Apple iOS and the Enterprise - Latest Developments

My friend and mobile expert Dave Akka shares his insights on the latest Apple strategies and developments to support the enterprise in this guest article.

Following the recent Apple WWDC developer conference, it’s worth looking at what they are doing to make their products more attractive to the enterprise?

iOS: The accidental leader?

As NetApp’s Mike Elgan noted recently, iOS became the leading operating system for enterprise mobility almost by accident, although it might be more accurate to say that it wasn't originally designed for the enterprise or expected to be such a hit.  The iPhone was released as a consumer device like the iPod into a world of feature phones with a small smartphone market dominated by Nokia’s Symbian, while the Blackberry was the fully-locked-down enterprise mobility device of choice.  No one expected that the consumers who bought the iPhone would consider it to be so much better than their work devices that they would break every policy imaginable to use them at work, and kickstart the BYOD or Bring Your Own Device phenomenon.

The iPhone became the dominant enterprise mobile platform for several reasons, including the ease of developing corporate apps, the iPhone’s popularity as a status symbol that made it the choice for senior managers who were able to insist on using it, and a few enterprise-friendly features that were added to iOS over time.  However the biggest reason is that it has a large, loyal customer base that love the device and feel it makes them more productive.

In the pre-BYOD world, it was assumed that consumers wanted usability, photo quality and a wide choice of applications (or the ability to do anything with the device), whereas enterprise users weren't important because it was all about management tools and easy integration into corporate systems. BYOD showed that enterprise users are also consumers, and want the same things from a work phone that they do from a personal one.

A good demonstration of this is that the first time I saw BYOD in action was at the end of a meeting when one participant took out his iPhone, took a photo of the whiteboard we had covered in notes, and sent it to everyone in the meeting.  The reaction around the table was “what a useful device; what else can we do with it?” That team had woken up to the potential of BYOD and enterprise mobility.

The iPad took off in a similar way: originally sold as a media consumption device, it has become the enterprise mobility device to take to business meetings with an array of apps that let you present, collaborate, take notes and network far more effectively than was previously possible, and you can even catch up with that latest TV series on the train on the way home.

Possibly as important as any enterprise functionality is the way that Apple sells and supports iOS devices for business in its retail stores.  I recently had a problem with my iPhone and while it was being repaired (which happened easily and seamlessly, by the way) the store staff were keen to discuss whether I used it for business, what apps and functionality I liked, what requirements it filled and so on. This showed a real commitment to making iOS devices easy for business users to get started with.  iOS devices in the enterprise also lead to Mac sales as you need to use a Mac in order to deploy enterprise apps and settings to iOS.

Apple Adding Enterprise Features

The recent preview of iOS8 shows that Apple is now very deliberately targeting the enterprise mobility market both by reinforcing the user experience that got it this far but also by providing features that make it a more attractive choice for IT.

The newly-announced Device Enrollment Program allows corporate-issued iOS devices to automatically configure and access corporate apps, reducing the time and support needed to get a new device working; and LDAP is a key component as it brings auditability to the iOS deployment with account control and authentication.

Meanwhile, the ability to passcode-protect corporate data on the device, by protecting access to the calendar, contacts, mail, third-party apps and more mean greater security for the enterprise while fingerprint unlocking means the user doesn’t have a headache accessing that data.  VIP messages allow users to keep track of important conversations more easily and even small things like automatic VPN connectivity could make a big difference to the user.

Overall, iOS8 brings advances with:

• Simplified IT administration and security, between MDM tools; enterprise grade security including encryption, per app iCloud controls and certificate-based single sign-on; and managed book and PDFs to easily deliver content
• Improved application development, with the TouchID API, document provider APIs, content filtering and extensibility, not to mention the new Swift language
• Greater ease of use and productivity with improved mail, seamless working between iOS and Mac, improved calendar and peer-to-peer AirPlay

I don't want to go into too much technical detail here, but if you are interested you can find a more detailed breakdown here.

From the enterprise mobility perspective, features like Continuity, which allows users to pick up work where they left off across multiple Apple devices and the ability to create purpose-built keyboards for specific task-related apps could help increase productivity.

iOS is unlikely to completely own the enterprise mobility space in a BYOD world, but it is certainly set to continue its strong performance.

In addition, Apple and IBM announced a partnership yesterday, to aggressively go after the enterprise market.  Here is an excerpt from The New York Times, "In a deal that could deepen Apple’s sales to corporations and strengthen IBM’s position in business software, the two companies announced a wide-ranging partnership intended to spread advanced mobile and data analysis technology in the corporate world."

David Akka, MBA, M.Sc.
Managing Director, Magic Software Enterprises UK  Ltd.
dave_akka@magicsoftware.com

Thanks for sharing Dave!

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

Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Dave Akka on Mobile Platform Strategies

I had the privilege today of interviewing mobility expert and Managing Director for Magic Software UK, Dave Akka.  In this interview we dig deep into mobile platform and mobile app development strategies.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwm5ig7ARc4&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw



Read the article by Dave Akka, In Defense of Mobile Platforms for Enterprise Mobility.

Code Halos (the data that surrounds people, organizations and objects) are important to us as individuals - most of us generate and share digital information every day. What's critical is that Code Halos are also vital to future business success. Research conducted by the Center for the Future of Work reveals that companies that understand how important this data is and how to find business meaning from it are best positioned to win their markets.

My colleagues at Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work have just published a new book that is now available everywhere on this subject, http://www.unevenlydistributed.com/codehalos.  This is a very important topic as it defines a strategy for utilizing big data and everyday data to beat your competition.

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

Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

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

In Defense of Mobile Platforms - Guest Blogger David Akka

In several past articles published here, the ever opinionated mobile expert Peter Roger's shared his belief that the age of traditional mobile platforms had passed.  In this article however, guest blogger and mobile expert David Akka shares a different opinion.
***

Over the last six months I met with a wide range of customers and prospects in order to understand how they understand enterprise mobility, and especially to learn whether they see it as a business opportunity or just another piece of technology. It’s no secret that the past few years have seen a debate between two paradigms: whether to write specific code for different devices, or to take a wider approach. The rapid advances in mobile technology have led to a world where there is no single accepted approach, but history looks to be repeating itself from the desktop world, and I believe that application development platforms are the way forward.

In general, the company I work for has two types of customer: ISVs, who develop solutions and typically have some investment in a certain paradigm or technology; and end users across industries from financial services in banking and insurance, through logistics, leisure and more, who may have a preference for one internal environment but who have usually ended up with a mix of technologies. This range makes their perspectives on mobile technologies varied and fascinating.

I have written a lot on the application technologies war, mostly focusing on HTML5. What I’m seeing in the market is that people who have been convinced to develop specific code for each device are sticking with this route, as are those who have chosen to use HTML5 web apps. However neither of these approaches is completely issue-free.

Regardless of whether you choose to code natively or use HTML5, there are both pros and cons. Organisations using HTML5 for mission-critical applications find that they suffer from delays caused by the need to deploy patches; while custom code has proved to be very expensive in terms of time and effort needed to support the multiple versions needed for different mobile ecosystems and device types and keep them all up to date. Just take a look at the iOS and Android Facebook clients for an example of this. The question is, how to move forward?

Once upon a time…

I have long been an advocate of using a mobile business platform in order to build applications with true multi-platform and multi-channel capability, and this is not a choice between developing HTML5 or native applications. Platforms can do both, and which you choose is a deployment, not a development, question. This is not about generating code, rather, it is about pre-packaged functionality that can be configured through a development process and activated across any platform, whether native or HTML5.

Handy component pieces

The real advantage of using platforms is that they provide a uniform approach to develop, deploy and manage applications. From collecting data and processes from multiple sources, whether these are located on premise or in the cloud, traditional enterprise systems or social media, and reusing it in an auditable and governable way, to consumption of data services and user interface across multiple devices. For example, you can set policies to ensure that certain data or applications can only be accessed in certain countries, or only when an employee is working from home, via geofencing.

Platforms have the ability to encode auditability and governance automatically into your applications, going beyond the user interface. You can determine policies for how the application should handle data when there is no connectivity, such as underground or on trains. Offline access needs to be built in, as does security. Today’s enterprise mobile users are carrying out tasks that would previously only have been available behind the firewall, so it’s increasingly important that security is built in at the device, application and user levels. Platforms enable all of this, not as a patch-based solution but as a single-stack solution to enable features to be easily built in.

