Reporting on Enterprise Mobility from Singapore

Singapore's Skyline

Early this morning (2 AM) I landed in Singapore, took a taxi to my hotel and slept for a few hours.  I got out of bed at 6 AM and walked around the city as the sun rose.  Later in the day, I had the pleasure of conducting a workshop on enterprise mobility to a full house in the Screening Room which is not far from Singapore's China Town.

The weather was hot and humid today, but there was no rain until late in the afternoon.  My traveling companions said we could walk to the workshop venue, but a mile walk in this humidity would have left us dripping in sweat so we opted for a taxi ride.

It was great to be guided by Patrick Carroll on this trip as he grew up in Singapore and attended school here.

The event was organized and sponsored by the good folks at K2 Partnering and it was well attended with folks from SAP, IBM, British Telecom, Johnson Controls, Cognizant, Spansion, Kulicke and Soffa and many others attending.  We had a lively crowd that was willing to ask questions and share experiences over lunch and during the workshop.

Jeff Wallace with Cognizant
(right) and Patrick Carroll (left)
with K2 Partnering

One of our workshop participants shared a story about how 5,000 rugged devices were purchased and deployed to their field services teams, but that the field services teams had refused to use them.  The project ended up failing partly because the users did not want to carry the heavy and ugly ruggedized "bricks."

Another attendee confirmed my observations that most companies avoid using the IT department for mobile B2C (business to consumer) app development and implementations.  It seems most B2C projects are outsourced by the marketing departments.

IBM, SAP and Cognizant all shared that they were expanding their efforts around enterprise mobility in Asia and that there is a great deal of interest among their customer bases.

Singapore is a very interesting mix of cultures and a hub for global commerce.  You can't walk a block without passing dozens of delicious looking restaurants with exotic foods from all over the globe.

Many western companies have their Asian headquarters in Singapore as English is the official language and it is a business friendly central location.

These enterprise mobility workshops that I have been conducting seem to be both useful and popular as many of the attendees were asking for the dates of future workshops that their colleagues could attend.  I cover mobility platforms and frameworks, mobile security, mobile SDKs, mobile strategies and supporting a real-time enterprise.

Side note #1:  The K2 Partnering team in Singapore also voted Korean food as their favorite.  What is up with that?

Side note #2:  My Singapore hotel shower head is directly over the toilet.  How very efficient.

Side note #3: Foot massages hurt.

Side note #4:  My spicy chicken dinner included about 50% chicken bones.

Side note #5: If you hang up your dress shirts overnight they are wrinkle free in the morning due to the humidity.

Side note #6:  A one way street means you must drive in reverse to go against the traffic.

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Read The M2M News Monthly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.