Exploring the Future with Kevin Benedict

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.

Mobility Charts Weekly - Week of July 4, 2011

In the course of my daily research on subjects related to enterprise mobility I find charts that depict the current and future status of the market. It occurred to me that these charts may also be useful to others, so I am going to collect these charts, include links to the original source, and then publish them in a new weekly blog article called Mobile Charts Weekly. I hope you find this useful.

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The worldwide number of smartphones with near field communication (NFC) capability is set to increase steadily over the next few years. This growth is largely due to the participation in mobile payments development by Nokia and Google. By 2014 there will be 220.1 million smartphones shipped with NFC capability, representing 14 percent of the total cell phone shipments. View Original Content

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Mobile banking activity is expected to increase dramatically over the next few years, resulting from increased emphasis on bank survival. Since the beginning of the recent economic downturn, banks have shifted their focus from growth to survival that has led bankers to invest more in technology and remote banking access . This FSOkx forecast predicts there to be 900 million mobile banking users by 2014. View Original Content

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A comScore study focusing on the first three months of 2011 has shown that Google is steadily increasing its market share over Apple. As of March, 2011 Google, with its vast range of Androids, controlled 34 percent of the smartphone market while Apple controls 25.5 percent. During the first three months Google gained 5 percent while Apple was only able to manage a 0.5 percent growth. View Original Content

Upcoming Events

ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011
Mobile Case Study: Healthrageous Accelerates Time to Market through Mobile Development Strategy, July 13, 2011
Critical Requirements for Mobile App Development: Agility and Speed Strategy, Process, and Tools to Accelerate Mobile Development, July 21, 2011

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

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
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
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Read The M2M News Monthly

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.

Mobility News Weekly - Week of July 4, 2011

The Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read M2M News Weekly

Apple is turning more aggressive in placing orders for its iPad 2 and is set to ship 12 to 14 million units this quarter, up from 7 to 9 million units in the second quarter. Read Original Content

According to The Nielson Company, Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, the Apple iPhone has shown the most growth in recent months. Read Original Content

According to reports released this month by comScore, if you factor in all of the devices that use iOS including iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch, Apple reached 37.9 million people. Android reached 23.8 million on phones and tablets. That’s a 59 percent lead for iOS over Android. Read Original Content

Research firm IDC forecasts the number of annual mobile app downloads will increase from 10.7 billion in 2010 to nearly 183 billion by 2015. This is notably more than the 44 billion mobile app downloads by 2016 forecasted by its competitor ABI Research. Read Original Content

Carriers are now activating more than 500,000 new Android devices every day, according to Google Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin. Read Original Content

Discussions About Sybase's Embedded Mobile Database Business, Part 1

SQL Anywhere

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tom Slee at Sybase. Tom works out of the Sybase office in Waterloo, Ontario. We have known of each other professionally for many years, as I was the CEO of a mobile application company that partnered with Sybase. Yesterday we discussed many different subjects including, HTML5, SQL Anywhere, SQL Lite, SUP, mobile application development strategies, data synchronization and the most interesting developments in the embedded mobile database areas at Sybase.

Tom had commented on an article I wrote several weeks back questioning the role of embedded mobile databases in a future with HTML5 and SQL Lite. He had corrected me by saying SQL Lite is very often used with HTML5, but that it was not an "official" part of the HTML5 standard. I stand corrected. However, yesterday he added that SQL Lite is an unofficial part of HTML5 for many developers.

My questions several weeks ago were directed at learning if developers would continue to need and to purchase Sybase's SQL Anywhere embedded mobile databases (RDBMS) if there was a free option that works with HTML5 called SQL Lite. Tom provided me with a much greater understanding of this issue which I will share to the best of my abilities.

SQL Lite working with HTML5 enables developers to store data on mobile devices. This is very useful when developers want to save data entered into a mobile application, record the state of a mobile application, or record where the user is in an application. Developers can also store product catalogs and all kinds of other data in this database. It is a very good solution when there is no need, or limited need to synchronize the mobile application data back to an enteprise database.

The Mobile Marketing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile marketing that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Weekly

Oracle is claiming $2.6 billion in patent and copyright infringement damages related to its ongoing intellectual property skirmish with Google over the Android mobile operating system. Read Original Content.

Total consumer and advertiser money spent on location-based services could make the sector a $10 billion industry by 2016, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. Read Original Content.

A recent study by Nielsen has found that during the past three months smartphones outsold traditional cell phones for the first time ever. Read Original Content.

According to BIA/Kelsey, total U.S. mobile ad spending will grow from $790 million in 2010 to $4 billion in 2015. Read Original Content.

According to a Gartner report, global mobile advertisement spending is projected to double in 2011 to $3.3 billion due a more favorable market and by 2015 it could reach $20.6 billion. Read Original Content.

Within the past three years over 4.5 billion apps have been downloaded to Android smartphones. Read Original Content.

Real Estate Companies and Enterprise Mobility

I read today that the Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc., was a recipient of a Digie Award at the Realcomm 2011 tradeshow last week. The award recognizes Inland’s achievements in mobilizing business data and property management information. Never heard of the Digie Award? Me neither, but it honors companies, projects and solutions that represent the most innovative use of technology and automation in commercial and corporate real estate.

