Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 6

This is Part 6 in this series on My Advice to Mobile Application Vendors.

Today SIs (Systems Integrators) are wondering about their role in the SAP enterprise mobility ecosystem. They have traditionally played a significant role in SAP implementations, but what about mobility? I had the opportunity to exchange emails recently with Florian Ganz, a systems integrator, with Energy4U a Siemen business in Germany. You many find his experiences and thoughts insightful on this subject.

Florian entered the world of SAP mobility while working at SAP AG. It was 2005, in the middle of SAP's mobility puberty. He was given the challenging task of trying to fix SAP's early mobility projects and their escalating issues. The experience was invaluable, as he quickly became exposed to just about every challenge large enterprises could have with mobile applications. He traveled to almost every continent and spent time with over 35 SAP customers.

In 2008, in the midst of SAP's dark ages in mobility, Florian was introduced to SAP Co-Innovation and mobility partner Syclo. Syclo had a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and pre-developed mobile solutions that were certified on SAP. Many of the challenges that Florian had worked on at SAP were already resolved in the flexible and scalable solutions from Syclo. About this time Florian left SAP AG to help start a new business unit focused on mobility at Energy4U. His experience with SAP, and his new found knowledge of Syclo, enabled them to quickly close new mobility business with companies like RheinEnergie.

Energy4U has now implemented over six large enterprise mobility projects using Syclo's mobility solutions. In addition, they have also implemented many other custom mobile applications. Florian says,"There are many vendors and implementers in the SAP mobile eco-system, but only a few understand both topics (SAP and mobility). The majority lack the SAP, mobility and integration skills that are required." He believes that the key to their success as systems integrators in the mobility space is the fact that most of his team has many years of experience in both enterprise mobility and SAP (I thought it was because his team reads my blog articles!!!).

He is currently very interested in learning the details about the SAP/Sybase roadmap. He has seen many SAP strategies in his time that did not work, so he is more than ready for a plan that will.

I hope to interview Florian in the near future and get some more details regarding his projects.

So Florian's advice, as gleaned from his email: Have in-depth SAP knowledge, years of enterprise mobility experience and deep SAP integration skills. Also, there was value in having experienced all the pain that SAP mobility projects suffered in the early years.

Read the rest of the articles in this series:

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

27 Questions to Ask a Company Preparing an Enterprise Mobility Strategy

There are enterprise mobile application vendors like Clicksoftware that focus on supporting the needs of SAP customers that have mobile workers in rugged outdoor environments, and there are companies like Smartsoft Mobile Solutions that focus on supporting the needs of large and global retailers that use SAP and want customer facing mobile solutions to sell more products. These environments can be very different from each other. How do you know where to start when developing an enterprise mobility strategy?

If you are an enterprise mobile applications vendor, a member of an IT organization or a systems integrator that is working with a client to help them develop an enterprise mobility strategy, then it would be useful to have a few questions to get the discussions started. The following list of 27 questions is a good start, but I believe it is still an incomplete list. I am sure I have missed important questions, so please click on the "comments" icon below and add to the list.

What business processes are you considering mobilizing?
What ERPs or business applications are involved?
What are your preferred integration strategies?
What business units or departments are involved? Is this a corporate project or departmental?
What are your priorities for mobilizing business processes? Which ones first, second, third?
How many people will be using these mobile applications?
What are the roles and responsibilities of the mobile users?
What are their working environments? Hot, cold, wet, dusty, underground, on a power pole?
Will they always have internet connectivity or do they need offline support as well?
What are the expected ROIs?
What is the desired timeline?
Do you have business process diagrams developed for these solutions? If so, can we review prior to our meeting?
What is your one to three year roadmap for enterprise mobility?
Do you have existing mobile enterprise solutions? If so, please describe.
What are your mobile device or smartphone preferences?
Do you need an SDK (software development kit) to customize and/or edit your own mobile applications?
Do you want to develop your own mobile application in-house, buy off-the-shelf or contract with a third party for a custom mobile application?
If you want to develop in-house, are your stakeholders patient enough to wait for the final product? What are the costs to the business of not delivering on time?
If you develop in-house, who will support new versions of the mobile operating systems and new mobile devices?
Which business unit will budget to pay for upgrades to mobile operating systems and mobile devices? They change every few months? Do you really have developers that will be available for all of these updates and upgrades?
How will you support it? What is the plan for supporting mobile applications and mobile devices?
What countries will be using it?
What data plans does the company want to use in each country?
How will you manage the data plans?
What is the policy for replacing missing or damaged mobile devices?
Which business unit will pay for lost devices and data plans?
What is the process for approving mobile access to ERPs and business processes?

