AT&T and IBM have partnered to help businesses develop mobile apps that work more efficiently on mobile networks.

AT&T’s Application Resources Optimizer (ARO) allows enterprises to test and analyse the network efficiency of their apps and the battery usage on mobile devices, while IBM’s Collaborative Lifecycle Management software allows them to make changes to create better performing, higher quality apps.

The combination of technology from the two companies is part of IBM’s MobileFirst platform, designed to help enterprises manage their mobile deployments more effectively.

“ARO can help developers create apps that conserve battery life, load pages faster and consume network resources in a smarter way, all of which improve the customer experience,” said AT&T VP of developer services, Carlton Hill.

Apps that are and data and power intensive and sluggish can hurt customer relationships and impair the ability for enterprises to conduct business, so identifying issues early is valuable.

AT&T’s ARO is used by more than 1,500 developers, with users seeing a 35 per cent reduction in excess data usage and apps running up to 60 per cent faster. It saved more than 500TB of data during its first year of availability, the operator said.