Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

I am attending the SAPinsider Mobile2012 event in Las Vegas this week, and have had the honor of meeting and speaking with many people involved in SAP enterprise mobility.  These people were SAP partners and SAP employees.  One of the distinct impressions I got was that most are focused on simply extending existing SAP systems out to a mobile user, but not focused on transforming businesses with mobility. I attended a session on SAP's mobile EAM solution (enterprise asset management) yesterday.  In it they demonstrated how the mobile app integrated with SAP and extended SAP fields out to the mobile device. However, there was no SDK (software development kit) that would enable the user to customize the app for their specific requirements and projects.  It is basically a generic hard coded solution that extends SAP EAM functionality to the field.  There is value to that, but not transformational value. I asked the SAP person if they used the SAP's mobile SDK to build the m

The Mobile Marketing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile marketing that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Research firm Nielsen surveyed more than 20,000 mobile consumers in the U.S. and found a strong correlation between age, income, and smartphone ownership. Adults aged 24 to 34 showed the highest proportion of smartphone ownership. 66 percent indicated they owned a smartphone.   Read Original Content A recent IAB study reported that 63 percent of top brand marketers have increased their mobile advertising spending over the last two years, and that 72 percent plan to increase advertising spending over the next two years.

The Mobile Commerce News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly It is no secret that many U.S.-based banks are in trouble. One reason for that are government regulations on overdraft and transaction fees that effectively zapped $25 billion in revenue from banks coffers. Mobile banking solutions provider Clairmail believes that mobile payments will be financial institutions saving grace. Read Original Content New research from Nielsen’s upcoming U.S. Digital Consumer Report reveals that 29 percent of smartphone owners use their p

Enterprise mobility is not just about extending your office cubicle to the nearby Starbucks.  Nor is it just doing your same job, in the same manner from a remote location.  It is about doing a job in a different and better way.  A way that permits you to be at the point of action, the point of need, and the point where you can have the biggest positive impact on your bottom line without breaking your lines of communication or denying you access to critical information and team members. Enterprise mobility is a way of keeping you connected to your business systems, aggregating mission critical information and business intelligence from dozens of different back end systems (think SAP ERP), using real-time big data analysis (think SAP Hana), and bringing all of this information together, in mobile applications - purpose built for the mobile user.  The Aberdeen Group refers to this as role-based custom mobile websites for users. It is about providing real-time business analytics

The Field Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to field mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly The University College London is preforming data collection using an icon-based interface that could intuitively be used by pigmy tribes in Africa affected by logging and poaching in their forest home. The hand-held device can be used to geotag trees, and then fed back to logging companies and policyholders to try and save crucial areas of forest. Read Original Content Odawa Casino Resort upgraded its GIMS Uniform System inventory software with UHF-RFID technology to automate the inventory tracking and control of thousands o

"In business, economics and other fields decisions will increasingly be based on data and analysis rather than on experience and intuition...we can start being a lot more scientific," predicts Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, from MIT's Sloan School of Management in a New York Times article The Age of Big Data , February 12, 2012.  This is the "Moneyball" approach to business.  Use the data, massive volumes of data, to find the truth, rather than lean on intuition.  In the past this was possible, but the long time frames required to find answers made it impractical for real-time decision making. Just like in the movie Moneyball, large volumes of data hide truths that are not easily apparent without in-depth analysis.  These truths can lead us to competitive advantages, increased productivity, efficiencies and completely new and different ways of conducting business.  "Data-driven decision making" achieved productivity gains that were 5 to 6 percent hig

Welcome to Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility in Asia.  Asia is predicted to be the fastest area of growth for enterprise mobility between now and 2016. Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly M2M industry executive Derick Tsang will bring his knowledge of M2M and telecommunications to the Asia Pacific region for Telit Wireless Solutions.  The company has created a new “president of the Asia Pacific region” position for Tsang, and he will be responsible for South Korea, China, India, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Australia.  He will also establish Telit sales outreach in Japan. Read Original Content Chinese search engine provider Baidu will take advantage of the booming mobile and smartphone market in Chi

Welcome to M2M News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to M2M (machine to machine) and embedded mobile devices.  I aggregate the information, include the original links and add a synopsis of each article.  I also search for the latest market numbers such as market size, growth and trends in and around the M2M market. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Social media has seized on the potential of RFID tags to log visitors to certain amusement parks. Once they pass through the gate or pass by an RFID scanner, their presence will be beamed to Facebook or another social media site announcing they were there and what they were doing. Read Original Content According to ABI Research the compound annual growth rate of global insurance

This morning I interviewed Antenna Software's Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, Jim Somer's about their new solution AMPchroma.  AMPchroma (AMP stands for Antenna Mobile Platform) is a cloud-based mobile management solution that is intended to address the full mobile lifecycle, in other words, allowing companies to design, build, deploy and manage a wide range of mobile asset, (including native and hybrid web-apps, mobile websites, and corporate app stores) from a single web-based console. That is a huge challenge.  I give credit to Antenna for their ambitions.  AMPchroma is cloud-based, and it is the new front end for the Antenna Mobile Platform and all of Antenna's templates, libraries and diverse tools that they have acquired over the years.  I like the the idea of having one "unified" browser based interface for all of their tools and management consoles.  I also like Antenna's mission to help companies to "unify their mobile strategies."

The Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly A new study by Forrester found that business spending on mobile projects is expected to grow by 100 percent by 2015, and spending on mobile apps is predicted to hit $55 billion in 2016.   Read Original Content According to AT&T, smartphone use has risen to 85 percent of small businesses, up from 80 percent last year. Also, even though the tablet market is not yet two years old, tablet use by small businesses was at 67 percent, up from 57 percent last year.   Read Original Content In 2016 total global mobile applica

The Mobile Health News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to mobile health that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly A new report by GSMA indicates that mobile tech holds the key to medical advances in mature and emerging markets. It's a market that could be worth $11.5 billion to operators, $6.6 billion to OEMs, $2.6 billion app makers and $2.4 billion to healthcare providers by 2017. Read Original Content Mobile-health smartphone applications will take off in 2012, reaching $1.3 billion, according to a recent survey by market research and consultancy firm Research2guidance. The group estimates the current market size at $718 million. R

HTML5 is gaining momentum in the war for multimedia dominance, but Flash still wins, according to gaming source One More Level.  Read original content For better performance with HTML5 web content Microsoft recommends Internet Explorer 10 over other platforms.  Read original content GamesMadeMe Founder and CEO Juha Paananen states “The browser will become the dominant platform on desktop and mobile and people will start to expect that they can play the same game and be part of the same experience on all devices…most games of the future will be designed so that you can access them from anywhere.  Read original content Sencha has launched a new program to assist Adobe Flex developers to become more productive migrating to HTML5.  Read original content Microsoft is bypassing HTML5 and launching native mobile apps for its customer relationship management (CRM) software, stating they’re watching HTML5 closely, but the focus “is to provide the best possible experience

I must confess the older I get, the more I like my iPad.  Why?  It is easier to read and you can see more information on one screen.  This has got me thinking about mobile UX.  Am I the only one who thinks as technologically sophisticated baby-boomers get older they will gravitate toward tablets? When SAP launched their first few mobile apps they all looked different.  They each used different icons, colors and styles.  However, the next year SAP changed them to all fit the same design style, color schemes, icons and menu systems.  They wanted all the apps to work in a similar manner.  They standardized to improve the UX and address change management issues. This is a lesson for us all.  Most large companies, anticipate supporting many different mobile applications, but few have thought through UX design and how they should leverage design and UX standards across as many apps as possible. Next week, I will be participating in a webinar titled, The Role of User Experience (UX)

The Mobile Marketing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile marketing that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Google studied online shopping behavior for the U.S. in the 2011 holiday season, which revealed a number of interesting stats. 41 percent of those who used mobile phones to shop made a purchase directly on their smartphone. 46 percent researched an item on their smartphone, and then went to a store to make their purchase. 37 percent researched an item on their smartphone then made their purchase online. Read Original Content While actual mobile-shopping purchase transactions accounted for only two percent of e-commer

The Mobile Commerce News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly UK bank Barclays has launched a smartphone app allowing money to be sent and received using a phone number. Barclays is touting the app as the first European service that enables person-to-person mobile transfers, and allows customers to send a maximum of £300 a day and receive a daily total of £5,000. Read Original Content The number of mobile users expected to use an NFC-enabled mobile phone as a metro rail or bus ticket is expected to grow from less than 1 percen

I wrote an article a few months ago titled, Mobility and 4D Field Services , in which I shared the four dimensions of mobility and field services.  These dimensions are similar to the GPS coordinates (length, width, height),  plus the addition of time.  This weekend I was reading a book titled, Stray Voltage, War in the Information Age , by Wayne Michael Hall.  In this book he takes a concept I wrote about, 4D Field Services, and adds two more, cyberspace and cerebral . Here is a quote from Hall, "Information superiority is firmly connected to making decisions that are superior to an adversary's and combines information technology and intellectual power to create conditions with which to make better decisions." Hall is making the point that with mass volumes of data that is collected in the field using remote sensors, data collection technologies, M2M and mobile solutions we need to improve our operational strategies and ways of thinking.  The data can provide us w

What does the word transformational mean?  When I researched it I came up with, " A marked change in form ."  I believe enterprise mobility fits this description.  It is taking many traditional business solutions and ERPs and changing their form via mobile applications and mobile extensions.  In this segment of my Video Comments, I talk about the transformational impact of enterprise mobility. ************************************************************* 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.

The Field Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to field mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Also read Mobility Charts Weekly The Expressway Authority of Thailand and the Land Transport Department have earmarked Bt15 million to install RFID cameras to detect speed violations on Bangkok expressways. Read Original Content Glacier Computer has announced the availability of a sunlight readable display for its T510K – 10-inch rugged tablet. "The new sunlight readable display option is perfect for mobile workers who are in and out of vehicles or need to use the T510K outside. The 800 NIT display offers optimal readab

Welcome to M2M News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to M2M (machine to machine) and embedded mobile devices.  I aggregate the information, include the original links and add a synopsis of each article.  I also search for the latest market numbers such as market size, growth and trends in and around the M2M market. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobile Health News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Also read Mobility Charts Weekly Frost & Sullivan's report, European Smart Meter Markets, finds that the smart meter revenue in Europe is expected to grow from $318.4 million in 2010 to $1.93 billion in 2017 at a compound annual growth rate of 29.3 percent. Read Original Content According to ABI Research the compound annual growth rate of global insurance telematics subs

The Mobile Health News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to mobile health that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends. Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly Also read Field Mobility News Weekly Also read M2M News Weekly Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly Also read Mobility News Weekly Also read Mobility Charts Weekly The worldwide mHealth market will grow to a revenue opportunity worth $23 billion by 2017, according to a new report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Read Original Content The global market for mobile health applications for smartphones is expected to nearly double in 2012, rising to $1.3 billion, according to a new report. Read Original Content AT&T has launched a beta version of the AT&T Developer Center ForHealth, a cloud-based platform designed to help mobile health app devel

Bristol City Council Housing The Bristol City Council owns 28,000 homes that need to be maintained and repaired.  For those of us that own even one home, we recognize how much maintenance is required.  These homes, however, are rented and come with the added challenges involved with maintaining rentals.  In fact it takes 300 field service technicians full time to keep up with the work load. In order to efficiently complete all the work needed, they sought to improve productivity, document and manage worker's skills, identify the tools required, and provide optimized routing between jobs.  They also needed to figure out a way to improve scheduling to optimize productivity.  They worked with their systems integrator Capgemini to come up with a solution that would save them £2.7 million per annum in operation costs. One of the biggest challenges was communication with 300 mobile field service technicians that were on the move and working in remote locations.  Capgemini solved