According to Gartner, more than 50 per cent of mobile applications deployed by 2016 will be hybrid, as enterprises are under pressure to develop applications to support mobile work styles and increase customer engagement.

To address the need for mobile applications, enterprises are looking to leverage applications across multiple platforms.

Commenting on the findings, “Ken Dulaney, vice-president at Gartner said, “Mobility has always been a separate topic for IT professionals, but it is now influencing mainstream strategies and tactics in the wider areas of technology enablement and enterprise architectures. "Increasingly, enterprises are finding that they need to support multiple platforms, especially as the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend gains momentum.”

Gartner adds that the advantages of the hybrid architecture, which combines the portability of HTML-5 Web applications with a native container that facilitates access to native device features, will appeal to many enterprises.

Also, the need for context awareness in mobile applications has increased with the capabilities of mobile devices, causing developers to consider both hybrid and native architectures. For applications to leverage location information, notification systems, mapping capabilities and even on-device hardware such as the camera, the applications need to be developed using either hybrid or native architectures. This has caused enterprise developers to consider alternatives to Web application development.