7. A company wants managers to use mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) to access its database-driven applications. Briefly explain the different ways there are to develop the client (tablet/phone) applications. Which method would you select?
A complete answer depends on the tablet/phone OS. Today (2013) many systems exist: Apple, Android, Microsoft, and Blackberry (not counting the older versions). Plus laptop clients for Microsoft, Apple, and maybe Linux. Building native apps for all of them would require separate development. The other option is to use HTML (preferably HTML5) and use Web browsers on each of the clients. The final answer depends a little on the company and the application. If the company provides a single platform, and if the application needs to make use of the native platform sensors (accelerometer, GPS, etc.) then it might make sense to build it as a native App. Otherwise, the most general (hence safest) approach is to use HTML/HTML5.