I have written many times about the benefits of platforms, but I find that their benefits are often misunderstood. Especially in organisations where there is a strong understanding of HTML5, mobility experts fall into the trap of believing that just because they can make HTML do what they want that this is all their solution needs. For example, just because you can fire a HTML wrapper at a problem doesn’t mean that this is the easiest solution to maintain, upgrade or deploy to multiple devices.

The real benefits of platforms lie in the ways they enable you to predictably develop, manage and experience your applications, such as allowing you to concentrate on service consumption and provisioning at all levels and across all your applications. Rapid development is also a benefit, as the pre-packaged functionality in the platform allows you to reduce your development time by up to 80%, thus reducing your time to market as well as costs. Likewise, this rapid, agile development allows end users to participate in all stages of development, ensuring that the resulting applications are better adapted to user requirements and market needs. As most platform vendors incorporate the latest mobile technology into their platform via updates, allowing you to use it without researching the technologies in great detail, it becomes easy to keep your applications up to date. This has always been a benefit of using platforms, but it is especially noticeable with mobile due to the rapid evolution of the technology, especially when it comes to security, data standards, and ecosystems.

To examine why platforms are so important, let’s take a trip to “ancient history”, or as you might know it, about 20 years ago and the early days of ecommerce on the web. When websites first became important business tools they were written directly in HTML, and while there were some very impressive efforts, overall this trend led to sites that were little more than an online version of the company’s paper catalogue or brochure. This also led to pages becoming increasingly complicated as revisions were made or new technologies adopted. Consider that in the space of a few years customers started to expect embedded media, secure payment, live stock levels, mapping and online reviews: trying to code all of this into a page by HTML was very complicated.

The solution to the ever-increasing complexity of webpages was to use platforms which allowed new technologies to be implemented as standard objects, rather than having to write everything from scratch, to the point that today webpages resemble a Lego model rather than a hand-written essay. For example, if you want to create a blog site, using platforms such as WordPress or Eblogger is an obvious choice, while Magneta, Shopify and Voluta easily handle the complexities of an e-commerce website, and for a CMS there is a plethora of choices such as Drupal, Squarespace, and Movable. Platforms can also be easily updated to cope with new requirements, thus simplifying maintenance, while custom HTML or Java is used to customise rather than create. Remember that the purpose of mobile apps is not just to present information, but to be able to reuse existing business logic behind a new user interface.

Is the past relevant to mobile?

I believe that the picture in mobile today is very similar in that while many organisations have used HTML or Java to create a mobile experience, but today they are finding that it is no longer enough to wrap these around a page to make a mobile app.

The challenge is that users are trying to do far more on mobile now. Mobile apps don’t just need to present data to a user in an attractive way: users need to be able to update that data, and the more we do, the more important it becomes to ensure the right data gets to the right people, when they want it. Today’s mobile apps need to be able to set intelligent policies regarding who can access what data, they need to have security built in, along with management tools. As users increasingly rely on mobile, offline access becomes critical, and apps need to be updated rapidly as demands change, in a world where “rapid” could mean “within 30 minutes”.

Further, as users try to complete more of their computing tasks on mobile, the mobile experience needs to grow far beyond the cut-down “mobile interfaces” we have come to expect. Mobile users are expecting to have all their workflows at their fingertips, and the logical, integrated processes that result are no less at home on desktop. This means that it makes no sense to separate mobile apps as a standalone page: because we need a template, the full business logic and workflows, mobile is moving beyond a “look and feel” issue. What we are moving towards is a world where collaborating and sharing data is enabled by seamless processes, making users quicker and more effective.

This look at the past shows that many organisations today are just dealing with a thin layer of what mobility is all about. Yes, you can easily design HTML pages yourself, but it is hard to upgrade the look and feel, maintain the applications or assign and control user rights. Learn from the dotcom era and content websites, and move toward using a platform today, to better manage your logic, processes and data in a maintainable way for the long run.

The industry has already acknowledged the key role of platforms in its mature desktop web technology: now it’s time to learn from the past, embrace platforms in mobile and avoid a future disaster.

Watch the Google+ Hangout interview with Dave Akka, http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2014/04/mobile-expert-interview-dave-akka-on.html.

