The applicability of present estimation models to the context of mobile applications

The growing use of mobile technologies has shown different ways to access information and interact with other computer systems. Thus, the traditional information systems are undergoing a process of adaptation to this new computing environment. Thereafter, there is a need to reassess the current knowledge on the planning and development of systems in this new environment. One area in particular that demand such adaptation is the estimation software. The estimation processes, in general, are based on characteristics of the systems, trying to quantify the complexity of implementing them. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to present a proposal for an estimation model for mobile applications, and to debate about the applicability of the traditional estimation models on this environment. Throughout the paper we analyze existing methods of estimates, identify specific features of systems for mobile devices and finally an adaptation to be proposed for this area of an existing estimation method.