Mobile Expert Interview Series: Smartsoft Mobile Solutions' CEO Dan Homrich, Part 1

I was lucky enough to catch up with Dan Homrich, CEO of Smartsoft Mobile Solutions (SMS) recently for an interview.  I am particularly impressed with one data point about Smartsoft Mobile Solutions - they have over 400,000 mobile clients in the field.  That means something they are doing is being done very right!

Kevin:  Dan, how long have you been involved in the mobility industry?

Dan:  I have been using mobile devices since the 1980s.  I have a story about using a 300 baud audio coupler on a pay phone to submit orders, but I have been in the industry for over 15 years.  Fifteen years ago I was involved in implementing industrial grade handheld computers for use in warehouse management.

Kevin:  What was your first PDA, and what mobile device do you carry today?

Dan:  My first PDA was an iPaq using Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.  I now carry an Apple iPhone 4 and love it!  The multi-tasking is a big improvement.

Kevin:  What is your favorite iPhone application?

Dan:  The Home Depot iPhone application.  It helps you find products, see the products, see the prices, locate the products, etc.

Kevin:  What is your role today and what does that role involve?

Dan:  I am the Chief Executive Officer, and my responsibility is strategic direction and customer satisfaction.

Kevin:  What industries do you see adopting mobility today?

Dan:  We see a big interest in mobile applications from retail companies.  We call this market the B2E (business to everyone) or B2C (business to consumer) market, retailers wanting mobile customer focused applications.  We also see a big interest for any kind of mobile application that can help companies sell more products.

Kevin:  What mobility trends do you see for the rest of 2010 and 2011?

Dan:  There are going to be an increasing number of mobile devices and mobile operating systems.  We do not see a market consolidation yet.  The market continues to grow and diversify.  That means enterprises are going to need a plan to support an increasing number of devices and mobile OSs.  I also believe that if Verizon sells the iPhone, there will be another huge explosion (increase) in interest around the iPhone.

Kevin:  What are you hearing in the market about mobile device management?  Is there an increasing need given your prediction of diversity in mobile devices and mobile operating systems?

Dan:  In the past I have worked on projects where we deployed 5,000 rugged and industrial grade mobile handheld computers.  At that time mobile device management seemed critical.  Today, I hear less interest in mobile device management.  It is a company culture thing.  When devices were specialized for niche markets and specific to a task, companies were concerned about keeping them up and functioning.  With today's smartphones, you can replace the device and be up and running in a few minutes.

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This is part 1 of the interview with Smartsoft Mobile Solutions CEO Dan Homrich.  Read part 2 here.

For more Mobile Expert Interviews read here.

For more Mobile Expert Videos watch here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – September 10, 2010

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile retail applications, mobile payments and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

Additional weekly newsletters on the subjects of enterprise mobility and M2M from Kevin Benedict can be found here http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

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This week credit card giant MasterCard launched a version of its MoneySend mobile app for BlackBerry. Similar to the iPhone version, MasterCard MoneySend for Blackberry can settle peer to peer balances by sending money to friends and family and purchasing goods from an informal vendor.

http://mobile.cnet.com/site?t=OFwKYRJPIl1Vm2aMwLYjDw&sid=cnet

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Starwood Hotels & Resorts is letting guests book their travels and make reservations across 1,000 of its properties via a BlackBerry application. Consumers can access their accounts, check reservations and get directions. The application is available in BlackBerry App World.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/starwood-hotels-resorts-accommodates-guest-via-mobile-booking-app/

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Smartsoft Mobile empowers some of the world’s largest multi-national organizations to extend and improve business processes by providing mobile solutions to their employees and customers. Smartsoft has more than 700 experienced ERP/mobile consultants with over 5,000 man years of experience helping 400,000 plus mobile users achieve their business goals with powerful mobile B2B and B2C applications, designed and developed specifically for today’s popular consumer and industrial grade mobile devices. For more information please visit, http://www.smartsoftmobile.com/.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Smartsoft Mobile Solutions.

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Toys “R” Us has announced a new iPhone application that integrates QR codes and content such as videos and rewards into a daily retail shopping experience to enhance its marketing and loyalty initiatives. The application is a consumer engagement tool that blends audio, visuals and rewards with traditional media platforms via mobile bar codes.

See more in this YouTube video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTu57Sx5VnI&feature=player_embedded#at=13

Read more - http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/toys-r-us-unveils-multichannel-mobile-crm-tactics/

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AAA has announced an Android counterpart to its popular iPhone app, which displays businesses which feature discounts for AAA members based on location. There are more than 110,000 such locations in the US, and the application, along with your phone’s GPS, will let you know which ones are directly in your area.

http://www.talkandroid.com/13836-aaa-app-now-available-for-android/

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Consumer appetite and enterprise adoption is fuelling the growth in volume, availability and sophistication of mobile services. According to the Sybase 365 Global Consumer Acceptance and Usage Report 2010, 70 percent of consumers were interested in additional mobile services. Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, is now processing more than 1.5 billion messages per day.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sybase-365-achieves-new-milestone-delivering-one-trillion-mobile-messages-2010-09-08?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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eBay has invested over $600 million into mobile apps over the past two years, and users have gained expanded mobility functionality as a result, most notably the ability to process payments for auctions using mobile apps.

http://www.benzinga.com/news/10/09/463375/ebay-mobile-division-planning-major-overhaul-ebay

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According to the Adobe Scene7 Mobile Commerce Survey, 55 percent of respondents cited full screen image zoom and videos as indispensable mobile viewing features for driving conversion, and 96 percent of respondents asserted the most effective visual merchandising features were catalogs and brochures, alternative images, and zoom and pan. Only 18 percent of respondents said they use rich visual merchandising features for mobile commerce today. However, 81 percent cited plans to deploy these features, thus implying richer mobile experiences will be created and offered during the next 12 months.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/09/08/rich-media-way-mobile-commerce-survey-says

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According to Forrester, 47 percent of consumers expect to wait no more than two seconds for a Web page to load; 58 percent of mobile phone users expect websites to load as quickly on their mobile phone as on their PC according to Gomez research.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/compuware-gomez-presents-webinar-on-the-top-e-commerce-strategies-for-turning-web-traffic-into-sales-2010-09-08?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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eBay will launch a "motors app" later this year that will let people use a built-in barcode reader feature to scan the Vehicle Identification Number of a car and do a Carfax lookup. The app will also let users enter the make and model of their own car and then filter searches for compatible parts and accessories. eBay also wants to build more "augmented reality" features into eBay's mobile applications. One example could be where a seller could take a video of an antique chair. An eBay application would turn that video into a 3D image that a potential buyer could overlay on a photograph of their room, letting them see how it would look.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/204970/ebay_bringing_mobile_apps_into_the_future.html

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The mobile web (web 3.0) is projected to grow at an annualized 500 percent over the next three years. How can your business benefit from this spectacular growth?

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/02/why-is-it-valuable-to-have-a-mobile-enterprise-strategy/

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In a development with importance to e-commerce merchants and other marketers moving to mobile commerce, phones using Android accounted for one quarter of all North American mobile page views in August, up from 6.4 percent in August 2009, according to the latest numbers from Quantcast Corp. Google’s gain came mostly at the expense of iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone. That system lost 11.4 points of mobile Web share, to finish at 56 percent in August.

http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2631

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AT&T appears to be in a position to offer the largest selection of Windows Phone 7 devices. We’ve heard rumors of HTC (T8788 or HD7?), Samsung (Cetus), and LG (C900 and GW910) devices headed to AT&T. Our count shows as many as four Windows Phone 7 devices hitting AT&T’s shelves this Fall. Unless something changes over the next two months, AT&T will be at the forefront of Windows Phone 7.

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/07/windows-phone-7-what-are-the-carriers-going-to-do/

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You can read more about enterprise mobility at the blog site, http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

Mobile Expert Video Interview – Ed Krufka, http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/10/NrF7LvLLlNE


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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