Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – Week of February 16, 2011

Kevin’s Mobile Money 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 Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s M2M News Monthly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly

Consumers are increasingly becoming more comfortable with mobile banking, payment and shopping to the point where the value of global transactions on the go will jump from $162 billion in 2010 to nearly a $1 trillion by 2014, according to research firm Yankee Group.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/mobile-transactions-ready-to-ramp-says-report/44791

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Less than a month after rolling out its mobile payment technology across the United States, coffee giant Starbucks says its customers have made 1 million payments via the app-based system -- which stores a virtual Starbucks Card on a mobile phone, for scanning at the register.

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/02/starbucks-a-million-mobile-payments.html

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A microfinance pilot project pioneered in Africa turned into one of the world's most successful mobile banking systems thanks to one woman's bus fare getting stolen. Now the service could make its way to the United Kingdom.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Mobile X's Hannes Heckner

In this interview I continue my recent focus on learning from mobile experts and thought leaders in Europe.  Hannes Heckner is the CEO of MobileX AG which is headquartered in Munich, Germany.  They have been in business for over 10 years and have about 30 employees.  They have 30 customers with over 6,000 mobile users in the field.  They are now preparing to move to a new office to accommodate significant growth.  They are an SAP partner and over 80 percent of their customers are SAP users.

Note:  This interview consists of a combination of written responses to questions and my notes from our Skype conversations.  I use a similar set of questions with many of my interviews for the purpose of research and analysis.  It is useful to analyze many answers to the same question in order to gain insight into market trends and behaviors.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?
Hannes: Laptop, iPhone.

Kevin: What are some of your favorite mobile applications that you have on your mobile device?
Hannes: E-Mail, Contacts and Social Media apps.

Kevin: Do you ever use your mobile device to buy things?
Hannes: No.

Kevin: How many computing devices do you have in your home?
Hannes: Three.

Kevin: How long have you been involved in enterprise mobility?
Hannes: Over 14 years.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Zenware's Jody Sedrick

I had the good fortune of tracking down mobility expert Jody Sedrick last week and scheduling an interview with him. Jody Sedrick is the CEO of Zenware, a twelve person company that designs, develops and deploys both custom and packaged intelligent mobile applications for SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises). He is responsible for driving business and helping companies understand how mobility can revolutionize their businesses.

Mobility is important to all size companies, and I wanted to interview Jody to learn what he is hearing and learning in the SME mobility markets.

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

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?
Jody: An iPhone, MacBook Pro and an iPad.

Kevin: What are some of your favorite mobile applications that you have on your mobile device?
Jody: Pandora, TweetDeck, Linkedin, Google Maps, EverNote.

Kevin: Do you use your mobile device to buy things?
Jody: No, but I do a lot of product research on them.

Starbucks Drives Mobile Technology with One Million Mobile Payments in a Month

Starbucks Card Mobile Payment

Starbucks is reporting that between January 19 and February 15 of 2011 over one million payments were made at Starbucks locations using the new Starbucks Card Mobile Payment application.  This mobile app provides the following features:

• Lets you pay for drinks and food by having your mobile phone screen scanned at the counter
• Lets you view your balance
• Lets you check your Stars in the My Starbucks Rewards program
• Lets you reload your card
• Find the nearest store

With mobile payment accepted at more than 6,800 company-operated Starbucks stores and over 1,000 Target locations, there are many locations to use this mobile app.

The Starbucks experience is all about routine, consistency and comfort.  Having 7,800 locations accept and support this same mobile application is a powerful change agent.  I predict that this move by Starbucks will be seen as the launching point for mobile payments among us in the masses.

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On another note, Smartsoft Mobile Solutions, an SAP services partner, is currently working with some of the largest retailers in the world on mobile retailing projects.  These are B2C (business-to-consumer) mobile retailing applications.  Mobile retailing is not all they do, but they have some very interesting wins in this market.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

Mobile Phones, Cameras and Enterprise Mobility

Touch Inspect

I believe that enterprises are not yet taking full advantage of the cameras and video capabilities on mobile devices.  I also believe the saying, "A picture paints a thousand words."  The attached image of the fire hydrant as seen in the mobile application, Touch Inspect from Mobile Epiphany demonstrates how a quick photo, with quick photo editing tools, can communicate a great deal of information.


I also predict that as more applications like the iPhone's FaceTime become available you will see more mobile applications within the services sector integrate them into their solutions.  Not only can these digital cameras be used to record work, but connected to a GPS enabled devices, they can help document compliance, monitor SLAs, help in training and provide real-time and onsite expert advice.

This 2nd image demonstrates how I believe a junior service technician could utilize a live video feed to communicate with an experienced expert back at the office.  The expert can watch the live video feed from the remote jobsite and quickly help the less experienced service technician complete their work.


What do you think?  Do you think digital cameras and video capabilities on mobile devices are still under utilized?


Whitepaper of Note: Networked Field Services



***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - Week of February 15, 2011

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

Also read Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s M2M News Monthly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly

Google’s strong fourth quarter earnings proved that it is now firmly ensconced in e-commerce, and also showed that, with its Android operating system and related apps, it is smoothly transitioning to the mobile world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/technology/21google.html?src=busln

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Mobile commerce may be maturing at a quicker rate than many experts have predicted, according to a report from Adobe Scene7. Sixty-two percent of consumers with web connected mobile devices have purchased merchandise in a wide range of product categories using their mobile devices.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/02/10/62-consumers-have-purchased-goods-mobile-device

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Three quarters of U.S. brands surveyed by the Association of National Advertisers/Mobile Marketing Association say they plan to up their spending on mobile marketing initiatives by some 60 percent this year, while close to 90 percent will deploy mobile marketing initiatives.

http://brand-e.biz/could-do-better-on-mobile-marketing_11526.html

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By the end of 2011, an estimated one billion people around the world will be connected to the mobile web and 50 percent of all Americans will own a smartphone.

The Biggest Challenges in Enterprise Mobility Today

On Thursday, February 17th, at 1 PM EST, I will be opening a webinar with a discussion on the biggest challenges in enterprise mobility today.  Not just my opinions, but the opinions of over a dozen mobility experts that I have interviewed recently. I will be the first presenter, and then handing it over to Steve Levy, CEO of Pyxis Mobile to discuss The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems.I invite you to participate by registering here.


***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: 10seconds Software's Greg Donaldson, Part 2

Greg Donaldson

This is Part 2 of an interview with Greg Donaldson of 10seconds Software.  You can read Part 1 here.

Kevin: What do companies fail to plan for when implementing mobility?
Greg: First, let me explain that we provide both a desktop and a mobile version of our software. It seems that companies still use the desktop the most. Consider the entire work week. If a manager is traveling for two days out of five, they may need a mobile application for two days, but they would rather use their laptop or desktop during the three days in the office. A company needs to think of the entire work week. Many of our applications are simplified versions of an ERP. Managers would rather access SAP through our simplified interfaces. They don’t need to see the entire SAP ERP, just the parts they need to see in order to do their jobs.

Kevin: What advice do you have for companies just starting down an enterprise mobility path?
Greg: 1) Understand how you will connect to devices and how you will secure them, 2) Start with a simple mobile application and get an easy win (a good success), 3) Focus on a great user experience, and 4) Look for a packaged app (or off the shelf) to start. Building a complete enterprise quality mobile application yourself requires a huge amount of effort, and much of it has no business value for a one time development project.  Find a packaged application for a quick and easy implementation.

Kevin: How important is mobile device management and security?
Greg: Very important. Have the right infrastructure in place to protect your data before you implement mobility. There are thousands of ways to connect to a back end system, so the company first needs to decide how they want to connect.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: 10seconds Software's Greg Donaldson, Part 1

10seconds Software's
Greg Donaldson

I want to introduce Greg Donaldson from 10seconds Software to you. He is the Founder and Director of the Australian mobility company, 10seconds Software, a company he started two years ago and now serves as the chief solution architect.

Greg has been working around enterprise mobility for the past five years and has spent much of his career working in the banking industry, but also has experience working in the RFID and barcode space.

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

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?
Greg: I ride my mountain bike to work and carry my four year old daughter to school on a bike seat so am careful what I carry. I carry an iPhone, iPad and a Dell laptop.

Kevin: What are some of your favorite mobile applications that you have on your mobile device?
Greg: My Twitter app is used constantly, and so is WhatsApp (chatting app), Viber (VoIP app).

Kevin: Do you use your mobile device to buy things?
Greg: Yes, I buy music and apps.

Kevin: How many computing devices do you have in your home?
Greg: Four, two laptops, an iPad and an iPhone.

Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly – Week of February 14, 2011

Kevin’s Field Mobility 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 Kevin’s M2M News Monthly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly

The City of Sacramento recently spent over $100,000 on a GPS fleet management system. Many tax payers questioned if the new fleet tracking system was a luxury or a necessity? Turns out, that using the fleet management system, the City identified ways to cut fuel costs by over $60,000 in just one month.

http://www.fieldtechnologies.com/city-of-sacramento-cuts-60000-per-month-in-gas-costs-with-gps-fleet-management-system/

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Last week, Lehigh announced a deal with StarPath Technologies for a system that will allow students to track the locations of university buses on their phones or computers.

http://media.www.thebrownandwhite.com/media/storage/paper1233/news/2011/02/11/News/New-Gps.Tracking.On.Buses.Benefits.Students-3975741.shtml

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced last week that it has given 510(k) clearance to a new mobile radiology application developed by Cleveland-based MIM Software. The software, called Mobile MIM, allows physicians to view medical images on Apple's iPhone and iPad mobile devices.

Weird, Odd and Strange Mobility Series: Cameras in Skull, Wireless Confessions and Best Bathrooms

The professor installed the video camera in the back of his skull, but the camera caused awkward social interactions and was painful.  It was like having eyes in the back of your head, but no one wanted him around.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/10/nyu-professor-unsurprisingly-removes-camera-from-the-back-of-his/

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The Catholic Church (in Indiana, USA) has now approved a mobile confession application for the iPhone.  The mobile application was developed with the help of Catholic priests, and enables Catholics to keep track of their sins.  It even helps identify possible sins based on a user’s age, sex and marital status.  I wonder if you can password protect it?  I hope so.  I wonder if this involves real time connectivity, or is it synchronized in batch?  What happens if there is an untimely accident before the data is synchronized?

http://unplugged.rcrwireless.com/index.php/20110208/app-corner/6921/catholic-church-approves-confession-iphone-app/

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Mobile Expert Interview Series: Acando's Hans Nygaard, Part 2

Hans Nygaard

This is Part 2 in of my interview with Hans Nygaard.  You can read Part 1 here.

Kevin: What are some of the most surprising trends you are saw in mobility in 2010?
Hans: Personally I have to say that I am surprised by the fact that the large vendors (SAP, Sybase, Oracle, QlikView) still push hard on BI solutions for smartphones. The UI/UX doesn’t lend itself to a task like that. It looks sexy, but if you are running an important business function, why would you need to see dashboards, cut and slice BW data etc. on a 3.5” screen? They are pushing a segment that is served (well) by laptops with 3G wireless – and a keyboard!

A second surprising trend for me was that most companies emerged from the financial crisis ready to take on new IT projects. Yet a surprisingly small number of companies (in Scandinavia) have enterprise mobility on the agenda. In transportation, supply chain, field service, maintenance, QA, etc., we continue to demonstrate dramatic business cases, yet many top managers seem unaware of the gold lying at their feet! I think that the processes mobility can improve are either not core to the company (i.e. internal maintenance and inspection) or not sexy enough for decision makers to bother about! Often the process ownership is in middle management, and it’s not in their job description to be visionary.

Kevin: What are some of the biggest challenges you see in mobility today?
Hans: Awareness in the enterprise market. Mobility is core to many companies, but not yet on management's agenda. Also, most of our enterprise users own a smartphone and are pampered by snazzy app stores, where apps compete in looking sexy and offer the best UX. To offer similarly appealing enterprise apps is a real challenge and user adoption and project success depends on it.

Kevin: How are enterprise mobility implementations different from other typical IT projects?
Hans: We work exclusively in the SAP market space. Mobile projects often fail to reach their success criteria when done exclusively by the SAP project organization; too much ASAP (accelerated SAP Implementation methodology) does not work well for SOA environment.

Kevin: What do companies fail to plan for when implementing mobility?
Hans: If they have no SOA experience, they fail to realize how many links there are in the mobility business ‘service chain’, from cell phone plans to VPN certificates over middleware application management, help desk training, etc. Most are used to operating just the monolithic ERP and office apps and their respective GUIs.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Acando's Hans Nygaard, Part 1

 Acando's Hans Nygaard

I recently had the privelege of interviewing Hans Nygaard from Acando, a consultancy company with over 1,000 employees in six European countries.  SAP is one of Acando's most important partners.

Hans is the Manager for Mobile Solutions and focuses most of his time on blue collar and field services kinds of mobile projects.  They work on a lot of 100-200 user projects, but are currently working on a large deployment that includes 5,000 service technicians in 14 countries.

Hans has been working in the SAP ecosystem since 2003 and on SAP related mobility projects since 2007.  He has a wife and two kids and lives 45 minutes outside of Copenhagen.

Note:  This interview consists of both written and verbal responses from Hans.

Kevin:  Since you have been involved in SAP enterprise mobility since 2007, what are your thoughts about SAP's acquisition of Sybase in 2010?
Hans: I have mixed feelings.  It was a lot of money.  Sybase has great offline and push mobile technology, so that is good, but I am still confused about how Sybase's and SAP's middleware will merge into one mobile middleware solution.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?
Hans: iPhone 4, iPad and a laptop (PC).

MacBook Pro, Safari, Pages and Blogging Headaches

Any Advice?

You may have noticed that I have been struggling with some font and formatting issues this week in my articles.  After a lifetime on PCs, I have purchased a MacBook Pro.  Along with the MacBook Pro, I am trying to use Pages (and Word for Macs) and Safari to access and post to my blogging platform.  I am having many annoying formatting issues.  The Apple environment is introducing all kinds of junk code which is messing up my text formatting.

Any advice? 

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – Week of February 7, 2011

Kevin's 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 Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s M2M News Monthly

Mobile development vendor appMobi has just closed an impressive $6 million round of all angel series B financing to further provide platform as a service tools for developers and others in the mobile ecosystem.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/24/appmobi-closes-6m-to-improve-mobile-app-technology/

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Tactical Nav is an app that lets a soldier map and plot waypoints on a battlefield, take photos and share coordinates with fellow soldiers and units, direct artillery and call in medevac.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iphone_app_lets_soldiers_map_their_battlefields.php

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Despite three years of global financial bleakness, 2010 brought huge growth to mobile/wireless.  Global handset shipments rose to more than 1.3 billion units, over 20 percent of them smartphones.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Newelo's Kimmo Jarvensivu

Newelo's Kimmo Jarvensivu

One of the things that has been missing from my Mobile Expert Interview Series is the European view on enterprise mobility, so this week you will see a number of interviews from mobile experts from that side of the pond.

Today, we are interviewing Kimmo Jarvensivu who is the VP of Sales and Business Development for mobile platform vendor Newelo which is located in Finland. Newelo is a spin-off from Nokia currently with ten direct employees and part of the R&D is subcontracted. He is also a big fan of anything Finnish including Angry Birds!

First, some background on Kimmo.  He worked as a GIS consultant in the 90s, and in 1996 moved to Nokia Networks for Operation Support Systems.  Later, he moved into Nokia's Managed Services area which was responsible for GSM network operations and Field Force Management around the world. 

Note:  I interviewed Kimmo using Skype.  He also sent me written responses to many of my questions.  I combined my notes with his answers for this article.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?

Kimmo: Currently I have with me Nokia N900, N8 and E72. N900 is my personal phone, others are for testing purposes. On my desk, I have iPhone and Android ZTE Blade and Archos 7o Internet tablet. It is good to compare different mobile devices and gain end-user experience. In our business area, the most important factors are end-user experience and integration to backoffice system, so it is good to have "hands-on" experience on those applications and devices.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: SAP's Jack Chawla

SAP's Jack Chawla

I had the privilege to interview Jack Chawla, who is Senior Director, Technology Marketing with SAP's Mobile Business Unit last week via email.

Note:  This interview took place via email, so these are Jack Chawla's words with minor edits.

Kevin:  What mobile device(s) do you carry?
Jack:  I generally have the following devices in my vicinity. . . BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, MBA and Lenovo.  While traveling, I try to carry not more than three devices. . . but sometimes I end up carrying more devices than pants!

Kevin:  What are your favorite mobile applications that you have on your mobile devices?
Jack:  I use Twitter, Bloomberg, Yelp, NYT, Pandora, Kindle, Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail and Camera apps the most.  I have more apps than I would like to admit on my devices.

Kevin:  Do you use your mobile device to buy things?
Jack:  Yes, I use the Amazon app to find and buy stuff cheaper than in retail stores!  I love the Amazon Remembers feature.

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – Week of February 7, 2011

Kevin’s Mobile Money 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 Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s M2M News Monthly

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly

I will be participating in a two part webinar next week on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST that I invite all of you to attend.  I will be presenting my research results in the first part called Challenges in Enterprise Mobility from the Experts, and the second part, The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems will be presented by Steve Levy, mobile industry expert and CEO of Pyxis Mobile.   Please join us!  Register here.

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Mobile payment systems are expected to revolutionize the card payment industry in the coming years, and could be worth as much as $44 billion by 2015.

http://www.creditnet.com/credit-news/new-mobile-payment-option-available-for-small-purchases-800387612.php

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Consumers will significantly shift their shopping habits away from e-commerce to focus attention on the budding mobile landscape within the next 12 months, predicts research aggregator eMarketer.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/mobile-shopping-ecommerce-emarketer-0951/

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Research shows that 40 percent of consumers reach for their mobile phones when they see an advertisement, with 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm being the hottest times for at home mobile shopping.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: AMT-Sybex's Malachy Martin



Malachy Martin

 I was able to schedule a call with AMT-Sybex's mobile strategy manager Malachy Martin this morning for an interview.  Malachy is from Northern Ireland (his mobile application development team is located in Belfast), but he now lives and works in the UK.  He has been in the enterprise mobility space for a decade now.  He started his mobility career working on mobile solutions for utility companies.  He is now head of mobile strategy, and as such he works with customers and key partners like ClickSoftware, SAP/Sybase and Syclo.



Before jumping into the interview I wanted to address a question that was posed to me last week by an individual at SAP.  I was asked why many of my interviews included the same questions.  I explained that if I ask the same question of dozens of enterprise mobility experts, then their aggregated answers will provide us with a comprehensive view and understanding of many key issues in enterprise mobility.

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

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you carry?

Malachy: A BlackBerry for work, Samsung smartphone for personal use and Windows Mobile 6.5 for testing industrial grade handheld computers, a tablet and a Dell laptop.

Kevin: Do you use mobile devices to purchase products and services?

Malachy: Yes, I use my laptop to purchase many things, but not my smartphones.

Food and Enterprise Mobility

I have been learning a lot lately while running.  OK, mostly walking, but briskly.  I listen to the ScienceNow podcast on my iPhone.  The average U.S. grocery store throws out 2,000 lbs of produce per week(the total for all grocery stores is estimated at 30 million pounds of food each day), and 50 percent of all produce grown in the US is not consumed before it becomes waste.

Those numbers seem like problems that mobile solutions can help alleviate. In Jonathan Bloom's new book American Wasteland he reports that the US produces about 591 billion pounds of food each year of which about 50 percent goes to waste somewhere along the food supply chain. This includes unused restaurant food, food in the field and vegetables and fruits in the grocery store as examples.  Bloom identifies the following areas where much of the waste occurs:

• The field
• Lost in transit
• Supermarket throw away
• Commerical kitchens such as hospitals, schools and restaurants
• Households

Independent Mobility Analyst - What Does that Mean?

Talk, Talk, Talk

I had a person ask me today about the meaning of independent mobility analyst.  That is a fair question so let me try to explain what I do.  The first thing to know is that I wear many hats.  I am a blogger (just topped 1,000 articles), journalist, consultant, experienced executive, advisor, workshop facilitator and analyst.  I conduct research and write reports on issues related to enterprise mobility and M2M (machine-to-machine communications). Often I write these analyst reports on contract to analyst firms. 



In addition to writing analyst reports, I also write articles nearly every day that are published at http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/ and on many other sites related to enterprise mobility.  I also publish five newsletters on various niche markets within enterprise mobility each week.  I am regularly invited to speak on webinars and at technology conferences, user groups and other events.  I have led sessions at Sapphire, SAP TechEd, ASUG chapter meetings and SAP Insider events.  Next month I will be leading two sessions at the Mastering SAP Technologies conference in Sydney, Australia.

In between researching, writing, participating in webinars and speaking at conferences, I spend time consulting, recording podcasts and videos, and volunteering my time as an SAP Mentor.  My background is general enterprise mobility and B2B e-commerce, but I spend the majority of my time working within the SAP ecosystem.

That is my odd work life as an independent freelancer.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions

Mobility can be a Challenge

I will be participating in a two part webinar next week on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST that I invite all of you to attend.  I will be presenting my research results in the first part called Challenges in Enterprise Mobility from the Experts, and the second part, The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems will be presented by Steve Levy, mobile industry expert and CEO of Pyxis Mobile.

Enterprise-grade mobility is quickly becoming a core component of every company’s IT environment. However, it brings with it some big and often hidden challenges that companies need to plan for, including:

1. Multi-device proliferation: support for a growing number of smartphones
2. Data integration: the freedom to connect to any data in the enterprise
3. Security: more than just authentication
4. Agility: the need to iteratively update applications with new content and functionality in a quick and easy way

 Please join us!  Register here.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of February 7, 2011

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

Also read Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly 

Also read Kevin’s M2M News Monthly 

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly 

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly 

Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly 

I will be participating in a two part webinar next week on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST that I invite all of you to attend.  I will be presenting my research results in the first part called Challenges in Enterprise Mobility from the Experts, and the second part, The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems will be presented by Steve Levy, mobile industry expert and CEO of Pyxis Mobile.

Google Inc.'s AdMob is on a tear.  The mobile ad network receives more than two billion ad requests daily, marking a fourfold increase from a year ago.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20110131/CONTENT_MOBILE_MARKETING/110139994/googles-admob-receives-2-billion-ad-requests-daily 

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Facebook has acquired mobile ad start-up Rel8tion to improve hyper local ad targeting to its 200 million plus mobile subscribers.  Rel8tion is a nine month old Seattle based start up that connects people to ads based on their location and demographic.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376226,00.asp 

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According to a new survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association, a whopping 88 percent of advertisers plan to be active in mobile in 2011—up from 62 percent last year.

Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly – Week of February 7, 2011

Kevin’s Field Mobility 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 Kevin’s M2M News Monthly

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly

Also read Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly

Construction productivity tools are going mobile, and the combination of advancing cellphone technology and a flurry of activity by app developers has led to an array of easy to adopt solutions for residential builders.

http://www.constructech.com/news/articles/article.aspx?article_id=8493

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first diagnostic radiology app for use in viewing medical images to make diagnoses using Apple's iPad and iPhone, a title that won the Apple Design Award for "Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application" in 2008.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/04/fda_approves_ipad_iphone_radiology_app_for_mobile_diagnoses.html

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Providing solutions for fleet sustainability efforts, the “green” telematics market is expected to expand nine fold by 2015.  Most valuable to fleets is the wireless communication of fuel consumption and emissions data.

http://www.automotive-fleet.com/Channel/GPS-Telematics/Article/Story/2010/05/Green-Telematics-Use-to-Grow.aspx

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reversed course on one of the first radiology apps ever pulled from the Apple Store.  Now, U.S. radiologists who can't make it to a workstation but need to review medical images can make a diagnosis off their iPhone or iPad.

Weird, Odd and Strange Mobility Series: iPhones Pointing to Ladies, Creative Hand Gestures and Robot Students



WWI Motorcycle with Mobile
Radio Included

Student Sends Remote Controlled Robot to School

High school student Lyndon Baty has a weakened immune system that prevents him from actually attending school, so he's using a remotely-controlled "robot" that allows him to move from class to class and interact with teachers and other students using nothing more than his laptop and webcam at home.  This is an interesting adaption of M2M (machine-to-machine) and mobile communications.  Soon we will be able to send robots to represent us at speed dating events, class reunions and office parties.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/03/texas-student-sends-robot-to-school-in-his-place-cant-get-it-t/

Using Hand Gestures on Your Computer?

Israeli based eyeSight Mobile Technologies has released its hand gesture interface solution for computers using the Android and Windows platforms.  Users can control their music and video players, browse through eBooks, manage presentations, play games, control PC apps and carry out many other tasks by simply gesturing.  I can image all kinds of strange and interesting gestures that could be implemented.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/03/eyesight-brings-its-gesture-controls-to-android-tablets-windows/

RoboEarth Teaches Robots to Learn from Peers and Pour Creamy European Fruit Beverages

I read about RoboEarth this week and it is both interesting and scary.  The purpose of this European Commission project is to create robots that can teach each other how to do things without human involvement or programming.  I just exposed my teenage daughter to the Terminator series this year, and this sounds a lot like the beginning of SkyNet.  RoboEarth has already taught one robot, the TechUnited AMIGO, to deliver a box of creamy fruit juice to a bedridden scientist.  The next thing you know it will deliver (via a time machine) a nearly indestructible robot determined to stop us from producing future rebels.

http://www.roboearth.org/project-scope

Do You Need to Find Ladies?  There is an App for That.

Geo-location solutions have already degenerated to Wheretheladies.at, a web app that aggregates Foursquare checkins by the female gender.  It has now, disappointingly, been approved by Apple and is available on the iPhone. The iPhone application has a big compass that points you in the direction of ladies. Not just any ladies, mind you, but ladies using mobile devices and Foursquare to checkin.  In addition, it helps you increase your odds of finding a lady by directing you to the location where there is the largest concentration of female checkins.

Alexia Tsotsis at TechCrunch writes, "We previously called this service “evolutionary advantage,” as it is essentially nerds using technology to circumvent Darwinism. The fittest now includes those who have smarts, or at least smartphones."

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/01/where-the-ladies-at-mobile/

Whitepapers of Note:

• The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
• ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
• Networked Field Services
• Mobile, The Next Big Thing for Business

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

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.