Mobile Expert Video Series: Udi Keidar

Have you ever wondered about the role cloud computing plays in enterprise mobility and field services?  In this segment of the Mobile Expert Video Series, which I recorded yesterday in San Diego, CA., Udi Keidar, VP of Cloud Services with SAP Partner ClickSoftware explains the world as he sees it.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

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

Antenna Software, HTML5 and Cloud Computing

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."  I think that is going to be a big requirement now and in the future.

PSION EP10 

On a side note, I have been working with SAPinsider on a new report that will be published next week titled, Mobile Outlook 2012, and in it I report that 40% of companies are leaving mobile strategy up to the different business units.  That means NO unified strategy.  That is a problem.  It will cause a lot of inefficiencies and redundancies.

Antenna is backing HTML5 in a big way.  In fact I challenged Jim to predict the number of "new" enterprise mobility applications in 2013 that will be based on HTML5.  He went out on a limb and predicted that 75% of enterprise mobility applications will be based on HTML5 in 2013.

Antenna has built its reputation on supporting the blue-collar services sector, but these days they are also focused on B2C (business to consumer) apps.

Antenna is also investing in app stores and tools to create custom app stores.

I finished the interview by asking Jim when they were going to be acquired.  For some reason he was not willing to answer that question :-)

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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.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Gizmo's Troy Cox

Troy is CTO at Gizmo.  They are an IT services start-up using cloud solutions, unique business models and mobile solutions.  I had the chance to listen in on his presentation and to interview him in Australia this week.



Upcoming Events

Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011
Critical Requirements for Mobile App Development:  Agility and Speed Strategy, Process, and Tools to Accelerate Mobile Development, July 21, 2011

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise:  The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group

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.

SAP Enterprise Mobility in the Cloud

Some kinds of solutions just seem naturally suited for being in a cloud centric network. For example, why do companies buy and deploy their own in-house EDI solution and create unique data maps to every supplier or business trading partner in order to exchange EDI data?  This is about as inefficient as possible.  This should be a cloud-based, network centric service, which is why SAP added the SAP Information Interchange (SII) last Spring.  Now all SAP customers can connect their EDI processes once to the SII and have access to all of the other companies that are on the network.

This same kind of scenario is now playing out in enterprise mobility.  Mark Beccue, an analyst with IT market research company ABI Research, says that soon, "Cloud computing will bring unprecedented sophistication to mobile applications."  What does he mean?  Cloud-based mobile applications do not suffer from limits in mobile device battery life, storage capacity or processing abilities. Instead, they have all the power of a server-based computing infrastructure behind them.

If you have all the processing power you can ever want in the cloud, there is less reason (assuming you always have access to the internet) to build native mobile applications that are feature rich.  Just access the power of the cloud and use the mobile device as the UI (user interface) to the cloud.

Advice to Mobile Start-ups: Focus on Mobile Content, Mobile Business Processes, Integration and Workflow

The mobile and wireless industries have changed dramatically in the past year and this has significantly changed the market for mobile application start-ups. Many of the missing application development tools and features that forced programmers to develop their own proprietary mobile middleware, have been filled by the mobile OS (operating system) developers over the past 12 months. This is both good and bad news for mobile start-ups.

The good news is that mobile application developers can focus more on providing business value, rather than coding clever mobile client and mobile middleware features. This is good for the entrepreneurs that have started with an existing back-office business application in mind and simply wants to support it with a mobile client.

The bad news is that many mobile application companies have already invested heavily into their own mobile client technology, mobile application development tools and mobile middleware platforms. Why is this bad? Because most enterprise buyers won't appreciate the investment.

Enterprise buyers own smartphones. They download mobile applications over the weekend for $1.99. Their expectations have changed. In the past, mobile applications were a novelty surrounded by mystery and complexity. Mystery and complexity made it easy to charge $500 or more per mobile user. Now mobile applications are only a finger stroke and a password a way on their favorite mobile app store.

The mobile application itself is not where the biggest value can be found. The biggest value is in the following:

• Mobile client integration with enterprise business applications and data
• Support for enterprise business processes
• Support for ERP (enterprise resource planning) workflows
• Support for ERP data requirements
• Integration with high value data sources (web services)
• Support for complex and niche business processes
• Support for high value data collection hardware (survey equipment, RFID, Barcode, GPS etc.)

The value of mobile business applications, no matter what the original investment was, will be attributed to the above capabilities not the mobile client itself. ROIs need to be achieved by supporting core business functions in mobile environments. It is the efficient support for a business process, not the mobile client where the real value can be found.

