Azure Mobile Engagement Helps Monitor, Market Apps

Azure Mobile Engagement, a service in preview, enables real-time monitoring of client application usage and allows application publishers to send notifications to users based on the collected data. The service is intended for business and marketing personnel aiming to promote applications and help users get the most benefit from them. Thus, Mobile Engagement’s features and tools are geared toward application promotion unlike similar application monitoring services intended for developer and IT analytics. The service could reduce implementation efforts if used as an alternative to building custom solutions for the same purposes, but applications will require code modifications to work with it.

Data Collection, Notifications Create Life-Cycle Loop

The life-cycle of modern applications, especially those on mobile devices acquired through application stores, continues long after they are delivered to customers. Publishers can benefit by learning how an application is used and encouraging customers to continue using it in order to drive in-application purchases and prolong the application’s popularity. This applies particularly to consumer applications, but it can also apply to line-of-business applications for organizations that need to analyze how their internal applications are used by employees and to encourage users to continue using applications or use them in prescribed ways.