Their enterprise mobility solution is said to enhance the productivity of property managers, maintenance supervisors and leasing agents. What was the problem? They were using JD Edwards ERP system and custom built SQL data warehouses in the office, but they printed expensive and out-of-date paper reports to use in the field.

The mobile solution they chose was from Webalo. Now, once on site, employees can use a mobile solution on their smartphones to check the current status of rent receivables, review upcoming lease expiration's, check on outstanding work orders for repairs and improvements, look up and contact approved vendors, access staff and tenant phone numbers and review the history and status of onsite safety equipment. Those are a lot of different business processes that are all supported in one solution.

The article said the Webalo solution connected the existing enterprise with the most current data to the employees’ smartphones without creating mobile apps, and without incurring the expense of traditional mobile development. Without creating mobile apps? Hummm....how do they do it? Here is what their website says, "The Webalo Client automatically generates an interface that’s compatible with the user's device to provide interaction with enterprise applications."

Inland’s John Bedlek said, “In the current difficult economic climate, we were able to quickly and economically provide better service to tenants, more information to property managers and leasing agents and most importantly, greater value to investors.”

I find this model very interesting. You configure your interface to the back end systems in a cloud-based configuration tool, and then the user interface is generated for your mobile device, and you have access to your data. They claim simple mobile projects can be done in hours or days if you have the right business analyst available to help you access and find the right data. Interesting indeed!

You can read the full press release here.

Upcoming Events

ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

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

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
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
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

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.

Mobile Commerce News Weekly - Week of July 4, 2011

The Mobile Commerce News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

Verifone has announced that it now offers a device that turns a tablet into a form of checkout register. The device has both a magnetic device for swiping credit cards as well as NFC capability for mobile payments. Read Original Content.

Despite being unprofitable, Square, the manufacturer of the small credit card reader that attaches to smartphones, is valued at $1.6 billion. Read Original Content.

Asia continues to contain the largest number of mobile phone users who make mobile payments. Currently there are 1.8 billion worldwide mobile phone users who make purchases via a mobile device. By 2015 the Wireless Federation expects there to be 2.5 billion. Read Original Content.

PayPal president Scott Thompson has said that by 2015 paper currency in the United States will nearly become obsolete as the popularity of mobile payments continues to rise. Read Original Content.

Analyst firm Juniper Research has revealed figures predicting that by 2015, the number of people using mobile payment services will have risen by 40 percent to 2.5 billion. Read Original Content.

MasterCard and CSI Enterprises are expected to release a handful of new mobile payments applications for Android, BlackBerry and iOS this summer, but it's unclear whether or not the apps will employ NFC for payment transactions or another technology. Read Original Content.

Social Networking and Enterprise Mobility in Less Developed Regions

I am still pondering a conversation I had last week with a manufacturing company that has 40,000 of their 80,000 employees in remote parts of the world that are not connected to the company through IT resources. They have no computers or Internet connectivity through the company. The company wants to connect with these disconnected employees. They are convinced that there is business value in connecting with them. They see mobility as a key part of their solution. Perhaps not smartphone and laptop apps kind of connectivity, but SMS.

The company believes mobility and social networking for the enterprise are the keys to improved sales, customer services, accountability, community, process improvement and information sharing.

I think the reason this is so interesting to me is that the company sees social networking via SMS as a key element to their strategy. They want groups sharing information. They want to explore all kinds of different SMS based applications that can support different business processes on simple inexpensive phones.

I understand that Sybase 365 is a Sybase solution for SMS. I really need to learn more to see if it can be used to help companies like the one mentioned above. I also need to understand if StreamWorks has an SMS component that can add value here.

What do you think?

Upcoming Events

ClickConnect APAC 2011, (Sydney, Australia) July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

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

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
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
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

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.

Recruitment and Enterprise Mobility

I was surprised this past month, while participating in the SAP PCN Enterprise Mobility round tables at SAPPHIRENOW 2011, to hear from a number of very large SAP customers that recruiting is impacted by how much enterprise mobility is supported by a company. I had just not connected the dots.

They said young talent just graduating from the university does not want to work for a company that is not able to support their favorite mobile devices. Being told that a company will not support integration on their iPhone or iPad just does not seem right to them. It seems old fashion and out of step with the times.

I had not thought of recruiting as a motivator for enterprise mobility. I had not thought of mobility ROIs in terms of being able to recruit top talent. After thinking about it though it makes sense to me. My wife already looks unfavorably on companies that don't have a mobile app. She feels they are not providing good customer service if they don't have an application.

Here is an example, we accumulate Marriott hotel award points. My wife wanted a Marriott mobile app to check on awards points and to make reservations. We could find no mobile app. She was baffled that Marriott would not support a mobile application and thought it was a poor representation of their business for not having one.

In our house, Amazon.com's mobile application is used weekly to purchase household items and books. Our purchases have gone up dramatically as a result of Amazon's mobile app. We participate in Amazon.com's free shipping program and we know our FedEx and UPS drivers well.

Getting back on the subject of recruitment and mobile applications. People are spending more time on mobile devices today than desktops. People are spending more time on social networking applications on mobile devices than on desktops. The mobile device is much more than just a business tool today. It is a portal into a person's life. People will not look favorably on a company that does not support this portal in the manner their accustomed to.

Do you agree or disagree?

Upcoming Events

ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

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

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
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
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

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

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict