Exploring the Future with Kevin Benedict

ClickSoftware and Rugged Working Environments

It is easy to forget about the world beyond the pocket, but it remains out there. There is a large market for mobile devices that must survive the rigors of rain, sand, mud and daily impacts. In the field service automation space, these working environments are the norm. SAP mobility partner ClickSoftware focuses on this area of enterprise mobility, and this means they add features to their mobility suite that others don't.

I had the opportunity to interview Gil Bouhnick from ClickSoftware a few months ago, and he shared that one of their recent projects included building union regulations and rules into the mobile application. Before certain tasks could be requested or started the union rules were considered in the mobile application. How many iPhone and BlackBerry applications have these requirements?

Because ClickSoftware focuses on rugged environments where the field service technician, lineman, or inspector may be working in solitary and remote locations, features have been added to their solutions that would alert the office in case of an emergency. Again, not many BlackBerry or iPhone applications have that requirement.

I have worked on many mobile forms projects in my time, so I appreciate that ClickSoftware has the solution ClickMobile Forms Editor. Mobile forms may seem like a rather simple applications these days, but they can be of enormous value. Let me explain. Mobile forms applications can have branching workflows in them. If an inspection reveals a measurement is XYZ, then it automatically jumps to mobile form page 16 where additional questions are asked. If the measurement was ABC, then it automatically continues to form page 2. These types of automated mobile forms and their workflows can direct the mobile workforce to complete the field data collection task completely and accurately the first time. Enterprise asset management, field services and inspection services all require extensive field inspection work that can benefit from mobile forms that wireless synchronize with the office.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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M2M Market Overview Part 2 - Consumer Electronics

I just completed a 40 page analyst report on the M2M industry last week. It is a fascinating market, but I am relieved it is finished. Analyst reports are like taking a four week final exam at the university. If you are interested in the M2M (machine-to-machine) or embedded mobile devices market for consumer electronics, you may want to watch this short video that I recorded on the consumer electronics segment of M2M.

I am now working on an executive workshop to help companies understand M2M and the value for remote asset management. Contact me if you would like to discuss!

One of the things I am watching closely these days is to see if enterprise mobility vendors will add M2M data management to their offerings, or whether they will limit their support to smartphones and mobile computers. What makes this interesting is that M2M/embedded mobile devices are sending mobile data to servers that are increasingly useful and valuable to ERPs (see attached image from http://www.m2mexpo.com/). Where will the line be drawn between mobile enterprise applications and data from embedded mobile devices. One is data from a human, and the other is data sent wirelessly from a machine. It will be fun to watch!

For more information related to M2M see the links below:

Article - M2M Market Opportunities - An Introduction
Short Video on M2M- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob3C5t_6kAQ

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh

Usman Sheikh is VP of SAP's EcoHub, and I had the opportunity at Sapphire this year to interview him about SAP's ecosystem of mobility partners.

What is the SAP EcoHub? EcoHub is a website and a mobile application that accelerates the process of finding the right solution at the right time and provides a new means to address key questions including:

Have I considered all relevant solutions?
Is this applicable to my business?
Are there success stories in my industry?
Is this partner solution certified?
What are my peers saying?

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst

CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC

http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's CEO Rich Padula

SAP has many partners in the mobility industry, but only three co-innovation level partners in the enterprise mobility space. They are:

Sybase (SAP announced their intent to acquire Sybase)
RIM (the BlackBerry folks)
Syclo (EAM - mobile enterprise asset management experts)

At Sapphire this year I was able to interview Rich Padula, Syclo's CEO. I asked him to explain the "co-innovation" partnership program with SAP and what it really means.

Syclo's mobile solutions include pre-packaged and pre-integrated applications that mobilize CRM, ERP and EAM systems to improve communications and data capture.

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' CEO, Greg Tomb

I was the moderator at several enterprise mobility events at Sapphire this year and following one of the sessions I was able to sit down and interview Greg Tomb, the former President of SAP Americas, and now the CEO of an enterprise mobility company called Vivido Labs. In the interview, he makes three very interesting points about mobility:

Mobility is a way of getting more value out of your existing SAP investment by making it available to those in the mobile workforce.
Mobility can enable business process re-engineering by compressing the time of some business processes from days to hours.
Extending SAP mobility into the hands of those not at their desk, can increase productivity for many users.

Vivido Labs describes themselves as leaders in smartphone enterprise mobility with their Mowego mobile platform and their portfolio of mobile enterprise business applications.

