Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Bryan Whitmarsh

Boise, Idaho

This morning I was able to catch up with SAP Mentor Bryan Whitmarsh for an interview.  I conducted a video interview with Bryan last year at Sapphire which you can watch here.  Bryan works for Sybase's product management team and reports to Tony Kueh, who I interviewed last week.  Bryan lives in Boise, Idaho (also my fair city), which he has called home since 1992, when he moved here from the Seattle area.

Note:  These are not Bryan's exact words, rather my notes from our interview.

Kevin: What is your role and area of responsibility at Sybase?
Bryan: My title is Mobility Product Management.  Last year I was focused on mobile email, but this year I am working with the platform team on SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform).  It is my job to interpret the market, meet with customers, communicate the road map, both internally and externally, define product requirements and help marketing communicate information about the products.



Syclo and the SAP Unwired Platform

I listened to the pre-recorded SAP/Syclo webinar Mobility for Utilities Webcast today.  At the end of the webcast there was a question and answer segment.  The first question asked if Syclo was going to support SAP's SUP (SAP/Sybase Unwired Platform).  First, Dan Mahowald, Vice President, North America Enterprise Mobility, SAP Americas answered.  He said, "I am encouraged by discussions with the Syclo R&D team. This is a new area that both parties are exploring. Syclo says they intend to support SUP.  SAP utility customers want many mobile applications, so SAP wants to help by providing them with a mobility platform (SUP) that can support them."

My interpretation of Dan's last sentence is that Syclo's mobile infrastructure is Syclo specific.  SAP utility customers may want mobile applications from a vareity of different mobile vendors, so a mobile infrastructure platform that is not specific to one vendor may be better.

Next, Syclo's Senior VP SAP Business Development Jon Schmidt added, "It is our intent to support the SUP strategy and architecture. It adds great value. It is our intent to migrate our existing solutions to SUP. We are working very closely with SAP on this."

Mobility Vendor Strategies for Supporting SAP's Unwired Platform

SAP Unwired Platform

I read a whitepaper today, ClickSoftware's Mobility Suite and the Sybase Mobility Solutions that details how ClickSoftware intends to support SAP's mobility strategy and the reasons for doing so. 

I get a lot of questions from systems integrators about how the various SAP mobility partners will be supporting SUP and SAP's mobility strategy, so this is a timely whitepaper from one vendor that does a good job of explaining their strategy.

Related links:

• Sybase's Shawn McEwen
• ClickSoftware's Nigel Clark

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:
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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

SAP Influencer Summit 2010 Report on Enterprise Mobility

SAP Mentors John Appleby
and Jon Reed

Last week I attended the SAP Influencer Summit in Santa Clara, California.  About 220 people were in attendance at the Santa Clara Marriott on Mission College Blvd.  The purpose of the summit was for SAP to provide an update to industry analysts, bloggers and other people with loud voices in the market place, on the progress they have made on the goals that were shared earlier in the year.  A consolidated view of my real time tweets from the event last week can be found in a blog article here.

This is a long article, so if you have limited time here is the executive overview.  At TechEd in October 2010 SAP was not prepared to talk about any roadmaps or details on the integration of SAP and Sybase.  However, at the SAP Influencer Summit 2010, they brought the right people that were prepared to answer detailed questions.  I was impressed that smart people are in charge and taking SAP enterprise mobility in the right direction.  That direction should result in product releases by Sapphire 2011 (May 2011).

What Happens When the Novelty of Enterprise Mobility Wears Off?

What happens when wireless connectivity and mobile applications are no longer a novelty?  What will enterprise mobility companies talk about?  Already SAP's acquisition of Sybase has made the discussion of MEAPs (mobile enterprise application platforms) passé.   Enterprise mobility vendors will announce their support for leading MEAPs, much like announcing their support for various OSs, and the discussion will move on to more interesting topics.

What is the value that enterprise mobility vendors will bring to the market in 2011?  I propose that the value will come in the following areas: