Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

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.

Will Microsoft’s Mango Shake Enterprise Mobility, Part 2?

In the upcoming Mango version of Microsoft’s Smartphone operating system it is reported that they will add 500 new features. As mentioned in Part 1 of this article one of the key feature updates is designed to blur the difference between search and applications.

Andrew Lees, president of the mobile communications business at Microsoft says about today’s mobile applications, “The user has to go app by app by app. It’s as if every time you wanted to go from the living room to the dining room, you had to go through the front door.”

Mango will link specific data points on your smartphone to enhance the user experience. Here are some of the linked data:

Location data
Information about a subject
Shopping options

The data will be presented to the user as “related views.” In the article I was reading (I somehow ripped the article out of the newspaper without the newspaper’s name, sorry!), it described looking up a new movie. The first screen showed theater locations and scheduled viewings, the second screen had reviews and the third included purchase options.

This is a great step toward “predicting” what the user wants instead of everything being manual. Although in early versions this may seem too annoying to those more advanced needs, enterprise users may find these developments will introduce many new efficiencies to the mobile workforce with defined needs.

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
Exclusive SAP Mentor and Blogger Briefing: Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise: The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Redstone Arsenal's (DOD/Chugach) 3 Maintenance Challenges Solved by Mobil

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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.

Will Microsoft’s Mango Shake Enterprise Mobility, Part 1?

I read this week about Microsoft’s newly announced Smartphone operating system code named Mango. They reported that it would have over 500 new features. This is impressive since Windows Phone 7 has just been out for seven months. Since I focus on “enterprise” mobility, let’s dig into some of the features that may be relevant.

The strategy and tactics that Microsoft is developing in this next version are intended to enable it to compete against Apple and Google. It involves blurring the lines between search and applications. I found this particularly interesting, because it is my analysis that this is a critical next step in the evolution of mobile software. A busy person does not want to search for and open 13 different mobile applications to find all of the information they may need for one account, task or project. It needs to be aggregated into one role based view or application.

I use the phrases “context aware” and “predictive” to push this concept even further by advocating that business intelligence software that is aware of who you are, what you are doing and where you are located should be able to predict your need for specific information even before you ask for it. Your mobile software should automatically prepare a portfolio of information even before it is needed. This further reduces the need to wait for reports and data as it will be available in anticipation of your need.

Read Part 2 of this article.

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
Exclusive SAP Mentor and Blogger Briefing: Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise: The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Redstone Arsenal's (DOD/Chugach) 3 Maintenance Challenges Solved by Mobile

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

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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.

The Importance of Mobile EAM and M2M

Wireless Remote Sensors

In a session I attended on enterprise mobility a few weeks ago the speaker said that he divides mobility into three parts; 1) Extending mobility to internal employees, 2) Extending mobility to external customers, and 3) mobile EAM (enterprise asset management). What do you think of those categories?

SAP announced their first three mobility applications that will be released in the next 5 weeks and one of them is mobile EAM that integrates with SAP. They prioritized EAM, and then met with their co-innovation partner Syclo to ensure them that they were making a simple/basic EAM application and not competing in a significant way with the complex, industry specific mobile EAM applications that Syclo has invested in over the past decade. At the same time Syclo is now embracing SUP as their platform for SAP customers.

In the mobility ecosystem SAP had three early co-innovation partners; RIM, Sybase and Syclo. One of their co-innovation partners was a specialist in EAM. Again, SAP prioritized mobile EAM.

Jim Snabe, Co-CEO of SAP mentioned sensors many times in his presentations during SAPPHIRENOW 2011. Remote and wireless sensors are used primarily to monitor, track and manage enterprise assets. High value assets of all kinds are now including wireless embedded sensors. I spoke with the IT team at Whirlpool appliances last year about this subject and they have an entire product line of appliances that are "smart" and communicate with wireless sensors.

The military (download and read this whitepaper) and the healthcare industry are embracing M2M as fast as they can fund and implement it. What is your organization doing to take advantage of EAM solutions and M2M?

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Networked Field Services

Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
Exclusive SAP Mentor and Blogger Briefing: Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise: The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Redstone Arsenal's (DOD/Chugach) 3 Maintenance Challenges Solved by Mobile

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

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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.

SAP ECM Partner Open Text Adds Mobility

Did anyone else miss this recent press release from SAP ECM (enterprise content management) partner Open Text? They are investing in mobility, even though they are a company primarily focused on ECM. I tried my very best to meet up with Patrick Barnert at Open Text but we kept missing each other at SAPPHIRENOW 2011.

Here are some of their current mobility solutions:

Open Text focuses on on ECM. Content is needed on mobile devices. They also have document management systems. Documents need to be accessed by mobile devices. They are the developers of the SAP Vendor Invoice Management solution. This is basically a transactional content management system. A solution for monitoring and tracking the progress of a transaction or document. It works with the SAP workflow and workflows need approvals, alerts and notifications.

You can see from the above information that mobility and mobile solutions will impact just about every aspect of the enterprise and enterprise solutions.

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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.

M2M News Weekly - Week of May 30, 2011 **Special Edition

This is a special edition of the M2M News Weekly. In this edition I have collected the best market and trend numbers from the past few months and aggregated them into one edition. You can save this edition and use these numbers in your own business plans and presentations.

Enterprise Mobility Application Predictions

In recent years the focus of enterprise mobility has been on device support, UX and the novelty of spinning wheels, swiping screens and supporting various keyboard designs in mobile UIs. I believe the novelty of this will soon wear off with the introduction of more standards, policies, HTML5, etc, and the focus will again turn to developing increasingly valuable mobile applications that are user-specific.

One of the Mobility Experts that I interviewed earlier this year advised that mobile application designers should NOT start from the perspective of what can an ERP extend to the mobile workforce, but rather what can mobile technologies offer the mobile workforce. What does the mobile workforce need, in the field, to more effectively deliver on their mission/assignment?

If the mobile workforce is the center of the universe, rather than the ERP, then there will be different priorities. The mobile workforce may need mobile applications that are not part of the ERP, and are a mash-up of various web services that together provide unique benefit for the mobile worker and the company. Here is a scenario to consider:

A field services technician needs to order parts and have these parts delivered before repairs can be completed on a piece of equipment. What would be useful information for this mobile field service technician?

Which vendor has these parts in stock?What are the prices? How can you get approval to order?
When can the parts be delivered?
How can these parts be purchased?
Is there a customer account number to use?
Do we have a discount plan with the vendor?
Who in the company is certified to install the parts?
Who is available to install the parts when they arrive?
Who will notify the customer when the repair will be complete?

The answers to the above questions would be very useful to the field services technician. There are many scenarios like this that would benefit the mobile workforce, but are often overlooked by those inside the four walls of the enterprise.

What do you think?

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict