architect and deliver scalable and robust solutions at a fast pace.

Let’s see what Anand Ramdeo has to say about Ranosys Technologies and the mobile app development world.

What does Ranosys Technologies do?

Ranosys is an IT service organisation and provides software development services in many domains. We have deep expertise in many technologies related to web and mobile platforms. We have dedicated teams working for technologies such as iOS, Android, React Native, Node.JS, AngularJS and so on. Our processes, internal knowledge management and ability to scale the teams are our biggest strength.

With our well defined but lean processes, we ensure that the delivery of all the projects meet or exceed our clients expectations. Our internal knowledge management ensures that we are able to move quickly by utilising the knowledge and experience we have accumulated by working on hundreds of apps. Finally, our ability to scale the teams when an idea or a startup becomes successful makes it very easy for our clients to show the maturity and scale of their engineering teams. Some of our clients started with a small app and raised significant VC money and were acquired for millions by the listed companies in the US. We are still working with them and have supported their growth really well.

We truly believe that we can only succeed if our client is successful. We work hard to make them successful and we support their growth when then do become successful.

What clients have you worked for?

We have been in the business since 2008 and have worked with hundreds of clients. Some of the notable and recent clients can be found on our app portfolio. I will highlight some of the clients such as Bloom Intelligence who have raised around 1.2 million in the seed round recently, Create App who were acquired for over 36 million and Sample Store who were acquired by Singapore Post.

Apart from this, we are proud of our work in the e-commerce sector and have supported the webstore for brands such as Charles & Keith and PipaBella.

If you had to choose one category, what kind of app do you think is your mobile app development company’s specialty?

We have worked on many domains such as healthcare, e-commerce, dating, etc. However, if we were to choose one, I would say e-commerce. We have a big team of Magento developers and some of the biggest names in the Singapore’s retail sector such as Charles & Keith or PipaBella. are our clients. Their revenue from these mobile and web stores is staggering.

We worked with them for the development of their platforms, mobile apps and now continuing our engagement by providing ongoing development, support and maintenance for these brands.

What is the average budget of the mobile apps Ranosys develops?

Our scale allows us to handle a wide range of applications. At the lower end, we have built many applications for around 5K USD mark and at the higher end, the budget for some of our complex applications has six figures.

Internally, we have a philosophy to not consider any application as too small or too big for us. We treat all the clients and applications in the same way. We have seen many applications that start small and grow big.

For us, every engagement with a client is an opportunity to grow the client’s and our business.

Do you develop all mobile apps in-house or do you outsource some parts of the process?

Everything related to the development of the apps - from analysis, design, development to testing, monitoring in the production and support is in-house. We have a dedicated team for all these functions and there is a healthy internal competition to ensure that the client is successful, every single time!

We believe that, in software development, we often solve the same kind of problems over and over again. By having everything in-house, we have created a repository of hundreds of solutions that can be adopted to the problem at hand. So whether you are looking for an implementation of GPS tracking or a push notification, chances are that we have already used them in a different context. Most of the problems on the engineering side are often already solved. How these solutions are applicable in the context of your application is the only main problem. It is possible for us because we have accumulated the vast knowledge base internally.

We have also seen that most of our projects become successful and they always choose us for any future work that the clients may need. If we have all the assets and knowledge about the projects in-house, we can often provide seamless support when needed.

We believe that the ideal position for any business would be to develop their software or the apps in-house. If because of any reason, such as lack of expertise or budget, outsourcing is an option, outsource it to someone who has the required capabilities in all the domains and can scale. With that in mind, we focus on creating the scale and capabilities internally and we have no reason to outsource anything.

Which would you say are the best mobile apps that your company has developed and why?

It is very difficult to pick the best when we have built so many great apps. If I were to pick any, I would pick Create App and Sample Store.I would pick these two apps because in these two cases, the founders were able to realise their dream and make these apps very successful.

Create App was a very challenging application. It is a Low-Code platform for building mobile apps. We did not only build the whole platform, but also created hundreds of apps for the SMEs in Singapore. This application was eventually sold for around 36 million USD and we are still supporting it. In terms of creating value, I think Create App created value for everyone. Founders of the application were able to get a successful exit, hundreds of SMEs could get their application built very easily, within a week. It was a pure win-win situation for everyone.

On the same lines, Sample Store was another example where an innovative application from an entrepreneur was acquired by the mighty Singapore Post. Singapore Post used the innovative approach of Sample Store and utilised its expertise in the logistic space to reach out to the masses and corporate world.

For us, both applications show our true capabilities and dedication to making our customer successful. Needless to say, we are still working on both accounts and these apps have created massive opportunities for us as well.

Do you prefer to build mobile apps with native, hybrid or web languages?

We believe that our or other’s preference does not matter. We often analyse the nature of the application and based on that, decide which technology might be the right choice for this application. As an organisation, we have expertise in native (iOS, Android and Windows), hybrid (such as Iconic, Xamarin) and web languages (React Native), but we have not built any preferences.

For example, as an entrepreneur if you have a need to get an app that does not use any platform specific features or does not have deep integration with the OS, we would happily suggest a platform like Xamarin. On the other hand, if deep integration is required, we would happily choose native development.

Our approach and choices are governed by the context, not the preference.

Let’s focus on iOS and Android mobile app development. Which are the Pros and Cons of each platform?

Both platforms, iOS and Android, have religious followers amongst their strongest fans. It would be very difficult to have such a strong feeling about these platforms without having tons of great features. Both of them have tons of similar features, yet both of them are very different from each other.

In my opinion, it is much easier to develop applications for iOS because of its closed and controlled ecosystem. Compared to Android, there are very few devices and configurations we have to worry about. In Apple’s ecosystem, they control everything, from hardware to software, and as a result, it is easier to provide the same kind of great experience on all the devices. Apple is also very good at pushing new versions of their software on the existing devices. It is not uncommon to see more than 90% of the user base in just two versions of the iOS. For a developer, these things mean that they can focus on the new exciting features and not worry about the device or version incompatibility issues for the users.

Android, because of its open ecosystem, has tons of variations in the OS, device configurations, device types and so on. All the vendors may have different flavours of Android and different vendors may have dominating position in different geographies. It is very difficult to say that an Android app would work in the same way on all Android devices - just because of the sheer number of these devices. Also, unlike Apple, new versions of Android OS are not installed easily and as a result, your app may need to support multiple versions of Android at the same time.

As far as providing consistent experience and open system is concerned, Apple certainly has an upper hand and its closed ecosystem works well for Apple and the development community.

Apple’s closed and controlled ecosystem becomes a pain for the release though. Compared to the App Store, It is much easier to push new versions of Android apps in the Play Store. It is not uncommon to wait for good 2-3 days for publishing a new version of the app on the App Store because of the delays in Apple’s internal review process. If a new version is for a critical defect fix, this could be frustrating.

For an organisation like us, with deep expertise in both platforms, arguments like this are commonplace in our canteen, coffee area and other places. As an organisation, we feel happy as it motivates our app developers to dig deeper so that they can demonstrate why their platform is better.

Which one will evolve more within the next 5 years?

Android and iOS will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. As an organisation, Google and Apple have enormous resources and talented developers to continue this journey. However, I believe that Android has one great advantage that iOS does not have: the community.

I think because of the open source nature of Android, it is possible that the OS will eventually have many new innovative features that may be missing from the iOS world. Android will also run on a lot more devices such as fridges, microwaves, cars and so on because of its open nature.

Apple will certainly keep and grow its market, but as far as global market share is concerned, it will remain at a distant second place for a long time.

Which device is the best in the market right now?

I would put ‘In your opinion’ in front of this question and say that it’s the iPhone. I switched to the iPhone a long time ago and have never tried any other phone since then. Now, I know that there are many people who cannot stand the iPhone, but for me, it was a game changer. It changed the whole mobile industry and with its attention to detail and intuitive design, it has made a mark.

And which device do you feel more comfortable developing an app for?

Personally, I want to say iOS, but I am scared of my Android team and so I will say that we have expertise in both platforms. We love the consistency that is provided by the closed system of iOS and we love the freedom we have got on the Android platform.

Why is AppFutura useful to you?

As an organisation, Ranosys has learnt a lot by working with organisations like Sample Store and Create App. We were part of their journey from the very beginning and grew with them by supporting them at various stages - from a small team to several million dollar acquisition and our association with them is still continuing. When we look at the projects on AppFutura, we see many great opportunities like these. We believe that we can use our expertise and experience to create more successful stories from the projects on AppFutura.

We see potential in AppFutura because we love to work with people who have big dreams. If you have a big dream, please, do give us a chance and we will work our socks off to make your dreams a reality.

Go to AppFutura's Ranosys Technologies developer profile to get more information about them.

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