Silicon Valley isn't the only place where designing mobile apps for smart phones is a booming business. A Charlottesville company is taking a bite out of the competition and creating apps for businesses in the community and around the country.
Willow Tree Apps in Charlottesville was founded in 2008. Michael Prichard is founder and CTO and says at the time the company developed only a few apps for mobile devices.
"Since 2010 we haven't done anything but mobile," Prichard said.
To keep up with demand, the company has moved to a bigger office. Tobias Dengel is CEO of Willow Tree Apps. He said they went from three employees to a staff of 30.
"We've grown pretty rapidly," Dengel said.
The mobile app development company has created apps for big corporations including Johnson & Johnson's Baby Center.
"Big companies come to us because we do high-quality work at the same level as anyone has been doing in San Francisco but we're less expensive," Dengel said.
Zach Wheat is the director of web communications at the University of Virginia and said Willow Tree designed an app for the university.
"Lots of our audience, students, perspective students, parents are using smart phones," Wheat said.
UVA's app includes course listings, a map of grounds, a directory of faculty and staff and a sports page.
"We're just trying to make the university available on the phone as much as we could," Wheat said.
It's estimated within the next three years half of internet traffic in the United States will be through smart phones.
"Obviously everybody wants to get on a mobile device because that's what people are carrying around with them. That's what they're using to do their research and just their daily work," Prichard said.
Willow Tree has launched more than 100 apps so far.
