Redbox, M2M and Mobile SAP Micro-Apps

M2M is not only a cool acronym, kind of James Bond like, but a very interesting category in the wireless industry.  M2M in this context means machine-to-machine wireless connectivity.  A few other terms that describe this category are "the Internet of Objects" or the "Internet of Things."  All of these terms relate to machines that can talk or exchange data with other machines via wireless connectivity.

One strange example that I wrote about a few months ago was a bathroom scale that would wirelessly tweet your body weight to your Twitter list every time you weighed yourself.  The scale, a machine, was collecting data and sending it automatically via a wireless connection to another machine (server).

A recent example that I found particularly interesting was Redbox.  These are the DVD rental kiosks that we see everywhere now days. Did you know that Redbox machines are M2M enabled?  You can go to the Redbox website, find a kiosk near you that has a movie you want and reserve it online.  You can also use their micro-app for iPhones to find a movie in a kiosk near you and rent it.

A quick digression - look for a large number of new mobile micro-apps to be announced at SAP's Sapphire event in May.  Companies like Vivido Labs and Sky Technologies, and many others, will be releasing many new mobile micro-apps for iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android and other OSs.  These are typically small, one purpose or business process, mobile apps that are integrated with SAP.

Here in Boise, Idaho there is a local success story involving M2M with a company called Telemetric.  Here is their description:  Telemetric provides wireless remote monitoring and control of equipment and machinery using cellular networks.  We provide solutions that enable electric, water and gas utilities and their customers to measure, monitor and control usage of valuable resources.  Our solutions improve system efficiency, asset management, speed up responses to service interruptions and equipment problems, and automate reporting functions resulting in lower operating costs and more reliable service.

Telemetric develops monitoring equipment that measures and reports wirelessly to other machines.  Managers can watch dashboards and see the measurements from remote equipment.

The bottom line is that field data collection does not always require a person with a ruggedized handheld computer to be traveling around collecting data. High value assets and equipment can be set-up with monitoring devices that report their status to other machines and servers that can be programmed to do certain things based upon the data coming in.  I am now writing a new analyst report on M2M to be released in June 2010.

Related articles:

• M2M, Route Optimization, Handhelds and Business Intelligence
• Mobile Applications and Mobile Data Services
• Fire Control Panels, M2M, Mobile Solutions & Australia

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Kevin Benedict
Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant, Mobile Industry Analyst and Web 2.0 Marketing Expert
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: http://twitter.com/krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/

***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 3

Mobile micro-apps seem to be the hot topic now days at SAP. These are small mobile applications for iPhones, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile. These applications can be limited and provide access to one part of one SAP application and business process, or expose an entire business process. For example, travel requests and expense report approvals can be part of a business process that is exposed in a mobile micro-apps.

In the case of an Expense Report approval, a manager can be alerted to an expense report that needs approved before it can be paid. The manager can access the report through the micro-app on his/her iPhone, review it and approve or reject it. There is not much to these applications, but they are novel today and will continue to evolve into more powerful mobile applications.

SAP has some big ambitions about adding mobile users to their systems. They are encouraging these kind of mobile micro-applications to extend functionality to more users. They would even like to see ways that consumers (i.e. the masses) could access appropriate and relevant business processes within SAP systems -think tracking shipments, ordering products, checking University schedules, interacting with financial services companies, etc, on mobile devices.

Here are a few of the challenges with mobile micro-applications that should be considered:

• How do you manage mobile micro-apps in a large enterprise?
• Since mobile micro-apps can be developed for just about any part of any SAP business process there could quickly be dozens or even hundreds of mobile micro-apps springing up.
• Does the enterprise open the doors to supporting all popular mobile devices, or does the enterprise try to standardize so micro-apps can be easier for IT to manage?
• Many mobile micro-app vendors are considering SaaS business models. This means mobile micro-app users could be expensing these costs, rather than running them through a formal budget process. Is that a problem? Who approves it?
• What criteria is the IT department of a large enterprise going to use in order to select quality mobile micro-app vendors? By their nature mobile micro-apps can be developed by very small software development companies without a lot of experience or infrastructure.
• Some vendors of mobile micro-apps provide application development environments that enable non-programmers to develop mobile micro-apps. This is very cool, but now you have the potential of business users importing and exporting data from SAP database systems. Some DBAs would have a problem with that.
• I can see the scenario where an SAP user downloads and installs 5 different mobile micro-apps onto their device. If these micro-apps were from different vendors, there could be 5 different GUIs, different mobile middleware involved, different security systems, different integration methodologies, etc.

I love the idea of mobile micro-apps that provide the mobile workforce with access to appropriate SAP business processes for the purpose of working more efficiently. The point of this article is not to deter mobile micro-app vendors or enterprises from implementing them, but simply to suggest there are a few things that should be considered.

One strategy is to use a MEAP, mobile enterprise application platform. MEAPs provide a framework for managing many different mobile applications using a standardized methodology, using standardized development environments, standardized security, standardized synchronization methodologies, standardized integration processes and leveraging application code across multiple mobile devices. An example of a MEAP is Sky Technologies.

This article is part of a series entitled Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP. Part 1 and 2 of this series can be found at the links below:

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 1

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 2

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 4
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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: http://twitter.com/krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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