ClickSoftware Named Gartner MQ Leader

ClickSoftware, provides automated mobile workforce management and optimization solutions for the service industry.  This year it has been positioned as a Leader by Gartner, Inc. in their 2012 Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management report (download the report free here). Gartner did not position SAP in the Leader quadrant, even though SAP has both Syclo and resells much of ClickSoftware's solution as SAP’s Workforce Scheduling and Optimization.  If fact, ClickSoftware utilizes much of the SAP Mobility Platform in their solution.  What is the logic?  Take a look at what makes up a full Field Service Management solution:

• demand forecasting
• long-and-short term capacity planning
• shift planning
• real-time scheduling and optimization
• enterprise mobility
• business analytics

The service industry needs a lot of tools and automation.  It needs all kinds of back-end solutions and capabilities.  The real value of just about any mobile solution is the back-office or cloud based solution it is connected to.

According to Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management ClickSoftware is well-positioned to take advantage of the four critical elements of the Nexus of Forces.  The Nexus of Forces is the convergence and mutual reinforcement of social, mobility, cloud and information patterns that drive new business scenarios.  At Cognizant we call these four SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) because it is great fun to “talk smac!”

It is easy to forget how important the ERP and the back-office solutions are to mobility.  An enterprise mobility app is only as good as the software in which it connects.

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

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict’s What’s New in HTML5 – Week of November 18, 2012

A lot of evolution has happened thus far in 2012 with HTML5.  The best use cases for HTML5 are being discovered, while the areas that are weak are now better understood.  I expect additional development and increasing use of HTML5 in 2013. 

I believe in HTML5.  IT organizations have as their number one priority, solving business needs, followed by managing TCO (total cost of ownership).  HTML5 fulfills both of these needs.  If a mobile worker needs order and inventory information while on the road, they don't need every bell and whistle possible in native code.  If HTML5 can efficiently enable many of these small mobile apps that provide real productivity to be developed and deployed quickly at low costs, then IT organizations should be embracing it.  If you have time later, find a use case for native, but don't delay productivity gains in order to justify developing in native.

Now for the news...

The Wikimedia Foundation is deploying an HTML5-based video player that will make it easier to add video clips to the millions of articles on the Wikipedia site.  Read Original Content

Researchers at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology report online tracking technology is evolving as tracking techniques like Flash cookies are being replaced by HTML5.  The use of Flash cookies dropped 15 percent from May to October 2012 and HTML5 local storage use increased by 12 percent.  Read Original Content

Google has launched a new experimental and interactive web app, JAM with Chrome, built with HTML5, CSS3 and the Go programming language. Read Original Content

Sencha has released version 2.1 of the Sencha Touch JavaScript library for mobile devices, designed to help developers create HTML5 apps for mobile platforms including iOS, Android and BlackBerry.  Read Original Content

The BlackBerry 10 browser has passed Ring 1 of the Ringmark benchmark standard for HTML5 app compatibility.  Read Original Content

Amit Gupta of JoomlaIntegration believes HTML5 apps for Smartphones “have a better user interface, utilities for events and other effective features”.  Mobile shopping from applications using HTML5 is formulated with the Database, Canvas and GeoLocation API’s.  Read Original Content

Developer David Walsh describes and demonstrates “Camera and Video Control with HTML5”.  Read Original Content

An executive at European news outlet FinancialTimes.com recently stated the decision to focus on HTML5 rather than native apps resulted in increased mobile usage and revenues for the company.  “The reports of the death of HTML5 are greatly exaggerated.”  Read Original Content

Microsoft’s new SDK for IE10 enables developers without advanced expertise in CSS and HTML5 to “create site features such as multiple columns, positioned floats and device adaptations” and features an HTML5 application cache that makes website files available offline.  Read Original Content

Maltese furniture house Fino has redesigned its website using HTML5 technologies and is now easily viewed on desktops and mobile devices.  Read Original Content

LinkedIn has replaced the HTML5-powered search function on its iPad app with native code, and the company reports it saw a 20 percent increase in searches as a result of the change.  Read Original Content

Mozilla has released Popcorn Maker 1.0, a free online video editor built entirely in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.  Read Original Content

LG Electronics announced it has added HTML5 support for its Pro:Centric IPTV platform for the hospitality industry.  Read Original Content

FTAdviser has launched a new mobile web app built using HTML5 technology “to provide an effective, interactive user interface without the need to download through an online store”.  Read Original Content

Jaspersoft has replaced the Flash-based visualization engine with HTML5 in the new release of its business intelligence suite.  Read Original Content

Tom’s Guide provides a list of “20 HTML5 Games to Pass the Time”.  Read Original Content

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

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Commerce News Weekly – Week of November 18, 2012

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

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read SMAC News Weekly

New research from Juniper shows more than 500 million people will use mobile coupons next year, a 30 percent rise on 2012, with the growth powered by further integration into social networks. Read Original Content

A recent IDC report estimates total mobile device spending, driven largely by m-commerce, will exceed $1 trillion by 2017. Read Original Content

The Australian arm of mobile network operator Vodafone has released details of its forthcoming SmartPass NFC mobile wallet, which could launch "as early as next year" after testing takes place over the next few months. Read Original Content

Kony is the industry’s leading mobile and multichannel application platform provider. Kony develops a suite of customizable pre-built apps, the KonyOne™ Platform and a comprehensive mobile application management solution, which give companies the confidence and control to quickly build apps once and deploy everywhere -- across all mobile devices and operating systems. This newsletter is sponsored in part by Kony.

Twenty-eight percent of those who own a smartphone or tablet plan to shop from their mobile devices on Thursday, according to a Harris Interactive survey of more than 2,000 adults on behalf of Digitas. That’s nearly twice the percentage that said they would shop from a mobile device on Thanksgiving in a similar survey conducted last year. Read Original Content

Mobile is expected to make a huge impact on retail this holiday season, with almost 70 percent of smartphone owners expected to use their device to shop. Read Original Content

According to an eConsultancy report, search engine marketing in North America is expected to be worth $23 billion by the end of 2012 with a large portion coming from mobile traffic; projections show an additional $4 billion in growth throughout 2013, which brings the industry to an estimated worth of $27 billion. Read Original Content

Mobile devices captured nearly 20 percent of all online shopping in Q3 2012, which bodes incredibly well for online retailers heading into the holiday season. Read Original Content

According to a market research report published by MarketsandMarkets the total NFC applications market is expected to reach $10 billion by 2016 at an annual rate of 38 percent from 2011 to 2016. Read Original Content

According to a study by Harris Interactive 27 percent of tablet and smartphone-owning consumers plan to use them for their holiday shopping this year. Read Original Content

Thoughts on Mobile Strategies and Social Collaboration

Boise, Idaho is beautiful, but no Silicon Valley

Chris Howard, Gartner Managing VP was recently quoted as saying, "Organizations need to absorb the ways that their employees and consumers want to work and build systems to support them."  He was referring to social enterprise solutions.  I agree with Chris.  People today want a means to collaborate on ideas and to help make decisions.  They want to participate and to make things happen.  Distance, however, is an issue.  That is why places like Silicon Valley seem to always attract a lot of innovation.  It is due to people being together there and able to meet up at a physical location, exchange ideas and organize. The problem is many of us that want to be a part of these discussions are not in these geographies.

I want to pause a moment and introduce to you the concept of time-space compression.  Time-space compression often occurs as a result of technologies that seem to accelerate speed and reduce distances.  Here are some examples:

• Communications (telegraph, telephone, fax machines, Internet, mobile)
• Transportation (wheeled carts, rail, cars, trains, jets, rockets)
• Business (online marketing, online sales, globalization, SFA, Mobile CRM, Mobile BI, Mobile Payments, Mobile Banking)

Social enterprise collaboration solutions like SAP's JAM, Jive, Yammer and Chatter also help with time-space compression.  They are able to accelerate the amount of information and idea exchanges, and reduce the effective distance (geographic obstacles) between participants.   This often increases the speed of decision making and innovation.

It is these kinds of soft ROIs that are so hard to document, but can lead to incredible productivity gains. A couple of months ago I interviewed SAP's CIO Oliver Bussman.  I asked Oliver about social collaboration solutions at SAP and where he could point to ROIs.  He told me about the merits of reading about events using collaboration technology as opposed to email threads.  He said reading a discussion on a collaboration platform enables you to see the whole discussion, while email threads only provide a limited view of the participant's opinions and exchanges.  Why?  You are not always included in every email thread (thank goodness!).  The point is, there are better technology platforms (social enterprise collaboration) that can provide more efficient ways of sharing information among groups of people.

Aberdeen Group in the report "Mobility in ERP 2011" says the following, "Getting the right information, to the right people, so they can make the right decisions is the driving force behind mobilizing the workforce."  I would add, that in addition to mobilizing the workforce, providing them with social enterprise collaboration platforms that also compress time and space is one of the next logical steps to increasing productivity.

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

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

M2M News Weekly – Week of November 18, 2012

Welcome to M2M News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to M2M (machine to machine) and embedded mobile devices.  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 the M2M market.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read SMAC News Weekly

Shipments of cellular M2M module will grow from 76 million in 2012 to 104 million in 2013, according to a study by research firm Strategy Analytics. Read Original Content

TechNavio's analysts forecast the Global Smart Grid Communications market will grow at a CAGR of 13.37 percent over the period 2011-2015. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increase in smart grid construction. Read Original Content

A new Zpryme report recently released projects the global energy management system market will reach $1.70 billion in 2012. By 2020, the global market is projected to reach $9.98 billion. Read Original Content

ILS Technology provides ready-to-use cloud based platforms to implement and manage M2M (machine to machine) and embedded wireless devices that connect to SAP.  ILS Technology simplifies deployments and offers unparalleled security to protect company and customer data and to ensure regulatory compliance. This newsletter is sponsored in part by ILS Technology.

At the Open Innovations Forum in Moscow, Ericsson announced a strategic cooperation with one of Russia's major operators, MegaFon, to develop the market around M2M connectivity. Read Original Content

Airbus became the first commercial aircraft manufacturer to announce plans to employ permanent radio frequency identification tags on parts for its A350 XWB aircraft. Now, Airbus is the first aircraft manufacturer to expand the permanent tagging of selected parts across its entire fleet. Read Original Content

A new fleet driver communications solution, based around a smartphone app, has been launched by Driverconnex. The Driverconnex solution has been designed to complement any pre-existing fleet management system. Read Original Content

Total mobile connections will stand at 6.8 billion including M2M, or 5.9 billion excluding M2M and inactive SIM cards by fourth quarter, according to a study by GSMA. Read Original Content

A new Strategy Analytics M2M Strategies report "M2M Devices Annual Sales by Air Interface, Region by Industry Vertical" predicts cellular M2M module shipments will grow from 76 million in 2012 to 104 million in 2013. Read Original Content