Apps

Under Armour knows some of the best ideas are beyond its Baltimore campus waiting to be discovered, so the company is opening its doors to more entrepreneurs with innovative concepts for future products. The sportswear maker will begin hosting innovation challenges twice a year — instead of annually — for entrepreneurs outside Under Armour to suggest ideas for new innovations the company can incorporate in future product designs. Under Armour began holding the contests annually three years ago, and the results of the first challenge will hit the market in 2014.

According to a recent survey conducted by Compuware, global consumers prefer native mobile apps over mobile websites, primarily because native apps are perceived as being more convenient, faster and easier to navigate. However, if a mobile app fails to work fast and reliably the first time, up to 79 percent of end users will retry it only once or twice before giving up on the app. It's quite clear that users won't tolerate problematic mobile apps.