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

Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Glenn Johnson and Kevin Benedict

I had the privilege recently to connect with mobility expert Glenn Johnson, Senior VP of Magic Software Americas, on a Google+ Hangout OnAir.  Glenn turned the tables on me and he asked the questions in this interview.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLnEeUZPDd8&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw&feature=share&index=2



The True Cost of Mobility - Companies are under tremendous pressure to develop and deploy mobile apps for their business systems, yet the traditional approach to mobile app development typically costs $250K+ and takes 6+ months for a single app. Today IT professionals are exploring platforms that radically reduce costs and time-to-market for their mobile initiatives, especially around complex applications such as SAP, Oracle, or custom applications.

Download the whitepaper - https://www.capriza.com/resources/whitepapers/?resource=true-cost-of-enterprise-mobility&adgroup=MES

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

Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

A New Perspective on Enterprise Mobility and 2014 Requirements, Part 1

Many of us have spent years (some of us decades) working on enterprise mobility designs, development and implementations.  These projects, for the most part, started as tactical implementations for specific LOBs (lines of business).  They involved usually one app, connected to a specific back end system and database.  Over the years these projects evolved to include multiple data sources and business processes.  Today, CIOs and IT departments are being tasked with mobilizing the entire enterprise IT environment.  This task, I propose, requires a new way of looking at enterprise mobility.

Earlier this month (December 2013) I spoke on a panel with Forrester Research's John McCarthy in London.  We were discussing the current and future state of enterprise mobility.  McCarthy stated that 2014 would be the year of "complex mobility" and would cause "Y2K-like" events in many enterprises.  He added that ERP like investments may be required in many enterprises in order to prepare them for a mobile first world.  Herein lies the challenge.

Complex and mission critical IT systems often include legacy systems.  In many cases these legacy systems were not developed to be real-time, or designed to support the speed or operational tempo of emerging business models and mobile environments.  These are where both the complexities and the Y2K-like events will be found.  Legacy systems will either need to be updated to support real-time and mobile environments or replaced. Given these challenges, business analysts will need to understand what parts of their IT systems and infrastructures are problematic.

In order to better understand their IT system capabilities, it seems there is a need for tools and dashboards designed to help the IT department understand which systems are mobilized, which are not.  I can envision a tool/app that provides:

• a strategic view of enterprise mobility in a dashboard format that provides visibility into which systems are mobilized and which are not within the IT environment
• a view that shows mobile app security levels, security configurations and data access rights
• a view that demonstrates the speed in which data can be collected, analyzed and reported for all business processes (i.e. will this process takes 3 weeks, 3 days, 3 minutes or 3 seconds, etc.)
• a view that shows the time required for all queries and reports to be produced and distributed
• a view into which systems are capable of supporting a real-time environment and which are not
• a view that shows all IT systems connected to sensors in the IoT (Internet of Things)
• a view that shows the budget, plan and priority level for upgrading or replacing each problem IT system that is preventing real-time and mobile support

If market forces and the digital transformation of your industry are driving you to a more online and real-time operational tempo, then what IT systems are or will prevent that migration?  The systems that are preventing that migration must be flagged for an upgrade and/or replacement.

While you are engaged in this process, why not identify blind spots that are forcing you to manage with "conjecture" rather than based upon real and accurate data?  Often mobile apps and sensors connected to the IoT (Internet of Things) can help fill in the blind spots.  These blind spots can be caused because the data is not collected, or not used, or is analyzed so slowly that the usable shelf-life has passed by the time you get it.

Don't worry...we won't run out of things to do in 2014.

Read Part 2 of this article series here - http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-new-perspective-on-enterprise.html.

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

Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

The Race for Sensors to Supply Big Data and Enterprise Mobility

Today's competitive marketplace requires companies to collect more data, analyze more data and utilize more data to improve customer interactions and engagements.  Mobile devices are exceptionally designed to assist in this effort.  Apple's iPhone comes with an inventory of sensors:

• Touch
• Voice
• GPS
• Proximity
• Ambient Light
• Accelerometer
• Magnetometer
• Gyroscopic

I listened to an IT expert in the CIA give a presentation on how they could use the sensors on a typical smartphones to uniquely identify the walking style and pace of individuals.  For example, the intelligence agency may suspect a person carrying a phone is a bad guy.  They can remotely switch on the smartphone's sensors and record the walking style and pace of the person carrying the phone and match it with their database records.  SCARY ISN'T IT!?

Those are just a few of the sensors available that integrate the physical world with the digital.  Read this article I wrote to learn more about the incredible capabilities of sensors.

Mobile apps can also be considered the API (application programming interface) between humans and smartphones.  For example, a mobile application for recommending local restaurants may start by asking the user what kind of food they prefer.  The human queries their stomach, and then inputs the results into their mobile app by touching the keypad or using their voice.  Suddenly a server in an Amazon data center knows your stomach's inputs!  That is one powerful sensor and API!  Given the vast array of sensors in the human body incredible things can be done once those sensor inputs are digitized.

Although there are many powerful sensors in the human body the API is still the human's touch, typing or voice.  The emergence of wearable sensors and smart devices are a way to try to automate the process of data collection so humans are not required to take time and effort to input the data.

Sensors are also connected to the non-physical.  Sensors can connect with time.  Once time reaches a specified place, a digital alarm can go off striking your physical ear with sound waves.  That is making the non-physical inputs, physical.

The challenge for businesses today is to envision how all of these sensors and available real-time data can be used to improve customer service, product design, marketplace interactions and engagements so there are more profits at the end of the day.  

In the book Digital Disruptions, James McQuivey writes that for most of history, disruptions (business and marketplace transformations) occurred in a physical world of factories and well-trod distribution networks.  However, the disruptions of tomorrow are likely coming from digital disruptions - sensors, code halos, big data and mobile devices and wearables.

The task and challenge of every IT department is to understand and design a strategy that recognizes that the competitive playing fields of tomorrow are among the digits.

***Have you seen the new Mobile Solution Directory here http://mobilesolutiondirectory.blogspot.com/?

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

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

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Interviews: Regev Yativ

I had the privilege of interviewing Regev Yativ, the CEO/President in the Americas of Magic Software this week.  Magic Software is over 30 years old, which gives them a unique and interesting perspective on enterprise mobility and what makes a good solution and mobile strategy.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uAWK2RlZPQ&feature=share

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

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

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobility and Real-Time Capability Projection

This weekend I was clever.  That is newsworthy because it doesn't happen very often.  Our son is stationed at a military base that did not receive TV coverage of the Boise State football game on Saturday night.  It must have been the government shut-down.  I can't think of any other reason they wouldn't have shown it.  The solution was a three hour Google+ Hangout whereby mom and dad got to talk to our officer son while the laptop camera "inadvertently" captured and streamed the Broncos game showing on our big screen TV.  It was a nice Hangout - they won!  We tried Skype first, but the picture was blurry.  Google+ Hangout, however, was picture perfect.

Our son is stationed a great distance away, however, using real-time communication and video we can communicate and share what is going on in our lives.  This same kind of technology can be used in the context of "capability projection" for companies.  Here is my definition of capability projection, "The ability of a business to apply all or some of its capabilities such as marketing, sales, distribution, etc, over great distances to respond to and take advantage of new market opportunities."

What does it take to project your capabilities over great distances?  The ability to in real-time collect data, analyze data, and distribute the results in order to make good decisions.  It takes the ability to view information and operations at a distance and have the ability to act instantaneously from afar.  Without this capability, you cannot implement good business tactics.  Tactics are the art and science of positioning resources for optimal use and maneuvering them to keep them as such.

The bottom line, you can't expand your operations and business over great distances and/or remote markets unless you are implementing a good real-time SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) strategy.  A good SMAC strategy provides the technical platforms that enable distributed organizations to effectively collaborate, design and execute plans.

The Internet, mobile devices and collaboration platforms have greatly empowered organizations to be able to expand beyond historic geographic barriers.  This capability opens the door to expanding your influence and business efficiently and cost effectively across the globe.
*************************************************************

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

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Gartner Reveals Predictions and the Tsunami of Digital Transformation

This week at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013, Gartner unveiled their top predictions for 2014 and beyond.  Here they are:

• Digital Industrial Revolution (3D printing and its impact on manufacturing and IP)
• Digital Business (social, mobile, analytics, cloud, code halos and their impact) 
• Smart Machines (self-learning machines and artificial intelligence)
• The Internet of Things (network centric operations, situational awareness, etc.)

These predictions align closely with what I have been writing about and teaching for the past 12 months. However, I have not covered the "Digital Industrial Revolution" in the context of 3D printing.  I will have to start paying more attention to that area.  I blame some of my inattention on those that came up with the term "3D Printing." When I read the word "printing" I lose interest.  I guess I need to start being interested.

In fact, we all need to start paying more attention to the four areas listed above.  Gartner is not just highlighting new IT trends, but warning that these trends will have a significant impact on politics, economies, cultures and societies.  They are predicting the process of "digitizing" businesses and manufacturing will displace large numbers of workers that will not find available jobs waiting.

I talk about the speed and the pace of business often these days.  Information volumes are exploding, innovations are accelerating and real-time communication is nearly universal.  Secrets are hard to keep, and entire populations and markets are swarming around new ideas and causes that burst forth in seemingly spontaneous manners.

As more data is captured and analyzed by the big data engines, this information will start to have a larger impact on each of our personal lives (see Code Halos).  Our automobile insurance, mortgage loan rates, educational opportunities, job prospects and the products and services offered and the prices of these items will all be the result of big data analytics.

The digitization of our world means computers will be able to do more of the work that until recently supported the middle class.  Here is a summary of what Thomas L Friedman had to say about this phenomena last year in an article titled, The Theory of Everything (Sort of) in the New York Times - Because of cloud computing, robotics, 3G wireless connectivity, Skype, Facebook, Google, Linkedin Twitter, the iPad and cheap Internet enabled smartphones, the world has gone from connected to hyper-connected.  Today to be in the the middle class, you have to study harder, work smarter and adapt more quickly than ever before.  All of this rapid change is eliminating more and more “routine” work – the sort of work that once sustained a lot of middle-class lifestyles.

Displaced middle class workers are not going to be happy.  We need to watch carefully the unintended consequences of these technological innovations.  The middle class are not the only potential losers of these changes.  Large numbers of businesses will not be able to decipher the meanings of rapid changes around them, and those that do may not have the expertise or capital to act fast enough to keep up with the pace.

In 1970 Alvin Toffler published a best selling book called Future Shock that predicted that affluent and educated citizens of the world’s most technically advanced nations will fall victim to the disease of change. Unable to keep up with the pace of change, brought to the edge of breakdown by incessant demands to adapt and evolve, many will plunge into future shock. The main thrust of the book is that both individuals and societies need to learn how to adapt to and manage the sources and pace of change.

The bottom line is that companies need to invest today in change management education and watch emerging trends very carefully.   Companies need to fully understand what it means to move from industrial to digital.  These emerging trends then need to quickly be analyzed so executives can understand how these changes should translate into today's business strategies, budgets and investments.  Those in politics also need to pay attention to these rapid changes because they are already impacting societies and economies.

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

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

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Personal and Enterprise Clouds, HTML5 and Mobile Devices

Click to Enlarge

In the recent survey "State of Enterprise Mobility 2013" I asked the question, "How many wireless devices do you use daily?"  An incredible 69 percent use three or more wireless devices daily.  I myself use three - my MacBook Pro, iPad mini and iPhone.

I use my iPad mostly for reading email, notes, news, ebooks and social media, plus I watch videos and listen to music on it.  I use my iPhone for the same purposes when I am on the go, plus texting, phone calls, the camera, fitness apps and maps.  I use my laptop to do many of the same things, but specifically to write, use Microsoft Office apps, participate in video conferences and conduct research and store photos.

There are a lot of overlaps in what I do on the devices, which is the reason the whole concept of the "personal cloud" is so valuable to me.  Rather than store all content on devices and worry about synchronizing updated versions of my content across other devices, much of my personal content is stored in personalized clouds.  My Blogger and Facebook accounts are personal clouds where I store and share my content.  LinkedIn, Twitter, iCloud, EverNote, Box.net, DropBox, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., are also personal cloud services where you can store and share content.  The value, of course, is that you can access all of your content from any of your wireless devices with minimal effort and maximin convenience.

Enterprises will find the same kinds of benefits that I do but on a much larger scale.  Companies that recognize a permanent requirement to support an increasing number of enterprise mobility apps on ever-changing devices, must seek a model of design, development, deployment, maintenance and support that maximizes efficiency, productivity and minimizes TCO (total cost of ownership).  In today's world - that model looks like HTML5 apps managed and deployed using enterprise cloud services.

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

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

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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