Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud - SMAC

I am speaking at a Cognizant user conference this week in Scottsdale, AZ where social, mobile, analytics and cloud are the central themes.  Cognizant uses the acronym SMAC to refer to these four technologies integrated into one grouping. This event follows the Oracle Open World and SAP TechEd events this month where these same four technology trends were also highlighted.

This SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) grouping makes sense to me.  The SMAC acronym is also a far better marketing acronym than SCAM would be.  Can you imagine saying, "I would like to talk to you about a SCAM."  Not so good!  MACs would also not be a good acronym as it is too closely aligned with our iFriends.  MASC would just make it seem like we were hiding something, so SMAC works for me.

SMAC also makes it past my "pocket test."  I reach into my pocket, pull out my iPhone 5 and examine what I do with it.  I use SOCIAL apps (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Blogger, etc.) on my iPhone.  I use it while MOBILE as my mobile communication and mobile data device.  I use Google Search, and its ANALYTICS everyday, as well as Weather and flight status apps.  I use all kinds of CLOUD based mobile apps including news apps, banking apps, and all the social apps everyday.  So my pocket test says SMAC is relevant.

The words I keep hearing around this SMAC stack are "multiplication effect" and "force multiplier."  Here are a couple of definitions around "force multiplier":

• A factor that dramatically increases (hence "multiplies") the effectiveness of an item or group.
• A capability that, when added to and employed by a work force, significantly increases the productivity potential of that force.

I personally think of Twitter and Blogger as force multipliers in my work.  I can communicate and share information with thousands from my home office in Boise, Idaho by effectively using social networking solutions in the cloud.

I invite you to watch what SAP's CIO Oliver Bussman said to me the other day on the subject of SMAC in this video interview.  I also interviewed Ingo Piroth, SAP's VP of Mobile Services, North America, on the concept of SMAC (see video interview at minute 3:03), where he states that SMAC is probably the biggest conversation topic at SAP right now.

It appears that you will be hearing more SMAC talk from me in the future.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of October 15, 2012

The New York Times has rolled out an HTML5 web app for Apple’s iPad, an addition to the native apps already available.  Read Original Content

The preview of Oracle’s NetBeans Integrated Development Environment 7.3 features new advanced HTML5, JavaScript and CSS development capabilities and is now available for download.  Read Original Content

Microsoft developed TypeScript as a way to help JavaScript scale to larger, more media rich HTML5 projects and they’ve announced that TypeScript is now available for developers and programmers to download a preview, test it in the “TypeScript online playground”, or obtain the source code.  Read Original Content

Google’s Chrome 23 beta adds track support for HTML5 video that enables developers to add elements such as subtitles, captions, chapters, descriptions and metadata to videos.  Read Original Content

Mobile app performance management platform Crittercism, has launched a new mobile app crash reporting service for HTML5 allowing developers to view errors and issues for HTML5, mobile Web and hybrid apps.  Read Original Content

According to Facebook developer advocate Simon Cross, those advocating HTML5 on mobile devices must ”step up their efforts and solve issues with performance and monetization in order for the technology to reach its true potential”.  Read Original Content

A free new PDF editor from Docudesk enables users to edit, share and fax PDF documents from within the browser and can be used from a number of devices including Apple’s iPad and iPhone.  Read Original Content

Sports Illustrated has re-launched its mobile website which is now HTML5-based.  Read OriginalContent

Web designer Tim G. Thomas describes the business case for “Building a Non-Native Mobile HTML5 App”.  Parts 2 - Choosing a Technology Stack and 3 - Hooking Things Together are also available.  Read OriginalContent

As a tribute to Steve Jobs, a developer created a virtual classic iPod using HTML5 and CSS3.  ReadOriginal Content

French developers have created cHTeMeLe, a board game about writing HTML5 code.  Read OriginalContent

Kris Ostrowka, a business development associate at StepLeader, outlines “What You Need to Know about HTML5 vs. Native Apps” in this article in Mobile Marketer.  ReadOriginal Content

The W3C partnered with tech firms including Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Google, HP, and Microsoft to create a website to serve as a resource for developers seeking information on HTML5, CSS3, and other open-web standards.  Read Original Content

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Enterprise Mobility, Risk Management and Remote Job Sites

This week I am at SAP's TechEd in Las Vegas.  Please give me a shout-out if you are here and would like to meet up and discuss mobile strategies!

I had the opportunity to spend time with a large international construction company last week.  This construction company does a lot of work in remote locations in Africa, the Middle East and in Latin America.  In fact, this construction company was the one that flew in drilling equipment that was used to rescue the 33 Chilean miners a few years ago.  They work on massive projects.  Projects that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The CIO of this large construction company shared with me that the secret to being successful at managing massive and remote projects is visibility and risk reduction.  Money can be lost very quickly on large projects, and if managers are not aware of the losses things can get out of control fast.

The CIO added that most construction companies couldn’t compete with them on large projects because they do not have the enabling infrastructure, processes and methodologies in place to handle the complexity and risk management.  He added that mobile solutions are a critical ingredient.

Large and remote projects often do not have communication infrastructure available, so the construction company must bring in their own.  They set-up communications, and then wirelessly connect all of their ERP and management systems to the remote job shack or trailer – sometimes in the middle of the jungle or desert.  Mobile devices are then used within these environments to manage operations via data collection, alerts, queries, and reports.

Visibility, and the speed in which managers have visibility to problems, is the determining factor to successful management in these environments.  Managers need to know about problems immediately so they could be fixed immediately or a Plan A can be switched to a Plan B or C.

The key take-a-ways from this conversation were the following:

• Mobile solutions are required to effectively management remote job sites and operations.
• The ability to effectively manage remote jobs requires real-time visibility via mobile solutions.
• The inability to manage in real-time is a barrier to entry to many companies.  Mobile solutions, the right infrastructure, back-end systems and a faster operational tempo are competitive advantages.
• Having the ability to communicate in real-time, collect, process, analyze and report on data quickly enables companies to reduce their risk exposure and take on larger projects.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Jeff Wallace

How does a large multinational company think about and develop an enterprise-wide mobile strategy?  That is the question I asked mobility expert Jeff Wallace - listen to his answer here.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of October 7th, 2012

I conducted a workshop via webex yesterday with a mining company in Australia.  It was interesting that they had a strong preference for HTML5 apps running on a cloud based mobile platform.  Their thinking was that they want mobile solutions now, but they see no need to sink a lot of money into on-premise solutions and mobile platforms yet.  They felt that HTML5 would give them the most flexibility and easiest implementations and deployments at this time as they mature their own mobile strategies and infrastructure and wait to see who the winners will be in the mobile platform market.

Now for the news...

Intel has continued to survey developers to find out where things are going with HTML5, and 40 percent of those surveyed said that they are already using HTML5 in some way in their development, and the other 40 percent of the survey developers said they planned to use it.  Read Original Content

In this video interview, Adam ‘HTML5 Guru’ Stanley Tells How RIM is Using HTML5 in BlackBerry 10.  (Click here to see the video on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4fOzQeCY8)  Read Original Content

A new video game, Brainworth, teaches its users about the principles of computer science and skills required to create HTML5 online games.  Read Original Content

Education technology firm Desmos, Inc. has developed a graphing calculator with an interactive HTML5 graphing platform that works across all modern browsers. Read Original Content

A recent webcast on the subject of using HTML5 for web-based trading applications is available.  The webcast discussion is based on the question:  “Is it feasible to adopt HTML5 as an enterprise development technology now, what are the issues, and how can they be addressed?”  Read Original Content

A new report by mobility analyst Kevin Benedict documents the plans and insights of over 120 people involved in enterprise mobility.  When asked how important HTML5 and HTML5 hybrid apps were to their company's enterprise mobility plans, 45% answered it was "very important," and 14% said it was "critical."  Download the entire Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility 2012 Survey report for free here.

A recent study by adtech company Kontera based on data from 15,000 U.S. publisher partners revealed that mobile web traffic is up 430 percent between January and July this year and mobile Web browsing now accounts for 22 percent of web traffic.  Read Original Content

Apple iOS users who have upgraded to iOS 6 or bought an iPhone 5 may be missing Google Maps features, but it is still available as Google is actively maintaining the HTML5-based mobile Web version of Google Maps.  Google Street View will be soon available on the mobile Web version. Read Original Content

A new report from BI Intelligence explains why Facebook abandoned HTML5 for now including topics such as:  HTML5 app functionality still leaves much to be desired; HTML5 has a fragmentation problem; and The promise of HTML5 remains.  Read Original Content

A research report from Strategy Analytics forecasts that the HTML5-focused Firefox OS will capture only 1 percent of the market in 2013.  Read Original Content

An article in PCQuest demonstrates how to remotely debug a mobile HTML5 app with a remote inspector.  Read Original Content

