Observations from the Enterprise Mobility Exchange in Rotterdam

Rotterdam
I enjoy the enterprise mobility exchange events.  This is my third time being the chairman at these events, and I keep coming back because I learn a great deal.  It is an event dominated by end users, rather than vendors.  I have nothing against vendors, as they sponsor the events and lead some sessions, but the event is organized to give end users an opportunity to discuss their needs, network and learn from other end users and their experiences.

In addition to the keynote presentations, there are case studies, think tanks and a CIO session.  The CIO session was very interesting.  CIOs bring a list of topics important to them and submit this list to the other CIOs for discussion.  The subjects are all related to enterprise mobility in the real world and addressing the challenges that come along with it.  I learned.

I saw several celebrity sightings yesterday including Nicholas McQuire, Research Director, IDC Research and Daniel Faulk, SAP Mobility Product Manager.

Today we hear from Coco Cola Bottling Company, IDC Research, National Grid, TNT Express, Philips Healthcare, EPAL, R. Hoffmann-La Roche and many others.

I also saw booths from mobility vendors Syclo, SAP, Antenna, ClickSoftware, Verivo and many others here.  You can follow events on the Twitter feed #emeeu.

I learned that many of the companies here struggle with change management and different cultures around the world.  It appears that in many places around the world service engineers are not happy with change, process improvement or accountability.  In fact, in many cases there is an ongoing battle between management wanting to optimize their operations and processes, and service technicians that want no such thing.  I heard from three different organizations yesterdaythat are constantly dealing with a workforce that tries to sabotage field force automation and mobility projects.  Wow!  Those are challenges that go way beyond an enterprise mobility discussion.  Those are political, cultural, legal, ethical and societal.  Yikes!  I will stick with the HTML5 vs. Native, Buy vs. Build, MDM, MEAP, MADP and other acronym discussions.

Join me on this webinar!
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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Kevin Benedict's Video Comments: Velocity in Field Services

Last week I was speaking and teaching sessions on mobile strategy in Barcelona.  I took the opportunity before the conference started to record a video comment on the concept of "Field Service Velocity."  I hope you find this useful.



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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly – Week of May 20, 2012

The Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to field mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

By leveraging GIS technology to automate the collection of field data, Intermountain Gas Company obtained a 20 percent improvement in the efficiency of field survey crews.  Read Original Content

KORE and ILS Technology have formed a partnership to accelerate M2M deployments across enterprise organizations.  The goal is to enable organizations to access, view and analyze M2M data on existing enterprise IT systems.  Read Original Content

To aid developers in selecting the appropriate cellular and connectivity hardware for their M2M devices, Qualcomm has created a searchable database, M2MSearch.com.  Read Original Content

Since 1995, Syclo has enabled hundreds of companies in 37 countries and industries supercharge their businesses with mobility.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Syclo. http://www.syclo.com/.

SkyWave Mobile Communications has introduced a new series of M2M terminals with dual mode satellite-cellular capability.  The IDP-780 is designed for land mobile applications and offers an extended satellite payload and dual SIM capability.  Read Original Content


Research and Markets has released the “2011 RFID Brand Report,” ranking the best-known and most respected companies in the RFID market overall based on a survey of 500 RFID journal readers.  Read Original Content

After implementing an automated field workflow using tablet devices, the Norris Public Power District in Nebraska has seen up to a 75 percent time savings.  Read Original Content

Kevin Benedict's Video Comments: Mobilized Objects

In this short video I discuss the concept of mobilized objects.  You can mobilize much more than just a workforce, and it is important to recognize how mobilizing many different objects can benefit your enterprise.




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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly – Week of May 20, 2012

Welcome to the Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility in Asia.  Asia is predicted to be the fastest area of growth for enterprise mobility between now and 2016.

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

Shares in Sony Corp slumped more than 7 percent to near 32-year lows, as investors doubted the Japanese consumer electronics giant has a strategy to compete in the smartphone market against Apple and Samsung Electronics.  Read Original Content

Forty percent or 838.7 million employees in Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, will be mobile workers by 2015, according to a report by the International Data Corporation.  Read Original Content

Baidu Inc., China's largest search engine, will launch a cheap smartphone with Foxconn Technology Group, Sichuan Changhong Electric Co and China Unicom, marking the company's entrance into the mass smartphone market.  Read Original Content

Antenna Software provides a complete cloud-based enterprise mobility suite that enables both IT pros and business executives alike to create and manage mobile apps, websites and content across the entire business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Antenna Software www.antennasoftware.com

Chinese browser maker UC plans to take advantage of the growing mobile web market in India, investing $5 million to develop its presence there, with the goal of increasing its user base in India to 100 million by 2015.  Read Original Content


Apple’s iPhone was the most purchased smartphone in Japan in 2011, with sales of 7.26 million or 17 percent of the overall mobile phone sales in the country.  Read Original Content

Taiwan’s MediaTek has formed a partnership with mobile gaming firm Gameloft to develop games that will run on MediaTek’s mobile phone platforms.  Read Original Content

Mobile Health News Weekly – Week of May 13, 2012

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

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

Telit Wireless Solutions and CardioNet have partnered to provide a method to capture and transmit cardiac data while the patient is fully ambulatory, helping doctors manage heart health. Read Original Content

A new mHealth study from GlobalData says that the market is set to explode, thanks in large part to public and private investors who have helped to move healthcare technology to the next level. Read Original Content

Adding to a stable of mobile health tools that includes an Android app and a mobile-optimized website, Kaiser Permanente executives have announced the launch of an iOS health management app, available free of charge in the Apple iTunes store. Read Original Content

Webalo technology eliminates the need for traditional mobile application development tools and custom programming to provide in hours, instead of weeks or months, mobile access to the specific enterprise data and functions that smartphone and tablet users rely on to do their jobs.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Webalo, www.webalo.com.

