Enterprise Mobility Exchange - Brussels

I have the honor of being able to chair the Enterprise Mobility Exchange conference this week in Brussels.  I took this photo last evening from my hotel window.  I have stayed in worse places.

Here are some of the speakers that I look forward to hearing this week:

• Glenn Morgan, Head of Service Transformation, British Airways
• Divya Mahajan, Director Architect for Enterprise Integration and SOA, Philips International
• Simon Skeet, Retail and Logistics Manager - Groceries Online, Sainsbury's Supermarkets
• Nick Capell, CIO/IT Director, Parcelforce Worldwide
• Jan Kampfer, European Product Marketing Manager, Panasonic Toughbook
• Nicholas McQuire, Research Director, Enterprise Mobility EMEA, IDC Research

I interview a lot of brilliant enterprise mobility experts that work for vendors, but this event is mostly end users sharing their real world experiences.  I expect it to be very interesting.

There are over 40 sponsors here, but some we discuss regularly are SAP, Syclo, ClickSoftware, Sky Technologies, Newelo, Motorola, Panasonic Toughbook, Intermec, Soti, etc.

It is interesting to note that Sybase is not here.  I spoke to an unnamed Sybase person who said they are traditionally at this event, but there is a bit of confusion as to when Sybase should appear, and when SAP should appear at these events right now.  I image this will be worked out soon. 

I will be blogging from Brussels this week.

You can follow this event on Twitter at #emeeu.

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

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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.

Enterprise Mobility Challenges from the Experts

Interview, Interview, Interview

In the past several months I have interviewed 15 mobility experts from Australia, Finland, Germany, Sweden, USA, Canada and the UK. I asked each of these experts what were the biggest challenges they were seeing in the enterprise mobility market. These are their answers:

Kimmo Jarvinsivu, Newelo: Usability and integration. If your end-users are not happy about the mobilization possibility, they are not going to use it. And if you can't integrate (and change integration) easily, your information systems will not be up-to-date and information in those is useless. From the corporate point of view, it is important to take into account the fragmented situation in the mobile device market. Corporates need to use existing mobile devices (both personal and corporate owned), but also be prepared for the future (new devices).

Jack Chawla, SAP: In enterprise mobility, we need to make it easier for developers to write mobile apps without having to worry about enterprise security, scalability, data sync, device support, etc. Enterprise developers should be able to write apps as easily as consumer app developers.

Malachy Martin, AMT-Sybex: We all have a 9:00 am to 5:00 pm day job, but what about our 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm personal life? For example, one of the most popular mobile apps in the UK last year was called, Tube Exits. It is a simple but brilliant mobile application that lists all London Underground stations and lines, and tells you which carriage you need to sit in to be able to get off right at the exit. This application offers value to people wanting to get home quickly after work. Consumer driven mobile application like Tube Exits will influence user expectations for enterprise mobility applications. Also, companies must figure out how to accommodate personal liable devices.

Puneet Suppal, SAP: Lack of governance. All the technology is there, but companies need to manage it. I define governance as a comprehensive approach that makes sure the appropriate level of security is implemented, device management, data management, etc. Many companies still must understand the importance of mobile device management. It cannot be over emphasized. The same mobile device (smartphone) often holds both important corporate data and personal data. That means confidential enterprise data is on personal devices. How is that going to be managed? Much of the work people do every day is now on their mobile devices.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Newelo's Kimmo Jarvensivu

Newelo's Kimmo Jarvensivu

One of the things that has been missing from my Mobile Expert Interview Series is the European view on enterprise mobility, so this week you will see a number of interviews from mobile experts from that side of the pond.

Today, we are interviewing Kimmo Jarvensivu who is the VP of Sales and Business Development for mobile platform vendor Newelo which is located in Finland. Newelo is a spin-off from Nokia currently with ten direct employees and part of the R&D is subcontracted. He is also a big fan of anything Finnish including Angry Birds!

First, some background on Kimmo.  He worked as a GIS consultant in the 90s, and in 1996 moved to Nokia Networks for Operation Support Systems.  Later, he moved into Nokia's Managed Services area which was responsible for GSM network operations and Field Force Management around the world. 

Note:  I interviewed Kimmo using Skype.  He also sent me written responses to many of my questions.  I combined my notes with his answers for this article.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?

Kimmo: Currently I have with me Nokia N900, N8 and E72. N900 is my personal phone, others are for testing purposes. On my desk, I have iPhone and Android ZTE Blade and Archos 7o Internet tablet. It is good to compare different mobile devices and gain end-user experience. In our business area, the most important factors are end-user experience and integration to backoffice system, so it is good to have "hands-on" experience on those applications and devices.