As a mobile software vendor, having the best of breed enterprise mobile applications will not be good enough. Companies will continually seek to simplify their IT environments and reduce the number of applications they are required to support. They will look to find mobile solutions that are hosted in a SaaS (software as a service) business model in a cloud computing environment, and that are most closely aligned with their primary ERP or key business software solution either through ownership, endorsement or partnership.

Early adopters will experiment with best of breed and leading edge technologies, but the masses want simplicity and security.

Do you agree? I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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With Cloud Computing - Google Doesn't Care Which Mobile Operating System Wins

That was the sentiment expressed by Vic Gundotra, vice president of mobile and developer platforms at Google, who spoke on a panel at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco this week. Applications like gmail live in the world of cloud computing which means they are less impacted by the various mobile operating systems so although they have skin in the game, they can win no matter the users mobile operating system preferences.

Even Google says it cannot afford to develop different versions of the same mobile applications for all the various mobile operating systems. Their strategy is to develop applications for the "cloud-based" platforms and then make them accessible to all the different mobile handheld PDAs and Smartphones via the internet.

There is still a lot of excitement around internet-centric mobile handhelds and Smartphones even in today's economy says Gundotra. Why? He attributes it to the mobile phones' transition to personal computing devices.

Google's strategy has implications for a lot of mobile software companies and should influence where they spend their R&D budgets in the future.


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http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Google Latitude for Handheld PDAs, Smartphones and Work Orders

Google recently announced a new application in the world of cloud computing called Google Latitude. This is a very interesting application in that it allows friends to see where friends are located, or managers to see where his or her work teams, vehicles and job sites are located.

In the past, this functionality has only been available to companies for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or name your currency). You could find these features on enterprise quality work order management solutions or proof-of-delivery solutions for handheld PDAs and Smartphones. Google has a way of shaking the industry up by making mobile applications free.

Today, for free, a manager can implement Google Latitude on his company issued handheld PDAs and Smartphones and see where his workers are at all times. The manager, from his desktop, can view a map of the location of all of these mobile handhelds.

In a previous article I wrote about the inefficiencies caused by a lack of management visibility and knowledge on the location of their employees, job sites and inventory. Here is an excerpt on how to waste time and money:

1. Waste time and fuel driving back and forth to the office to pick-up and deliver new work orders, tools and parts. With the high cost of fuel, reducing driving distances is a necessity. Can you dispatch a service technician directly from their home to a nearby jobsite? Can you make sure your service technician has the most common parts in the van before they travel to the jobsite?
2. Waste time and fuel by being unprepared for the job and driving around looking for parts. Can you reduce travel time and fuel costs by being better prepared for the job before traveling? Can you ask customers for more information on the equipment such as brand, serial number, year, location, problem etc? Can you ask the customer for a digital photo of the equipment, serial number, etc., and email it before dispatching the service technician?
3. Sit outside of a locked and vacant location wasting time waiting for the owner to arrive. Can you set up an automated phone call to let the customer know you are on the way? This avoids showing up at a vacant house or closed business and wasting time.
4. Send service technicians to a distant location, when another service technician is closer and available. Can you use GPS tracking on the vans to better know the location of all service technicians so you can dispatch the closest and best service technician for the job?
5. Miss opportunities to sell more services, parts and equipment to the customer at the time of work and at the point-of-work. Can you automatically remind the service technician to promote service contracts by using a mobile handheld work order system? This will help increase service contract sales.
6. Poor scheduling and routing. Can you schedule service contract visits based on geographic location to reduce fuel costs and wasted travel time? Can a service technician complete more service calls in a day if they are routed more efficiently?
7. Drive large and heavy vehicles when not required. If you have a better understanding of the parts required for today’s service calls, can you take a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle to the jobsite?
8. Implement poor cash management and collection processes. Can you collect money, swipe credit cards and print receipts from a mobile handheld device to improve collections at the jobsite? Are you wasting time, paper and postage sending out invoices weeks after the work was completed?
9. Too much administrative costs. Can you reduce the costs of data entry and administrative staff by automating the dispatch process by using wireless work order dispatch that is integrated directly with your work order management and accounting systems?Every company, upon self-evaluation, will be able to identify additional inefficiencies that can be corrected and reduced. Many of the costly inefficiencies can be resolved by automating and mobilizing field services business processes.

Google Latitude would allow an Operations Manager to dispatch and route his service technicians or delivery vans based upon current locations of his employees and vehicles.


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http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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