IBM Impact 2012: IBM unveils Mobile Foundation software and services line-up

Eventually, it boiled down to three vendors' platforms, including IBM's, Capriotti said.

Of the two that didn't make the grade, he added: "They both said Our product is going to be exactly like Worklight and Our product is almost like Worklight or will be in the future.' But every time we asked them to show us they couldn't."

The ability to code in HTML5 means the technology can effectively disappear behind the scenes without interrupting the user experience, according to Capriotti.

"Worklight as a platform provided us with the ability to truly engage the inner control freak on my team and completely control the user experience," he added.

"We're really excited about what we're going to be able to deliver to our customers. We now have the benefit of a platform that allows us to deploy, manage and maintain with a very lean team because of the nature of Worklight platform."

More than three-quarters of CIOs surveyed by IBM said that are increasingly focused on their mobile strategies because they believe it can boost employee productivity by 20 per cent. Furthermore, respondents claimed by embracing cloud-based technologies to connect to and with mobile workers and moving away from the reliance on email, they could dramatically reduce costs too.

"The whole area of mobility is fascinating to try and calibrate. We are seeing applications we're very familiar with becoming mobile-enabled. Devices are also becoming richer. Not bigger, but richer in capabilities," said Steve Mills, IBM's senior vice president and group executive of software and systems.

"An ever-increasing amount of a company's IT spend is shifting into having to deal with mobile to be competitive. The money is shifting as opposed to it being new money."

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.