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.

Trends in Enterprise Mobility October 2012

I have had a hunch for a while that has been confirmed by a number of recent interviews with leading enterprise mobility vendors.  It seems that as enterprise mobility rises as a priority within companies, and becomes a CEO/CIO issue rather than a line of business issue, ERP and back office application considerations start to dominate the discussion and focus.

These boardroom level discussions change the buying process for enterprise mobility.  Mobile solutions used to be considered at the line of business level, where a small group of business process experts could select what they considered best of breed. Today, in many enterprises, mobility is too important to be just a line of business decision.  The stakeholder numbers have swelled and the length of selling cycles for enterprise mobility solutions has also lengthened as a result.

Standardization is starting to dominate large enterprise mobility discussions.  The standardization of mobile middleware, mobile app development tools, security and integration with ERPs and other back office apps.  This trend makes the choices that SAP made over the past few years look very smart, or I guess it could also be interpreted as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  SAP said these are the things that are most important, and after a couple of years beating that drum the market now agrees.

This week I am attending the Oracle Open World conference.  I will be very interested to learn how Oracle is treating enterprise mobility this year.  They have been too quiet.  Stay tuned as I report, blog and tweet from San Francisco this week at OOW.  It you aren't already following me on Twitter, I invite you to do so.  My Twitter handle is @krbenedict.

Convergence in the enterprise mobility industry is happening now.  I can see mobility vendors rethinking strategies and moving resources around to support these new trends.

On the topic of trends, my most recent analyst report titled Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey 2012 is now available free here http://kony.com/mid-year-enterprise-mobility-survey-2012-10.

I will be reviewing this report in a webinar on Thursday, October 4th at 1 PM ET.  I hope you can join me!  Register 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.

Competing with Mobile Technologies

Tough competitive markets can be a call to improve and innovate for many services businesses. It can be that extra push, that motivation we need to conduct some introspection. It is these times that require reviewing how we are doing business today with a critical eye on how we can accomplish more with less (increasing productivity), improve customer service and reduce inefficiencies. Mobile Technologies can play a significant role in all three areas.

The following list identifies a few of the many areas where mobile technologies commonly can help a services business become more competitive.  As you read through this list, think about other areas in your unique business where mobile technologies would offer value:

1. Efficiencies in communicating information between the office and the remote service technician or jobsite
2. Efficiencies in planning and scheduling work based upon job status, location, parts and supply inventories and expertise
3. Reducing fuel costs
4. Reducing travel time
5. Reducing redundant data entry activities
6. Increasing productivity – more average service calls per service technician in a day
7. Increasing service contract sales
8. Increasing equipment upgrade sales
9. Increasing collections and reducing DSO (day sales outstanding) with electronic invoicing, and the swiping of debit/credit cards via mobile devices
10. Improving inventory control and management - visibility to parts needed, the location of inventory and parts used on each job or service ticket
11. Reducing risks by ensuring safety procedures are followed
12. Improving management visibility into work done in the field to ensure quality services

These 12 ideas, of course, are just the start.  They are just some of the most obvious. In times of rapid growth, inefficiencies are often overlooked in a rush of new sales and business growth. However, when competition increases, it is a good time to re-evaluate business processes in order to eliminate the inefficiencies, and improve productivity and customer service.

It is not a luxury to invest in enterprise mobility.  Enterprise mobility is here for the rest of your career, and the future of many companies is dependent on how they embrace and take advantage of mobile technologies.

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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 23, 2012

Here are the comments, opinions and actions taken by both supporters and opponents of HTML5 that I have found this week.  It is never a dull discussion.

Native apps tend to have a smoother look and feel, more polish, and are able to leverage elements of their native operating system to feel more deeply integrated into the device.  However, building for multiple platforms and devices is expensive while web apps, built in standards-based technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3, will work on devices across a range of sizes by being adaptive and responsive.  Read Original Content

Brendan Eich, the chief technology officer at Mozilla, admits that HTML5 still faces standardization issues, and by continuing to lead development of essential HTML5 standards, Mozilla will actually make developers' lives easier.  Read Original Content

The much-publicized quote from Mark Zuckerberg, stating that the biggest mistake Facebook made was betting too much on HTML5 doesn’t tell the entire story.  The full quote, on Facebook software engineer Tobie Langel’s blog is:  “When I’m introspective about the last few years I think the biggest mistake that we made, as a company, is betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native… because it just wasn’t there. And it’s not that HTML5 is bad. I’m actually, on long-term, really excited about it. One of the things that’s interesting is we actually have more people on a daily basis using mobile Web Facebook than we have using our iOS or Android apps combined. So mobile Web is a big thing for us.”  Read Original Content

While stating that the company believes HTML5 has been “very over-hyped”, Intel software executive Renee James goes on to say that Intel is “committed to making sure HTML5 remains open, cross-platform, and has the right performance”.  Read Original Content

Adobe has made an effort to have its tools work on multiple platforms - PCs, tablets, and smartphones - using HTML5 and dynamic layout reformatting tailored to each device type.  The company is now promoting free “Create the Web” events to show off new tools and services for HTML5, CSS3, motion graphics, web development and more.  Read Original Content

appMobi has announced the launch privateStack, an HTML5-based, app development and cloud services platform that will enable businesses to develop their own cloud stack for mobile apps for business operations.  Read Original Content

Donald MacCormick in BI Dashboards provides a video of an HTML5 dashboard prototype in action.  Read Original Content

Facebook software engineer Tobie Langel outlines the HTML5 flaws that Facebook encountered including a lack of tooling in mobile browsers, scrolling performance problems, and technical problems such as stuttering and GPU buffer exhaustion.  Read OriginalContent

Xamarin CEO Nat Freidman believes the mobile industry is moving too fast for HTML5 and Web standards-based development to keep up, and he feels a lot more developers will start to build natively.  An IDC analyst states “We are now in a bit of a disillusionment phase for HTML5 as early adopters push the boundaries of the capabilities and sometimes fail”.  ReadOriginal Content

This article from HTML5 Goodies explores the changes with HTML5 Semantics – HTML5 tags that have been removed and new HTML5 elements.  Read Original Content

Jadu will offer its mobile app publishing platform Weejot.com free to every school, college and university in the U.K. to enable students to improve their programming skills using HTML5 and JavaScript.  Read Original Content

Serdar Yegulalp writes in Information Week’s Byte newsletter that although he “can’t stand” programming in HTML5, he sees it thriving in the long run, because it’s the most widely-recognized starting point. HTML5 “doesn't give the most powerful base to build on, but it provides the lowest barrier to entry, and one of the fastest ways to get something into people's hands”.  Read Original Content

A collection of 10 useful infographics about HTML5 is provided in this article by Jacob Gube in Six Revisions.  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.

Competitive Decision Making and Enterprise Mobility

The late US Air Force Colonel, and great military strategist John Boyd talked a lot in his workshops about "competitive decision-making."  He taught that individuals that could think better and faster than their opponents had a great advantage.  I agree with Boyd, and believe that implementing mobile solutions in the enterprise can facilitate this advantage.

Last year's report by the Aberdeen Group titled Mobility in ERP 2011 also touched on this point with three specific statements:

1. Getting the right information, to the right people, so they can make the right decisions is the driving force behind mobilizing the workforce. 
2. Why is there a need for mobility?  Much of it is related to volatility.  The need to be able to react as quickly as possible to issues without being tethered to a desktop.
3. Mobile solutions should provide workers with information to make good and timely decisions.

Aberdeen Group describes the value of mobile solutions as - it helps you make "right, good and timely decisions, and to react as quickly as possible to issues."  That sounds like competitive decision-making to me.

How do you put these kinds of values into an ROI for enterprise mobility?  Boyd said, "How one thinks is critical to your success in competition.  Well trained and well-educated people, who think well and quickly are the most important assets."  I suggest that mobile solutions and up-to-date information shared on mobile devices can help well-trained people react quickly to issues.

Boyd further taught that competitive decision-making enables the benefit of compressing time and using it as an ally.  What he meant was the ability to get more done in the same amount of time.  "Advantages in observation and orientation (OODA) enable a tempo in decision-making and execution that outpaces the ability of your competition to react effectively."  Advantages in observation and orientation can be providing by having real-time data exchanges, real-time business analytics, and connect mobile apps.

I ask the difficult question again, "How does one show an ROI on enterprise mobility solutions by providing quicker, faster, better thinking?"

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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.

Interesting Infograph on Enterprise Mobility

 I found this image at http://www.industryweek.com/digital-tools/bringing-mobility-enterprise.

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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.

The Changing ROI of Enterprise Mobility

I remember just a few years ago companies would buy a ruggedized mobile handheld computer and then load just one software application on it.  The entire justification and projected ROI for purchasing the $3,000 ruggedized device was derived from just one app.

Times have changed!  Now you can purchase a $299 smartphone and load dozens of apps on it.  Let's think about this for a minute.  What if you had the following mobile apps on your smartphone:

• CRM
• Mobile BI
• Work Order Management
• Scheduling
• Enterprise Asset Management
• Enterprise Content Management
• Time Sheets
• HR
• Turn-by-Turn Navigation
• Knowledge Management
• Collaboration (Yammer, Jive, Chatter, etc)
• Product Catalogs, and Marketing Information
• Sales Orders and Credit Card Processing
• Etc

How would you write an ROI justification?  It is not an efficiency and productivity story alone, rather it is a whole new way of conducting business isn't it?  The ROI is on the business model, not just individual apps and devices.

The debate in boardrooms today should be on the merits of the new "mobile" business model, not only on the ROI of each individual app alone.  The ROI must also consider the opportunity costs of not doing it.  What if your competitors are embracing the new "mobile" business models and you are not.  There is an economic cost to that decision, or lack of a decision as well.

Where does your company stand?  Less than half of enterprises surveyed in the past few months have an enterprise-wide mobility strategy.  If a company is going to embrace mobility, and it has the potential of revolutionizing their business model, then I believe companies should be placing a higher priority on this effort.

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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 16, 2012

I read an article by one of Facebook's developers this morning in which he discussed their challenges with HTML5.  He called for additional browser tools that would help with debugging HTML5 apps and hardware issues, especially in the area of tracking down memory problems.  It seems that Facebook manages so many photos and other media in their news feeds that its HTML5 mobile app was constantly having scrolling problems due to memory and hardware issues which made for a poor user experience and a buggy app.

The Facebook developer still thinks HTML5 mobile apps will ultimately win over native, but after some time and additional features have been added to the standard.

Tylted CEO Lon Otremba feels that the adoption of HTML5 as a development platform will revolutionize how the games industry becomes mobile.  Read Original Content

Since its upgrade to HTML5, ShopNBC has exceeded expectations, with a 7 percent increase in page views and a 77 percent increase in mobile traffic.  Read Original Content

Vertical Solutions, Inc. has launched HTML5-based mobile versions of its customer relationship management and field service software solutions.  Read Original Content

Music streaming site Grooveshark has launched a new HTML5-based site.  CEO Sam Tarantino praises HTML5, stating “Thanks to technologies such as HTML5, we are able to offer our service with much better device compatibility, which will expand our user and revenue base for our partner labels and artists”.  Read Original Content

Despite the setback with Facebook rewriting its iOS app in Objective C, interest in HTML5 is still growing.  Facebook is still a supporter, with a company representative stating “Facebook is not moving away from HTML5, as we use it for our mobile site, which gets more traffic than our native apps”.   Read Original Content

YouTube uses Adobe Flash to display videos; however it is in a trial phase for HTML5 playback for some videos.  Christopher Park explains “How to Enable HTML5 in YouTube”.  Read Original Content

Ketan Anjaria, founder and CEO of app maker CardFlick notes that there are several advantages of HTML5 over native apps, but warns they come at a price.  “It's extremely easy to get updates out to everybody, you're always running the latest version, you can change things at will, you can track and analyze users a lot better. But you don't get performance. You don't get animation, and even though HTML5 says you can build on one platform and run on many, you still have to build for mobile platforms."  Read Original Content

The Open Mobile Summit will be held November 7-9, 2012 in San Francisco, and will explore the key themes of today's mobile industry, including app monetization, HTML5, mobile advertising, cross-platform brands and the cloud.  Read Original Content

A report from French group faberNovel on HTML5 and how to rethink web strategy is embedded as slides in this article from techcrunch.com “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About HTML5* (*But Were Afraid To Ask)”.  Read Original Content

Analysts at Gartner warn that HTML5 still has a long way to go in the enterprise.  “There is visible momentum around HTML5; however, as with most technologies, especially on the Web, interest is occurring primarily outside the enterprise sector--among progressive Web designers and among mobile application developers.”  Read Original Content

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admitted that “the biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 instead of native”, such as Apple’s native Cocoa Touch platform.  Read Original Content

According to ABI Research, 32 percent of the top iOS Apps can be built as HTML5 web apps within 18 months.  “However, in many big-ticket categories, the majority of titles are distinctly native. Games, productivity, utilities, music apps won’t have much to gain from HTML5 anytime soon”, says an ABI senior analyst.  Read Original Content

The HTML5-responsive redesign of The Chicago Tribune search pages brought “significant improvements in user experience for mobile users and sizable increases in visits to these pages”, according to Perfect Market.  Read Original Content

Mozilla has posted a new video that provides a glimpse of the new Firefox OS built using HTML5.  The video is embedded in this article “Get a Sneak Peek at Firefox OS in This New Mozilla Video” in PCWorld.  ReadOriginal 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.