For more videos interviews from the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of Enterprise Mobility, Prashant Chatterjee

I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with SAP's VP of Enterprise Mobility, Prashant Chatterjee at Sapphire this year and record an interview. In this interview Prashant describes how enterprise mobility is key to SAP reaching 1 billion users by 2014.

For more videos in this Mobile Expert Video series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Best Sources of Information on Enterprise Mobility

Outside of SAP's SDN site, the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin has some of the smartest people in the world sharing their thoughts on enterprise mobility. The membership includes the thought leaders from just about all of the big enterprise mobility vendors.

I was reading through some of the discussions today and the comments included in-depth advice from SAP on architecting mobile applications and understanding what mobility platforms are needed in different situations.

If you or anyone in your company is interested in subjects related to enterprise mobility I would encourage you to join. Here is the link.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Smartsoft Mobile's CEO Dan Homrich

Dan Homrich, Smartsoft Mobile Solution's CEO likes to talk about mobile B2E (business-to-everyone) solutions for smartphones. These are mobile applications that companies provide to their customers, partners and service providers.

Mobile B2E solutions are intended to address large markets. Insurance companies can provide mobile solutions to their customer bases. Banks and retail companies can provide mobile applications to their hundreds of thousands of customers. This is a very interesting target market. Watch the video interview that I recorded with Dan Homrich at Sapphire and learn about his strategies.

Related videos:

The video interviews listed below can all be found here :

Mobile Expert Video Series: Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group Patrick Barnert
Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' CTO Steve Ware
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group Patrick Barnert

I am a big believer in the saying "content is king!" So when I read recently that Open Text announced they were going to mobilize their enterprise content management products with a solution called Open Text Everywhere, I was intrigued but skeptical. Open Text provides powerful enterprise content management solutions, the SAP Invoice Management solution, and collaboration and social networking tools for the enterprise, but now mobile solutions as well? At Sapphire I was able to schedule a video interview with Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group, Patrick Barnert. One of the first questions I asked Patrick was, "Are you serious or just playing around with mobility?" You can watch and hear his response here.

I appreciate mobile applications that add value in unique and powerful ways. The accounts payable processes in large enterprises is a very important area. Companies can save millions by processing invoices quickly and capturing early payment discounts from suppliers. The ability of a manager to approve an invoice while traveling so the company can capture these discounts can provide millions of dollars in savings with the push of a button on a mobile smartphone application. I like mobile applications with that kind of ROI! Open Text is developing that mobility solution now for SAP Invoice Management.

The video interviews listed below can all be found here :

Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' CTO Steve Ware
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' Steve Ware

I was able to meet up with Sky Technologies' CTO, Steve Ware, at Sapphire a few weeks ago and unfortunately for him I had a digital video camera in my hands. SAP had provided us SAP Mentors with very small Flip digital video cameras, and I recorded his views on MEAPs (mobile enterprise application platforms).

I also noted this week that Sky Technologies is now supporting Sprint's enterprise initiative for the new Android phone HTC EVO 4G as described below:

Sprint's new HTC 1GHz EVO- 4G smart-phone enables true multi-tasking while on the move. Road warriors can now view documents and files while simultaneously having a conversation with a colleague on the phone. With the large HTC 4-3 inch touch screen and superfast processing power, the HTC is aimed at customers who have serious mobile business requirements. The HTC EVO 4G boasts thousands of Android-driven mobile applications, with many geared toward businesses across a variety of industries.

Sky Technologies is a mobile applications company specializing in extending all varieties of business applications to any mobile platform. They have 12 years of experience in the enterprise space.

Related videos:
Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Middleware for Instant Value or Mobile Micro-Apps

Mobile middleware is more than synchronizing databases and providing basic application integration. It needs to include support for business process extensions, and it must provide a set of features and functions that support lightweight, "Instant Value" or "Mobile Micro-Apps" smartphone applications.

There are many features and functions that are needed by mobile workers that are not easily supported by smartphone operating systems like iPhone or BlackBerry. Often the data set is large and the software application is an ERP. The mobile user does not need access to the full ERP or the full data set, just a subset. In these cases it would be useful to have a mobile middleware layer that recognizes the needs of the mobile user and provides an optimized mobile application with functionality that supports either browser based or mobile micro-apps.

It seems there is a need for a new middleware layer that is designed to support a wide range of requirements to address the limitations of lightweight and browser based smartphone apps.

Within the SAP ecosystem I am hearing a lot about this concept from the likes of Vivido Labs and Leapfactor.

Leapfactor says their mobile middleware layer forwards and broadcasts staged digital content collected at a location and delivers it to any designated consignees, on any smartphone, and always with high availability based on a secure and scalable platform. They state that their solution relies on four fundamental technologies:

LeapApps - mobile micro apps for smartphones
LeapShell - an SDK that accelerates development and portability to any mobile OS
Leap Central - a secure cloud-based service-processing component
LeapAgent - securely connects and authenticates LeapCentral with an enterprise

I spent a lot of time working on mobility projects that utilized Sybases' SUP (mobile middleware). The mobile applications were "thick" clients with mobile databases on smartphones to hold data and synchronize data with the back office database application. Our mobile applications often had complex business processes and business rules built into the mobile applications to ensure field work was done correctly. These rules were stored in the mobile database in the thick client.

Where are all of these business rules and business processes stored for "Instant Value" and "mobile micro-apps" for smartphones? Do these lightweight mobile applications simply ignore business rules and business processes, or is this functionality provided in a smartphone middleware layer in the cloud? These are the things I ponder on a Wednesday morning.

Do you see a need for a mobile middleware layer that is specifically designed to support business rules and business processes for mobile micro-apps?

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Kevin Benedict, CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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. ***************************************************

Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera

At Sapphire 2010 last week I heard Leapfactor mentioned in keynotes and many other presentations by SAP mobility experts. I saw one SAP VP demonstrating a very powerful iPad application that SAP has in a proof-of-concept that was developed by Leapfactor. I also saw that the SAP iPhone application "SAP EcoHub" (free and available on iTunes) was developed by Leapfactor.

I was lucky enough to track down Luis Cabrera from Leapfactor last week and I interviewed him on camera about Leapfactor's focus and solutions including:

Business Indicator - A powerful dashboard for business analytics on iPhones and iPads
Business Alerts and Notifications - Send alerts to mobile devices based on parameters set up in your SAP system
Business Approvals - Enable mobile managers to approve or reject various issues in SAP workflows

The interview: http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/9/Y5l6N2nsrpA

Mobile Expert Video Series: Santiago Becerra of Mellmo

I attended a session at Sapphire last week with Mellmo founder Santiago Becerra! Here is how they describe their solution, "Use Roambi to transform your existing reports and data — from a variety of sources — into interactive visualizations and dashboards for the iPhone or iPad. Explore and analyze your data with the ease of playing a video game and the power of an enterprise reporting tool."

One of the most interesting things Santiago said was that he favors hiring gamers - developers that have experience developing video games and flashy UIs. He believes they think more creatively and that they will be better capable of developing the next generation of enterprise mobility applications.

Here is the video interview: http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/6/01SLH5n5mgI

Related videos:

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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M2M Market Opportunities - An Introduction

Now that SAP has enterprise mobility all figured out, it is time to explore opportunities in the M2M marketplace. M2M is a vision of connecting physical things through a network that will let them take an active part in exchanging information about themselves and their surroundings over the Internet. This will give immediate access to information about the physical world and the objects in it - leading to innovative services and gains in efficiency and productivity.

There are many ways to describe M2M - the Internet of objects, the Internet of things or embedded mobile devices. M2M is a world filled with remote asset management monitors, wireless sensors, telematics, telemetry, smart grids, and eReaders. The military describes this world as Network-Centric Operations.

I wrote an article last year called Network-Centric Mobile Field Force Automation. Here is an excerpt: "Network-Centric operations, is a military doctrine pioneered by the US Department of Defence. It seeks to translate an information advantage, enabled in part by information technologies into a competitive warfighting advantage through the robust networking of well informed geographically dispersed forces. This networking, combined with changes in technology, organization, processes, and people enable organizations to behave and respond in ways never before possible." Specifically, this theory contains the following four tenets in its hypotheses:

A robustly networked force improves information sharing.
Information sharing enhances the quality of information and shared situational awareness.
Shared situational awareness enables collaboration and self-synchronization and enhances sustainability and speed of command.
These, in turn, dramatically increase mission effectiveness.

Juniper Research predicts that the number of M2M (machine-to-machine) and embedded mobile devices will rise to approximately 412 million globally by 2014. ABI Research uses a more conservative set of numbers and says that there were approximately 71 million cumulative M2M connections in 2009 and this will rise to about 225 million by 2014. With either set of figures you get a big number.

ABI's M2M research practice director Sam Lucero encourages MNOs (mobile network operators) to "come up" with M2M connectivity platforms - robust connected device platforms. These are applications and services that connect all of these embedded mobile devices together into a central management application that turns data into actionable intelligence.

Some of the key markets for M2M are:

Utilities/Smart Grids
Equipment Monitoring
Connected Homes/Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS)
Healthcare - Remote patient and health monitoring, medical equipment monitoring
Vending/POS
Remote Asset Management Monitoring
ATMs
Fleet Management/Automotive Systems
Consumer Electronics (eReaders, Wireless Printers, Appliances, Security Systems, etc.)

Think of it like this - all of these embedded mobile devices are capable of sending data to you. What can you do with it? Where can this data provide value? In addition to sending data, many M2M devices can receive instructions and take action as well.

Mobility is more than just people-to-people talking on handsets. Wireless M2M is an entirely new way of thinking. I wonder which one of the mobility vendors in the SAP ecosystem is going to add M2M and M2M connectivity platforms to their product list. I believe this can ultimately be a massive market. I recently read about a GSMA prediction that M2M connected devices could ultimately reach 50 billion. A dollar a device per month would suit me just fine.

Have you ever worked on an M2M project? I would like to hear about it!

Here is a related video I recorded on M2M.

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Bruce Johnson of Sky Technologies

I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing (with a digital video camera) Bruce Johnson, President of Sky Technologies, America, about his thoughts on SAP and enterprise mobility. Sky Technologies describes themselves this way, "Sky Technologies specializes in Enterprise Mobility for SAP®. With a strong focus on innovation, Sky Technologies has developed SkyMobile, a SAP Certified Mobile Enterprise Appliaction Platform (MEAP), which enables any SAP process to be mobilized on any type of smartphone device."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw0tRoEYFiI

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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Two SAP Mobility Articles on ERP Executives Magazine

Jon Reed, an SAP Mentor, and I recently worked together on 2 articles that were published on ERP Executives the magazine for SAP Managers.

He is a great writer and contributor to the SAP community.

Last week at Sapphire was a fun learning experience. I met with just about every mobility company in the SAP ecosystem and had a chance to record video interviews with most of them. I will be posting new video interviews with mobility executives all week so check back often.

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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Kevin Benedict's Video Series: Mobile Expert Interviews

SAP did a dangerous thing at Sapphire 2010. They placed HD video cameras in the hands of SAP Mentors. I should call this series the "forehead" series since I seem to highlight my forehead in these interviews. Oh well, it's a nice forehead. I'll do better next Sapphire... I hope you find this series of video interviews with SAP mobility experts informative.

For more in this video series click here.

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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Thoughts on SAP Mobility - Reporting from Sapphire

I have learned a huge amount at Sapphire 2010. I have spoken to, and filmed interviews with, just about every mobility vendor at Sapphire. Here are the first few:

Tuesday night thoughts

I believe the saying, “content is king!” Although I would add that “content and business processes are king!” Applications that add unique functionality and value to the SAP ecosystem will have longevity. Companies that are only providing interesting views of existing SAP data are subject to being quickly replaced by the next teenager with a cooler UI.

Mobile applications developers must add deep value to be able to gain mindshare and then defend their positions in the longterm. They need to demonstrate unique innovation, deep expertise, and extend value in manners that are defensible.

The term "mash-up" is used often at Sapphire to refer to aggregating data from multiple sources. This is a very interesting concept. Pulling data from many different sources to add unique value on mobile applications that are geospatially aware. This is interesting.

I have seen some absolutely fantastic mobile applications at Sapphire that help companies make collaborative decisions and harvest enterprise's institutional knowledge. These are mobile knowledge and decision management applications. This is a very interesting area to me. It is new value. Not mobilized versions of existing SAP systems.

I have heard and witnessed a lot of chest thumping at Sapphire. The bottom line is how many SAP customers does a vendor have in production.

Mobile micro-applications are being labeled as "instant value" applications at Sapphire. I like this description. It is good marketing.

Inspections, assessments, asset management and field services are still very interesting areas as there is yet a lot of new value that can be created and provided on mobile devices.

Sybase is not known for their mobile applications. They are a great mobile middleware company. It will be interesting to see if they can compete with the incredibile mobile applications that I have witnessed here at Sapphire from ecosystem partners.

There is a persistent rumor that HP may try to outbid SAP for Sybase. Crazy times!

More later...
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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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SAP to Acquire Sybase, Day 3 - Kevin Benedict's Thoughts and Analysis

There have been several additional comments made in the past 24 hours that seem to shed light on the thinking behind SAP's intent to acquire Sybase. These statements seem to be highlighting three specific themes:

A shift from desktop to mobile devices
A goal to connect with billions of mobile users
Support for all leading mobile devices

In a comment yesterday on the Linkedin group SAP Enterprise Mobility (you should all join), Sam Lakkundi, Sybase's Chief Architect said, "Moving from the Desktop Computer to a Mobile Device is the new path for enterprise computing that I vision." In an email exchange between myself and Bonnie Rothenstein, Head of SAP's Enterprise Mobility Communications, Bonnie said, “We’re excited about our intent to acquire Sybase, as we believe the acquisition will enable SAP to accelerate our plans to deliver SAP’s industry leading business applications and analytics offerings to billions of mobile users on any device.”

Add these highlighted statements to SAP's co-CEO Bill McDermott's, "We see a huge emerging market for the real-time, unwired enterprise," and SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe's, "We want to make sure that SAP solutions can be accessed from all leading mobile devices."

I see the fog beginning to rise. The Sybase acquisition can ensure that a standardized way of integrating mobile devices and mobile enterprise applications with SAP systems is defined and available through Sybase's mobile middleware and integration tools. I spoke to an unnamed source in SAP who confirmed this statement with two taps on the table. This same source said there will always be choices in how to integrate, but there will be a defined SAP way for mobile software providers to integrate. SAP must have read my blogs.

I read and interpret that SAP believes mobility, mobile device support, and integration with mobile applications is too important to leave totally up to the discretion of partners. SAP wants to bring order to the chaos and define a path, methodology, and strategy for their partners.

On the question of where SAP's current mobility partners fit into this new world order, SAP's Rothenstein provided this statement, "SAP’s intent to acquire Sybase will expand opportunities for our joint ecosystems and we believe our software and implementation partners can capture new opportunities by innovating on Sybase’s open and market leading mobile platform."

The SAP statement above seems clear. Mobile software companies that develop "rich or thick mobile clients" in the SAP ecosystem will want to seriously consider embedding Sybase's mobile middleware, synchronization, integration, and device management technology in their future mobile software upgrades to better align with SAP's future direction.

I have had a chance to talk to a number of SAP's mobility partners in the last few hours who, after they digested the announcement, seem to have embraced it. To summarize (as I will blog more on this soon), they see incorporating relevant pieces of Sybase mobile middleware into their solutions, but continuing to see themselves as the subject matter experts on complex, tactical, and industry specific mobile applications.

One last thought for today (as my irrigation system needs to be activated before I leave for Sapphire) is that SAP seems to really be emphasizing the "support for all mobile devices" theme. This is very different than last year when there was a specific emphasis on RIM products.

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Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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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Schedule for Mobility Related Sessions at Sapphire

Enterprise Mobility Schedule - Sapphire 2010

May 17th 2:00-2:45 P.M. Micro Forum Mobile Strategy, Micro Forum 524 Innovation

May 18th 2:00-2:45 P.M. Micro Forum Mobility for Energy, Micro Forum 234 Industries

May 18th 3:00-3:45 P.M. ASUG Presentation Syclo, LLC – Mobile Asset Management: Revolutionize Your Plant Floor, 209C West

May 19th 3:30-3:50 P.M. Presentation SAP’s Mobile Strategy Theater 5 Innovation

May 19th 4:00-4:20 P.M. Discussion SAP’s Mobile Strategy Discussion Room 5 Innovation

May 19th 4:00 to 5:00 P.M. Panel The Future of Enterprise Mobility Theater 5 Innovation

May 19th 4:00-5:00 P.M. Micro Forum The Power of Mobile Field Service, Micro Forum 418 Lines of Business

Show Floor Hours Knowledge Table – DEMOS SAP Mobile Solutions: Your Business Anytime, Anywhere, and With Any Device. Knowledge Table 523 Innovation

Show Floor Hours Knowledge Table demos SAP for Utilities Knowledge Table 233 Industries

Show Floor Hours Knowledge Table demos Asset Management: Maximizing Your Return on Assets Knowledge Table 303 Line of Business

Show Floor Hours Pod Optimize Service Operations and Grow the Business

Pod 414 Line of Business

Show Floor Hours Pod Simple and Intuitive Interfaces for the Casual User Pod 324 Line of Business

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor,CEO Netcentric Strategies LLC
Mobile Industry Analyst, Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant and Web 2.0 Marketing Services
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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.
***************************************************