Eyepartner has released Channel Manager HTML5 V1.0, enabling users to publish video and audio into playlists by dragging and dropping content in a channel lineup, and to build unlimited scheduled programming for playback on Roku set-top boxes and HTML5 5-compatible players including iPad and iPhone.  Read Original Content

Google uses HTML5 animations to illustrate its economic impact for each state in the U.S. on its Economic Impact page (http://www.google.com/economicimpact/)   Read Original Content

Oracle has added three new PeopleSoft mobile applications which utilize HTML5 and CSS3 and do not require download.  Read Original Content

A panel discussion which took place on the last day of the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Boston included topics such as the future of mobile, how the mobile interface will evolve, app stores, and HTML5.  Read Original Content

In this article in TechRepublic, “Why you’d be stupid to bet against HTML5”, author Nick Heath explains that although HTML5’s credentials as a mobile development platform have been called into question, it is still set to play a key role as the basis for mobile apps.  Read Original Content

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Sandra Benson

In this segment of the Mobile Expert Video Series, I interview Sandra Benson, VP of the Construction and Engineering practice at CSS about enterprise mobility in the construction industry.  She details the kinds of mobile data construction companies need to collect and report on every day.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 30, 2012

Some of the biggest news around HTML5 this week actually came from a hardware manufacturer.  Intermec, the makers of ruggedized and industrial grade mobile barcode scanners, RFID readers and smartphones has released a browser for Windows Mobile devices that supports HTML5.  That is very interesting for the millions of companies running Intermec ruggedized devices.  Theoretically it will greatly extend the kinds of mobile apps that owners of ruggedized devices running old OSs can utilize.

On a related note, Motorola Solutions, a competitor of Intermec, finalized its acquisition of ruggedized handheld manufacturer PSION this week as well.  I mistakenly said Intermec acquired Psion in the first version of this article...sorry PSION and Motorola!  Read Press Release

Now for the news...

Intermec has announced a new HTML5-capable browser “allowing for the development of OS agnostic web applications that can run on iOS, Android and select Intermec rugged mobile computers”.  For details on the browser from Intermec, go to http://www.intermec.com/products/html5/index.aspx.  Read Original Content

ISC has unveiled a solution, touchgeo, to enable mobile data collection for enterprises on an open HTML5 codebase that can be modified by developers to accomplish line-of-business data collection needs in the field.  Read Original Content

Another opinion on Facebook’s HTML5 issues, this article titled Facebook's HTML5 Dilemma, Explained.  Read Original Content

StreamingMedia.com presents a video tutorial from Doceo Publishing’s Jan Ozer on “How to Encode Video for HTML5”.   Read Original Content

PC World ran three Windows browsers - Google Chrome 21, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Mozilla Firefox 15 – through a number of tests, including how they handle HTML5 and JavaScript code.  Read Original Content

The W3C has announced its plan to finalize HTML5 in 2014.  Read Original Content

Google and Cirque du Soleil have collaborated to create Movi.Kanti.Revo, an interactive performance for tablets and some smartphones.  The show is built entirely in HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.  ReadOriginal Content

Developer Todd Motto has created HTML5 Blank, a WordPress theme for developers.  Read OriginalContent

Native, HTML5 and Hybrid Mobile Apps: Mobile War, is an article from mobility vendor Unvired that delves into the mobile apps battle and explores the benefits and limitations of each option.  ReadOriginal Content

Mike Shema urges developers when adopting HTML5 to keep in mind that “the browser is a hostile place”.  The features of HTML5 may help keep data safer within the browser, but developers must be aware of the need to keep data safe once it travels through the wild realms of servers and databases.  Read Original Content

Adobe has launched a new Web development suite called Edge Tools and Services.  Adobe's goal is to “advance what's possible with HTML5 and associated technologies that have become instrumental to the modern Web." The suite includes the original Edge (renamed Edge Animate), Edge Inspect, Edge Code, two font-related tools and PhoneGap Build.  Read Original Content

Analyst group Gartner advises business to prepare now for HTML5 to avoid being at a disadvantage with regard to competitors who are moving forward with new technologies.  Gartner predicts that HTML5 will have a significant effect on web design in about three years and organizations must start preparing now.  Read Original Content

A recent survey of Appcelerator Titanium developers revealed that 72.4 percent of respondents were neutral to disappointed with HTML5’s performance and 83.4 percent with HTML5’s monetization.  Positive responses came regarding HTML5’s cross-development capabilities and immediate updates.  Read Original Content

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.