By the end of this year, the planet Earth will have more mobile devices than people, one of several factors driving telecommunications companies to make a big bet on wireless health, according to a telecom executive. Read Original Content

Physician use of tablet computers has nearly doubled since 2011, according to a new report by Manhattan Research. Read Original Content


Scott Wilson, who leads technology, media and telecommunications research for Deloitte Research, believes mHealth is the next frontier for mobile service growth. Read Original Content

Kevin Benedict's Video Comments: Managing Real Time Mobile Data

In this segment of Kevin Benedict's Video Comments, I discuss the challenges of managing vast quantities of real time mobile data.  How do you make sense of it, and use real time mobile data to make better decisions?


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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Large Enterprises Will Need Many Mobile Applications

On May 30th at 12 PM EDST, I will be joining Mr. Girish Somashekar, Vice President of Pepsi Bottling Ventures and Unvired Co-Founder Dilip Sridhar on a webinar (please join us!) to discuss enterprise mobility, mobile strategies, and Pepsi Bottling Venture's journey from mobile strategy to execution. 

We will also be reviewing the survey responses of 602 companies in SAPInsider's Mobile Outlook 2012 report that I co-wrote to learn about the many different kinds of mobile applications companies say they need and plan to support in the near term.

I am looking forward to this webinar and learning more about Pepsi Bottling Venture's strategy and sharing from the report.  I hope you can join us!

Register here!

P.S. Did you see the CIO.com article on SAP Mobility?

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Mobility News Weekly – Week of May 13, 2012

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 Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly

App stores for consumers have worked for Apple, Google and others, but the jury is still out on the business market simply because this market is just getting started. Business software maker ClickSoftware Technologies is one of the first to jump in. It launched its mobile app store April 17. Read Original Content

As smartphone ownership rises, almost three-quarters of smartphone owners use their phone to get real-time location-based information, and almost one in five use a geosocial service like Foursquare.  Read Original Content

With over 140 million active users worldwide, Twitter has revealed that out of the 10 million active users based in the UK, 80 percent of them access the site through mobile phones. This is significantly higher than the global average of 55 percent.  Read Original Content

ClickSoftware is an SAP mobility partner and the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimization solutions for every size of service business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by ClickSoftware - http://www.clicksoftware.com/.

Forrester Research says apps generated in 2011 from purchases and ads had revenue of $6 billion. Forrester expects app revenues to double this year, to $12 billion—an incredible figure for a market not yet four years old.  Read Original Content


Samsung produced approximately 40 percent of the Android-based smartphones sold during the first quarter, according to new stats from Gartner. No other vendor nabbed more than 10 percent of the global market.  Read Original Content

What's New in HTML5 - Week of May 14, 2012

This week I have been teaching sessions on mobile strategies in Barcelona at the ClickConnect 2012 conference.  I have been hearing a lot about HTML5, which is what the ClickMobile Professional solution supports, but I have also been talking with a lot of large services companies that have stressed how they also want to embrace HTML5 in their companies.  Primarily for the cross-platform support and lower TCO (total cost of ownership).

Now for the news...

LinkedIn has launched their iPad app, a hybrid app of which 95 percent is HTML5-based mobile web technology.  Read original content

To avoid the security threats faced with Flash (Flash Player-related vulnerabilities accounted for 14% of all the Web app vulnerabilities discovered by WhiteHat Security), HTML5 developers need to take the time to learn how to use its HTML5's many features securely.  Read original content

One of the great advancements with HTML5 is that it allows websites to function like mobile apps by offering design capability that is mobile friendly.  This article provides five reasons why HTML5 rocks for mobile.  Read original content

Appcelerator’s Titanium Integrated Mobile Platform provides the ability for developers to create cross-platform native mobile, hybrid and HTML5 web apps, and has been awarded the Edison Award for Innovation.  Read original content

Microsoft has made the Metro style theme available for jQuery Mobile, allowing HTML5-based mobile applications running on the Windows Phone 7.5 OS to use the Metro style.  Read original content

Online travel and expense management company Certify has launched a new HTML5 mobile application for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 devices.  Read original content

Synacor has announced the acquisition of HTML5 platform Carbyn to offer customers a platform where subscribers can enjoy a variety of content and HTML5 applications seamlessly by signing into their account on any device regardless of operating system or browser.  Read original content

Satirical iPad magazine Blackline showcases HTML5 in clever and humorous ways, demonstrating how “HTML5 is a wonderful creative outlet”.  Read original content

With 12 percent of its new subscriptions on mobile devices, The Financial Times is dumping native mobile OS support and completing its move to HTML5.  Read original content

iSpring Solutions has released new PowerPoint to HTML5 technology which converts PowerPoint to HTML5 and will allow viewing presentations on iPad devices.  The technology will be released in beta during May, 2012 and iSpring is inviting everyone to participate in the beta testing process.  Read original content

The 2nd annual HTML5 Developer Conference will be held May 21, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

Muro, deviantART’s HTML5 drawing app, has undergone a major update.  Now called Muro Redraw, the app now allows users to draw, record and watch art as it is created.  Read original content

Verious has added a new HTML5 mobile app components category to their online marketplace for mobile app development.  Read original content



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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict