The notion that consumer tech must require almost zero brain cells to use but enterprise information technology can afford to be mindbogglingly complex is changing. Customers are demanding easy, intuitive applications at home and at work, and developers are responding.

“I don’t believe there is any consumer or enterprise; there’s just degrees of how much security, how much management you get,” said Maribel Lopez (pictured), founder and principal analyst at Lopez Research.

Lopez spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during an interview at this week’s Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Samsung’s smart move

Since mobile applications in the enterprise have taken off, the lines between tech and devices for specific domains continue to blur. “We’re just looking at new applications, new experiences that cross boundaries,” Lopez said.

The easy low-click user interfaces that are the hallmark of popular consumer devices are now in demand even in the enterprise. “It’s got to be a good consumer device to be used by anyone,” Lopez said.

In fact, there is room for simplification even in that No. 1 consumer technology device, the smartphone. Smartphone owners use about 10 percent of their device’s functionality, according to Lopez. Today’s developers need to focus heavily on simplifying and cutting down steps necessary to perform tasks — on smartphones, on enterprise applications, on “internet of things” devices and so on, she added.

“I think the role of the app developer is changing to be more encompassing,” Lopez said, adding that the current developer obsessions are artificial intelligence and machine learning and how they can make apps and interfaces easier for users.

“What we think about is creating better application experiences that can know you, that can respond to you,” she said. This is the end game of big data analytics, in her view. “Big data is now machine learning and AI, which is the natural evolution of it.”

Samsung Electronics America Inc.’s presentations at the conference indicate that the company is thinking about cross-compatibility of tech, Lopez pointed out. “They’re trying to make moves that can work across the board now,” she said. For instance, it is attempting to make cloud compatible with both consumer and enterprise uses. And the company’s smart devices for the home are cloud-connected with a focus on ease-of-use.

“They actually are taking an approach of ‘We’ve got a cloud for things, and we know what these things are,'” Lopez said.

Samsung’s message to developers at the conference has been “cryptic” thus far, according to Maribel. The company will need to make plain what kinds of things developers can expect to build with the company’s technology, she concluded.

Here’s the complete video interview, and there’s more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Samsung Developer Conference here:

Photo: SiliconANGLE