Shift Gears Now!!! An iPhone Application That Tells You How to Drive

Oh no!  An iPhone that tells you how to drive.  That's all I need.  The application is called DriveGain and it gives a range of visual and audio feedback on what changes are required by the driver to burn less fuel.  I wonder if it uses my father's voice?

It works with any petrol or diesel car with a manual transmission and features a database of over 8,400 European and 8,500 North American cars to choose from.

Verbal instructions given by the iPhone app range from general advice such as “try reducing your acceleration!!!!!”, to specific gear changes. While on the visual side, DriveGain provides more detailed information including current speed, level of acceleration or braking and the affect this has on fuel consumption, a smoothness score, average fuel economy reading and other eco-related statistics.  I wonder how much sarcasm is built into the app?

Is this supposed to make my driving experience more pleasurable?  "Turn left, SLOW DOWN, not third gear stupid, BRAKE NOW, do you know how much you are spending on fuel at this speed, recalcuating directions, stop hitting me."

Read more about DriveGain:
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/06/30/drivegain-launches-with-an-iphone-app-to-make-you-drive-more-efficiently/


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M 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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What I Learned about Mobility at Sapphire, Part 1

It has been about six weeks since Sapphire, and it is about time I consolidate and share my thoughts on what I learned.  I tracked down and interviewed (text interviews | video interviews) just about every management team of every mobile enterprise company that was present at Sapphire - with the notable exception of ClickSoftware, which is an SAP mobility partner and the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimization solutions for every size of service business.  I will catch them next time.

SAP's announced intent to acquire Sybase in the weeks before Sapphire forced all the mobile enterprise application vendors to quickly consider the impact on their strategies, solutions and marketing messages.  There was a bit of "testing the waters" with various marketing messages at Sapphire.  I think most of them were able to come up with an adequate marketing message.  The messages were uniformly, "We understand why SAP did it, and we plan to support the SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform) in the near future.  It will not be a problem for us.  It will give our customers more options and let us continue to focus on the business processes and mobile applications where customers get the most value." 

I think some of the mobile enterprise vendors believed their messages more than others.  I think once Sapphire was over, a number of the companies went back to the whiteboard to really understand their next steps and role in the world.

What I Learned About Mobility at Sapphire, Part 2
Stay tuned for Part 3.

Read the latest news and market numbers on enterprise mobility at Mobility News Weekly.

Join the Linkedin Group, SAP Enterprise Mobility is has over 750 members now.


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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 Enterprise Users Need Simplicity

SAP has a section of their SDN/SCN portal for enterprise mobility.  On this site they have a diagram depicting an end-to-end mobile solution.  This diagram does a good job of causing fear in just about everyone.  The diagram shows a deep stack of technology components, each with their own complex technical design and functionality.  I can just imagine an enterprise IT team gasping in distress at this diagram.  However, understanding how everything in your car works is not necessary in order to drive it.

Let me give you an example.  ClickSoftware is an SAP mobility partner and the developer of a host of workforce automation and service chain optimization applications.  They have already mobilized field services applications and implemented them with SAP.  It is now available out-of-the-box.  The complexity of the implementation has largely been removed.

If the backend business application and database is a known entity, and is already mobilized, then implementing mobile enterprise applications can be fairly simple for the end user.  SAP partners like ClickSoftware have already managed the complexity and developed applications for end users that are already integrated with SAP.

SAP's acquisition of Sybase and SAP's announced Project Gateway (an API layer for simple mobile applications) will make integrating with SAP even easier.  SAP's strategy for supporting mobile applications is clearer and vendors can focus on it.

Complexity in enterprise mobility is directly related to flexibility.  The more flexible the application the more complex.  If the developer must design and program an application to support an infinite number of different backend databases and business processes, then the solution code can be enormously complex.  If the backend business application and business processes are known in advance, and the integration strategy defined, then much of the complexity and risk can be removed.

The bottomline, there is a good reason to work with SAP mobility partners that are experienced and support specific business processes of interest to you.   You will have removed much of the complexity and risk from the project.  Look for mobility vendors that are SAP certified and have SAP customers in production environments using the business processes you want mobilized.

If you would like to discuss enterprise mobility in more depth, and/or your specific project please contact me.

If you are interested in news about the mobile industry read - Kevin's Mobility News Weekly.  This is a weekly update of the most interesting industry numbers, news and developments.

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html


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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 Applications for Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Human Progress

I am very interested in mobile enterprise applications that deliver collaboration and knowledge management functionality.  I believe these solutions will revolutionize businesses that use them.  I saw three of these applications at Sapphire this year that I describe later in this article. 

First let me share a very interesting article by Matt Ridley that was recently published in the Wall Street Journal on May 22-23, 2010, Humans: Why They Triumphed.  Here are some excerpts:

• Collective intelligence is the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural progress or change in a population is the amount of interaction between individuals.
• The sophistication of the modern world lies not in individual intelligence or imagination, rather, it is a collective enterprise.
• Exchange stimulated innovation by bringing together different ideas. Exchange and collective intelligence is the key to human progress.
• Once human beings started swapping things and thoughts they stumbled upon divisions of labor, in which specialization led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. Specialization encourages and promotes innovation. 
• The process of cumulative innovation that has doubled life span, cut child mortality by three-quarters and multiplied per capita income nine-fold-world-wide in little more that a century is driven by the exchange of ideas.

Mr. Ridley believes that the interactive nature of the internet, rather than dumbing down people, will in fact lead to an explosion of new ideas and inventions! Online collaboration and the sharing of idea through blogs, tweets, online forums and discussion groups lead to an increase in knowledge.  I believe the three mobile applications that I saw at Sapphire will do just that.

The mobile collaboration and knowledge management tools that I saw at Sapphire were:

• SAP's Expert Link (a proof-of-concept for internal use only developed by Leapfactor)
• SAP's Streamworks - SAP StreamWork brings together people inside or outside your organization with information for fact-based decision-making and interactive business tools for collecting feedback, strategizing, and brainstorming.
• Open Text Everywhere - As the enterprise moves away from a fixed and location-centric work setting to a dispersed mobile world; the ability to interconnect people, the processes and the core content regardless of where and when becomes a necessity and a competitive differentiator.

For more details on these applications you can watch a short video from Kevin's Video Comments - Kevin on mobile collaboration and knowledge management applications.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M 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.
***************************************************

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – June 24, 2010

You are reading the second edition of "Kevin's Mobility News Weekly." This is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I aggregate the information, include the original links and add a synopsis of each article. I also search for the latest market numbers such as market size, growth and trends in and around enterprise mobility.

You can read archived newsletters here - http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html

Please send me any interesting mobility news links, market numbers, events, case studies, analyst reports or whitepapers you think I should include in my newsletter. Enjoy!

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A recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan, finds that the new mobile office market earned revenues of roughly $1.7 billion in 2009. This is predicted to reach $6.8 billion in 2015.

http://hosted-exchange.tmcnet.com/topics/mobility/articles/88847-mobile-office-market-reach-68-billion-2015-report.htm

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Internet advertising will join television in 2014 as the only media with spending in excess of $100 billion. Internet access is a key driver of spending in most segments. Increased broadband penetration will boost wired access while growing smartphone penetration and wireless network upgrades will drive mobile access. Spending on wired and mobile Internet access will rise from $228 billion in 2009 to $351 billion in 2014. Globally, the online and wireless video game market will grow from $52.5 billion in 2009 to $86.8 billion in 2014, a compound growth rate of 10.6%. This will make it the second fastest-growing segment of E&M behind wired/mobile Internet advertising, yet ahead of TV subscriptions and license fees.

http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/06/pwc-outlook-entertainment-and-media-growth/

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Sprint-Nextel reports they may open a center in the San Francisco area to foster the development of the M2M ecosystem. Meanwhile, AT&T recently reported that it had 5.8 million M2M connected devices on its network and added 1.1 million in the first quarter. Verizon said that it has 7.3 million M2M connected devices on its network. Sprint hasn't disclosed specific connected device numbers, but Bowman estimated that the company has "a couple million" devices on its network.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-may-open-m2m-collaboration-center-san-fran/2010-06-17?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0r8jFxDJ5

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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/

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BlackBerry App World launched in April 2009. A year later RIM said the store offers about 6,000 applications, far behind rivals like Apple's iTunes App store, which now boasts about 225,000 apps for iPhone and iPod touch devices. BlackBerry App World currently has roughly 25 million active users, with nearly 1 million app downloads per day, according to RIM.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/blackberry-app-world-makeover-adds-carrier-billing/2010-06-17?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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Mobile ad network Millennial Media is reporting that iPad ad requests grew 160 percent from April to May. RIM’s BlackBerry remained the second largest OS on Millennial’s network for the tenth consecutive month. Android’s share rose by 5 percent to a 15 percent share of impressions for the month of May.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/18/millennial-media-apple-os-drops-by-33-percent-in-may-but-ipad-impressions-grow-160-percent/

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In this 4 minute YouTube video from this week’s Video Comments, I discuss the value of mobile micro apps for businesses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwjaGDvThLg&feature=channel

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Analytics firm Distimo reported that 80 percent of all iPad applications fall into the Paid Apps segment. By comparison, 73 percent of iPhone and iPod touch applications carry premium price tags, while the average iPad app costs $4.67, as opposed to $3.82 on iPhone. Medical apps for iPad lead the way at an average price of $42.11, followed by Finance apps at $18.48; on the iPhone, Medical apps average $10.74, and Finance apps average $5.74.

http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/apps-ipad-surpass-5-000-device-sales-top-2-million/2010-05-31#ixzz0rVZLbpmW

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With the iPad, Apple has laid down yet another challenge to the wireless industry's incumbents. The book-sized gizmo, now past 2 million shipments in just two months, represents a new device category for consumers, a chance for additional data revenues for carriers and a slap in the face to handset makers already struggling to stanch the rise of the iPhone.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/special-reports/temperature-tablets-how-mobile-industry-responding-ipad?utm_source=FWhomepage#ixzz0rVYdS700

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The Global Mobile Applications Market (2010 – 2015) report published by Markets and Markets reveals that around 7 billion free and paid applications were downloaded in 2009 alone from native as well as third party stores. The downloaded applications were responsible for generating revenues worth $3.9 billion in the same year. Unsurprisingly, Apple dominated the market with 4 billion downloads to date grabbing 90% of the application market share in 2009. New players in the industry are fast catching up and with super growth in smartphones, the mobile application market is likely to expand exponentially. Estimates by the same firm reveal that the global mobile application market is likely to reach $24.4 billion in 2015 growing at 64 percent CAGR.

http://apps4mobile.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/most-preferred-mobile-applications/

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In this video on YouTube I discuss mobile collaboration and knowledge management applications for businesses.

http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/5/1OlokRKoOgE

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Smartphone market estimates are increasing, and growth in the hand held industry should grow at approximately 45% in 2010 and 31% in 2011. RIM should maintain a global share of 20% in 2010 and 2011.

http://newsystocks.com/news/3557593

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Munster is raising his estimate for iPads for 2010 and 2011. He originally estimated that Apple would sell 6.2 million iPads in 2010 and 8.2 million in 2011, giving Apple 14.4 million iPads by 2012. Munster now says Apple will sell 7.5 million in 2010 and 9 million in 2011 for a total of 16.5 million iPads by 2012.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008462-37.html

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According to Millennial Media, 90 percent of U.S. developers are focusing their efforts solely on one mobile platform, with just 10 percent pursuing multi-platform strategies. Among developers dedicated to a single platform, 56 percent are focusing on iPhone and 29 percent are targeting Android. Just 5 percent are building for Symbian, with 4 percent working on BlackBerry--the remaining 6 percent of developers are focused on "Other" platforms, and it speaks volumes about the sorry state of both Windows Mobile and webOS that the report doesn't even break them out into their own separate pie-chart slices.

http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/ios-4-arrives-bringing-changes-it/2010-06-21

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"IBM, except for its professional services side, has lost its way in mobile," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates. “IBM does not have a strong presence in mobility on a standardized product basis and must modernize to support multiple [mobile] platforms to gain share. It has to be seen as offering a compelling solution to the market at a reasonable cost.”

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178051/IBM_to_set_new_mobility_strategy_with_launch_of_software_development_lab

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Machine to machine or embedded mobile devices and applications are an area of wireless data usage with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 25% per year through 2014 and a projected need for up to 50 billion M2M devices by 2025.

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2010/06/m2m-growth-opportunities-for-mnos-in.html

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IBM announced new mobile software, services and research projects at the opening of their new software development lab in Massachusetts. Mail Triage, a research prototype was shown as an iPhone application that can help workers inundated with e-mails more quickly assess which ones need immediate action and which can be deleted or handled later.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178141/IBM_launches_software_lab_in_Massachusetts_announces_mobile_products?taxonomyId=16

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Piper Jaffray reports that free apps account for about 4 billion total App Store downloads or 81% of all downloads. iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users presently download over 16.6 million applications each day, almost double the 8.9 million daily downloads via Apple's iTunes multimedia storefront. The average selling price among the top 50 premium App Store applications for iPhone and iPod touch is $1.49. Among the top 30 paid iPad apps, the average price jumps to $4.66.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/study-free-applications-make-81-app-store-downloads/2010-06-23?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0rh8nzN8L

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Kevin’s Video Comments on mobile applications for collaboration, knowledge management and human progress.

http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/5/1OlokRKoOgE

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Research in Motion confirmed it will finally unveil its long-awaited BlackBerry OS 6.0 update during the third quarter. Specifics remain scarce but include an improved WebKit-based browser, a customizable homescreen, a revamped media player and a more intuitive user experience.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/rim-launch-blackberry-os-6-0-q3/2010-04-27#ixzz0rh6A8Pgm

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Robust earnings for Research in Motion, growth and solid sales of more than 11 million devices are unlikely to impress analysts. Both are expected, along with further declines in average selling prices, as overseas sales of lower-end devices grow. RIM's share of the more lucrative North American market, meanwhile, is expected to have eroded further as the iPhone and a slew of smartphones that use Google's Android operating system eat into the BlackBerry's market share.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65L3FG20100622

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Barnes & Noble and Amazon cut the prices of their electronic-book reader tablets. Barnes & Noble dropped the price of its Nook device from $259 to $199 while introducing a WiFi-only model selling for $149. Amazon dropped the Kindle's price from $259 to $189.

http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/rss.jsp?rssid=597&item=+http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-syndication%2farticle%2f2010%2f06%2f22%2fAR2010062201954_mobile.xml+&cid=4007073&spf=1

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Kevin’s Video Comments on different mobile application categories.

http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/7/AMyOAo8YNUA

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Apple announced that it sold its three millionth iPad™ just 80 days after its introduction in the US.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/22ipad.html

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The following links are interviews that I have conducted over the past few months with enterprise mobility experts and CEOs.

Mobile Expert Interview Series

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/mobile-expert-interview-series.html

Mobile Expert Video Series

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/mobile-expert-video-series.html

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly archives can be found at:

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html 

I would invite those interested in enterprise mobility to join the Linkedin Group SAP Enterprise Mobility, http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro.


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC 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. ***************************************************