There are many more questions that will be asked and answered once there is a formal strategy and project, but this high level list is intended to get an IT organization thinking about some of the bigger issues and priorities before drilling down into specific mobile application project requirements.

Let me know if you would like me to help your organization think through these issues. I have a bit of experience in this area.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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 - September 16, 2010

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly 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 am specifically targeting information that reflects market numbers and trends.

Archived editions of Kevin's Mobility News Weekly are available at http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html

You can follow me on Twitter @krbenedict and read my blog, Enterprise Mobility Strategies for SAP and Others.

Also available are Kevin’s M2M News Weekly and Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly.

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I have added a feature to my blog site that supports email subscriptions. You can now receive all blog articles directly via email. If you are interested, click here.

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Market research firm IDC has increased its growth projections for this year's smartphone sales by 10 percent. The firm now expects smartphone sales to increase 55.4 percent compared to last year, to hit 269.6 million units.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/daily_news/article.php/410846/IDC-Global-Smartphone-Market-to-Grow-554-Percent-This-Year.htm

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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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Startup Leapfactor Inc. is making a big enterprise push with a new cloud-based mobile application platform that it says can mobilize any business app or process for thousands of employees. In its bid to consumerize the enterprise, the SAP AG partner is looking to help the wireless operators take on corporate America.

http://making-money-investing.com/telecom-startup-sees-enterprise-apps-as-telco-opportunity.html

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According to Gartner, Android will capture 17.7 percent of the smartphone market this year, slightly more than BlackBerry's 17.5 percent share. Symbian will remain on top with 40.1 percent this year, while Apple's iOS will come in fourth with 15.4 percent of the market in 2010.

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-will-blow-past-apple-and-rim-to-become-second-biggest-mobile-os-this-year-2010-9

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SAP CIO Oliver Bussmann tweeted recently that the enterprise software vendor has already rolled out iPads to 1,000 employees.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/sybase/sap-has-deployed-1000-ipads-to-its-employees/411?tag=zd-left

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Apple announced recently that it has lifted restrictions on its third party developer guidelines that impacts Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool.

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html

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“As mobility continues to play a key role in enabling companies to achieve greater productivity worldwide, IDC expects the global mobile worker population to increase from 919.4 million in 2008 to more than 1.19 billion in 2013, representing nearly 35 percent of the worldwide workforce," said Sean Ryan, research analyst for IDC's Mobile Enterprise group.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=221309

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The Motorola Solutions business of Motorola, Inc. and Ericsson hope to advance Public Safety communications. Specifically, an LTE based solution for public safety mobile broadband that will interoperate with mission critical voice and data to unify the delivery of high performing voice and broadband multimedia applications.

http://www.telecomengine.com/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_6562

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I registered for SAP's TechEd 2010 Las Vegas! I am excited about it this year - the year of mobility! SAP's 2010 focus is - on premise, on demand and on device - MOBILE device that is. I will be teaching a session on The Future of Enterprise Mobility. I have seen the conference agenda and it is packed full of sessions on mobility. I hope to see all of you there!

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2010/08/kevin-benedict-on-teched-2010-in-las.html

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Google unveiled Instant, a new predictive search tool that dynamically displays results as the user types, promising the solution will expand from the desktop to mobile devices this fall.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/08/google-instant-mobile/

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RIM recently stated that more than 30 million BlackBerry smartphone users across 65 countries have downloaded BlackBerry App World since the store first opened, with consumers averaging more than a million app downloads each day. The BlackBerry platform now represents 18.2 percent of the worldwide smartphone market according to data issued earlier this month by research firm Gartner, behind Symbian at 41.2 percent.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/blackberry-app-world-edges-past-10-000-applications/2010-09-09?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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Google Inc's Android software will become the world's second most popular operating system for cell phones this year, leapfrogging rival offerings from Microsoft Corp, Research in Motion and Apple Inc, according to a new report.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE68745L20100910

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Dell Inc. wants to put its new tablet into the lab coats of doctors, as it aims to broaden the appeal of the device beyond consumers and tie it more closely to the company's software.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE68E0PJ20100915

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Before nearly 100 reporters and analysts at its San Francisco office today, Twitter unfurled a redesign, which includes multimedia links that can be viewed from within a Twitter account, rather than from a separate browser page.

http://iphone.usatoday.com/Tech/2031973/

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Google has introduced a beta Walking Navigation service for users of Android phones as part of Google Maps for mobile 4.5.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/WAN_optimization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400096&cid=nl_IW_daily_2010-09-13_h

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YouTube is conducting a limited test of a live video streaming platform. I wonder what this means for smartphone video cameras?

http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/traffic_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400233&cid=nl_IW_daily_2010-09-14_h

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About 6.4 billion application downloads were made globally in 2009 alone from native and third party application stores, generating revenues of $4.5 billion in the same year.

http://www.live-pr.com/en/mobile-app-downloads-generated-4-5-billion-r1048562564.htm

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Recent articles from Kevin Benedict’s blog Enterprise Mobility Strategies for SAP and Others

• Compliance Functions for Mobile Applications
• 10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting and Implementing a Mobility Solution
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 4
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 5
• SAP Mentor Monday - Pre-Recorded SAP Enterprise Mobility Webinar

Recommended Whitepaper

Networked Field Services - http://www.clicksoftware.com/1c7060c0-1296-4c54-90d6-8f83c5c5ecf0/knowledge-center-white-papers-registration.htm

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

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My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 5

This is part 5 of this article series.

As an enterprise mobility vendor you need to recognize where your intellectual property is and where it will be developed in the future. This can significantly impact your potential value. Let me provide a scenario for your consideration.

An enterprise mobility vendor develops a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) that includes an SDK (software development kit). They want every software developer in the world to use their platform and SDK. They believe this will drive revenue from many different channels and allow them to enter new markets through these developers which will keep their cost of sales and marketing low. They can see the money train coming down the tracks.

The first part of their strategy works. They get their generic MEAP and SDK into the hands of many developers. The developers use the SDK to develop very interesting and complex mobile applications for many different markets. The mobile applications are branded by the developer. The developers start creating a customer base and developing their brand.

However, once the developers' businesses grow large enough, they decide they can replace your MEAP and any licensing commitments with their own technology so they can keep more of the revenue. You lose the market, the revenue, and the sales channel. Their customers don't know the difference since the finished mobile application looks the same.

The MEAP vendor is in trouble. Their business plan predicted they would grow at the same rate as their customers. They failed to anticipate they would only be an interim solution.

The MEAP vendor also thought they would own the code generated by their SDK and MEAP, and it would increase the value of their company. However, the software developers quickly begin to resist this notion as they also wanted to build their own IP library and company's value.

Who owns the IP (intellectual property) for the mobile applications developed on the MEAP and the SDK? If your contract says the MEAP/SDK author owns all code developed on it, you will get few developers to use it. The MEAP author wants the MEAP to lock in or tie developers to them. However, developers only brand and promote the finished mobile application. They don't want to promote your SDK or MEAP, only their branded apps.

The MEAP vendor wants to increase their IP and the value of their company. However, the more IP the MEAP vendor provides, the less opportunity there is for developers to build their own IP library and company value by utilizing it.

While the MEAP and SDK vendor's business plan calls for them to become increasingly valuable to their users, they are in fact increasingly competing with their customer base. How do you see reconciling this challenge?

I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

If you would like to discuss this subject or my consulting services in more detail please contact me.

Stay tuned for part 6 in this article series.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 4

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

http://www.clicksoftware.com/e86e075b-4fca-44c9-bfeb-4efcc978f416/knowledge-center-white-papers-delivery.htm

Subscribe to an Email Version of Enterprise Mobility Strategies for SAP and Others

Finally!!! I have added a feature to this blog site that supports email subscriptions. You can now receive all blog articles on this site directly via email. If you are interested click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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 M2M News Weekly – September 15, 2010

Welcome to Kevin's M2M News Weekly. This is an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to M2M (machine to machine) and embedded mobile and wireless devices that I read 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 the M2M market.

Archived editions of Kevin's M2M News Weekly are available at http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/m2m.html

You can follow me on Twitter @krbenedict and read my blog, Enterprise Mobility Strategies for SAP and Others.

Also available are Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly and Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly.

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M2M connectivity specialist Wireless Logic will invest more than GBP 1 million upgrading its European Sim card management and monitoring system SIMPro over the next 18 months, Mobile News reported.

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?cid=754984

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Whether you’re going for an urban hike or wandering from your hotel to find that restaurant you passed earlier, you won’t have to flag down a local if you’ve got Google Maps for mobile 4.5 on Android.

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/09/walk-this-way.html

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Juniper predicts that the number of mobile connected M2M and embedded devices will reach almost 412 million globally by 2014. The growth of these embedded devices will mainly come from an ever increasing number of utility meters, mobile connected buildings, consumer and commercial telematics and retail and banking connections.

http://telecomyatra.afaqs.com/news/?sid=1795_M2M:+The+future+of+technology

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A new generation of computing microprocessors, connected wirelessly to the Internet, soon will revolutionize everyday life, creating smarter, more efficient products. Homeowners will be able to cut their energy bills because an electronic device on their kitchen countertop will suggest the cheapest times to do the laundry.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2010/09/12/20100912intel-atom-processor.html

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Demand for wireless sensor networks is showing significant growth following a period in which adoption was impacted by the economic downturn. In 2009, 802.15.4 chipset shipments were down almost 30 percent compared with the previous year. However, according to the latest ABI research report on the WSN market, a strong uplift in shipments in 2010 will help drive growth from a little more than 10 million chipsets in 2009 to 645 million in 2015, a CAGR of 99.6 percent.

http://www.gsm-modem.de/M2M/m2m-news/wireless-sensor-network-ic-shipments-bounce-back-in-2010-645-million-forecast-for-2015/

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Remote and mobile technology is making it possible to move healthcare delivery outside the traditional settings of physician offices and hospitals to wherever patients are. It's bringing back the concept of doctors making house calls.

http://topnews.net.nz/content/28166-almost-30-percent-americans-would-be-using-mobile-device-monitor-their-health

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Archinoetics, which develops products primarily for the military, is releasing to the commercial market a software program called Physio-Lab, which collects and analyzes physiological data. The software, which costs between $2,200 and $4,500, can be used in research and pharmaceutical trials.

http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2010/09/13/story6.html

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L-3 Communication's Nova Engineering subsidiary has been awarded a $52.8 million contract for Tactical Remote M2M Sensor Systems. The award from the U.S. Department of Defense is for five years and is to support the U.S. Marine Corps' Tactical Remote Sensor Systems program.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/09/01/Defense-orders-Nova-Engineering-sensors/UPI-22241283351306/

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By the middle of last year eBay users could buy items directly from a mobile eBay site or applications like the one for the iPhone. By the end of 2009, customers had bought $600 million worth of products from their mobile phones.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/204970/ebay_bringing_mobile_apps_into_the_future.html

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Intel, the world's biggest maker of semiconductors, expects demand for embedded microchips to accelerate as the company expands beyond its core business of computer chips, an executive told Reuters. Intel, which last week issued a sales warning on weaker than expected demand for PCs, has made two major acquisitions in the past two weeks as it eyes a future in which chips are increasingly needed to connect other devices.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/hardware/Intel-sees-faster-growth-in-embedded-chips/articleshow/6480292.cms

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Sprint’s announcement with Grid Net gives it one of the first such cases in which a 4G network would be used to deliver an M2M application, which usually rely on narrowband 2G networks. Though automated meter reading requires little bandwidth, Grid Net’s software is designed to handle any number of more advanced tasks, from substation management to demand response applications, which make greater use of capacity.

http://blog.connectedplanetonline.com/unfiltered/2010/09/13/sprint-looks-for-new-business-in-smart-grid-wholesale-fmc/

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Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid is a task that will most likely take decades to complete. At least we're getting started now, with more than two million smart meters installed nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/09/08/doe-two-million-smart-meters-now-installed-in-national-grid/

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Reports indicate that venture capital investment in the mobile sector continues to rise, with an estimated $312 million being funneled into 37 companies and startups during the second quarter of this year alone.

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/vcs-funnel-312m-into-37-mobile-companies-during-q2-2010-9388/

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

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SAP Mentor Monday - Pre-Recorded SAP Enterprise Mobility Webinar

On Monday of this week John Appleby of Bluefin Solutions, Prashant Chatterjee of SAP and I recorded a webinar on the latest in SAP Enterprise Mobility. It is available now for your viewing pleasure.

In this webinar https://sap.na.pgiconnect.com/p49687013, I start out by discussing some of the most interesting new mobile technologies, and then Prashant and John actually bring substance to the webinar.

Just a reminder that there are many video interviews I have done with industry experts like Syclo's CEO Rich Padula available for you to watch here, http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/mobile-expert-video-series.html. Syclo is a Co-Innovation Partner of SAP, which means they develop joint mobile solutions with SAP. Theses videos are shaky and look like I am holding a small HD Flip video camera in one hand while conducting the interviews (in fact I am), but they do have some interesting content.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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 Weekly – September 14, 2010

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, mobile payments and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

Additional weekly newsletters on the subjects of enterprise mobility and M2M from Kevin Benedict can be found here http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

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ABN AMRO, ING, KPN, Rabobank, T-Mobile and Vodafone have signed a letter of intent to jointly introduce point of sale mobile payments in the Netherlands.

http://www.nfcnews.com/2010/09/10/banks-telecoms-unite-to-bring-contactless-m-payment-to-the-netherlands

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Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and the iPhone’s iOS may be the lead operating systems battling it out for smartphone supremacy, but when it comes to getting users around the world to click on ads, good old flip phones and Nokia’s Symbian OS powered phones beat them hands down.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/mobile-ads/

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PayPal has been partnering up with companies like Google for mobile payments, and it is expecting to see some huge business before the year’s end. More specifically, PayPal expects to see approximately $500 million in mobile payments before 2011.

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/09/09/paypal-expects-to-close-2010-with-500-million-in-mobile-payments/

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Smartsoft Mobile empowers some of the world’s largest multi-national organizations to extend and improve business processes by providing mobile solutions to their employees and customers. Smartsoft has more than 700 experienced ERP/mobile consultants with over 5,000 man years of experience helping 400,000 plus mobile users achieve their business goals with powerful mobile B2B and B2C applications, designed and developed specifically for today’s popular consumer and industrial grade mobile devices. For more information please visit, http://www.smartsoftmobile.com/. This newsletter is sponsored in part by Smartsoft Mobile Solutions.

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Consumers in the Netherlands will be using smartphones as mobile wallets within two years as result of a joint venture between top banks and mobile operators.

http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=458487

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MasterCard Worldwide today announced an agreement with Borderlinx, the international industry leader in global cross border e-commerce shopping, in order to offer MasterCard customer financial institutions and their cardholders around the world improved access to the global e-commerce marketplace and facilitate the flow of electronic commerce.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mastercard-and-borderlinx-collaborate-to-enhance-e-commerce-experience-around-the-world-2010-08-30?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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About 29 percent of consumers said they planned to use their phones to power through their back to school shopping lists, according to a survey this summer by consulting firm Deloitte.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/28/AR2010082800191.html

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Google and Apple are both making moves to ensure smooth financial transactions on their mobile platforms.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-Apple-Joust-for-Mobile-Payments-Via-Android-iPhone-507837/

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Mobile Commerce is just beginning to demonstrate how tricky it can get. Barnes & Noble announced new versions of its free e-reader app for the iPhone and iPad. The app has most of the features of Barnes & Noble’s Nook tablet e-reader. One feature is notably absent: the Nook’s ability to let users read anything in Barnes & Noble’s electronic inventory when the device is inside one of the book chain’s 723 stores.

http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/e-commerce/is-barnes-nobles-fear-of-ipad-competition-stunting-its-m-commerce-effort/

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Mobile commerce can mean many things to many different people, thus creating confusion within an organization. In the first installment of a series on m-commerce, we provide a definition, and discuss must have functionality within m-commerce.

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/10/m-commerce-a-definition/

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Intuit and mophie have teamed on a credit card swiping iPhone accessory called Complete Credit Card Solution that will allow any approved iPhone owner to walk out of an Apple store in as little as 15 minutes with the ability to accept credit card payments.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/intuit-squares-off-in-mobile-credit-with-a-little-help-from-apple/

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Online grocer Peapod LLC has introduced PeapodMobile, a mobile app that enables shoppers to shop for groceries and complete purchases wherever they may be.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/09/13/mobile-grocery-cart

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Starting in September, Bank of America customers will be eligible for a test program allowing them to pay for store purchases using their smartphones. The country's largest consumer bank is partnering with Visa to run the pilot in the New York area, marking the biggest step the two companies have taken so far to create a "digital wallet" with a range of financial capabilities.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226900097

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VeriFone Systems Inc. said Wednesday it has acquired Way Systems Inc., expanding the company's presence on cell phones and other mobile gadgets.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HV5JPG0.htm

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According to Juniper Research, the value of digital and physical goods that people buy through their mobile phones will more than double to $200 billion globally by 2012. Separately, Gartner has projected the number of mobile payment users worldwide will reach 108.6 million this year -- a 54.5 percent increase from the 70 million in 2009.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=134484

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Starbucks was an early player in mobile payments, and has repeatedly made counterintuitive moves. By developing an app for Research In Motion Ltd.'s devices at a time when most banks are focused on Apple Inc.'s iPhone or phones that use Google Inc.'s Android operating system, Starbucks appears to be acknowledging that people who might want to use their phones for purchases often carry company issued BlackBerrys.

http://www.americanbanker.com/bulletins/-1025192-1.html

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Everyone needs an iPhone app it seems, even e-commerce sites, but most shopping sites don’t want to bother with creating their own custom mobile app. Now we are starting to see white-label mobile e-commerce apps. Magento Commerce , which raised $22 million in March for its open-source e-commerce platform, is getting into the mobile game with white-label apps for existing customers who use its e-commerce backend.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/08/magento-mobile/

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MasterCard plans to buy European payment provider DataCash for $520 million. The move is just the latest indication of how hot the e-commerce space has become.

http://web-self-service.tmcnet.com/topics/mobile-answers/articles/95903-mastercard-opens-its-digital-wallet-with-520m-datacash.htm

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For most retailers, the fourth quarter is relied upon to generate a substantial portion of the company’s yearly revenue. The mobile commerce market is currently $2.5B with a projected four times annual growth rate for 2013. Businesses have made mobility a top priority for growth and view m-commerce as a new retail channel.

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/10/fourth-quarter-2010-trends-in-mobile-retailing/

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MarketsandMarkets has released a new report predicting that the value of mobile payment transactions in the US will reach $56 billion in 2015.

http://www.nfcnews.com/2010/08/30/report-us-mobile-payments-market-to-reach-56-billion-in-2015

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In a survey of 1,000 professionals around the world released by Netsize (a subsidiary of smart card maker Gemalto), 94 percent said they were "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to purchase goods totaling up to $31.50 using their mobile phones.

http://www.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227200033&cid=RSSfeed_BankTech_News

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New technologies will pit payment giants Visa and MasterCard against wireless carriers and start-ups in a race to create a platform that allows consumers to purchase goods, distribute money and manage accounts using only their smartphones. The stakes transcend the technology and strike at the heart of who will retain market dominance over $6.70 trillion in payment transactions.

http://www.poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=4704

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WorldMate released its mobile personal travel service app on the Android platform. The free WorldMate for Android app offers itinerary management, hotel bookings, alerts for flights and meetings, Google Maps, currency conversion and 5-day weather forecasts.

http://www.tnooz.com/2010/09/14/mobile/worldmate-puts-its-mobile-travel-assistant-app-on-android/

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Leading online travel company Yatra.com and Sony Ericsson came together to launch a new mobile phone application - 'Travel Buddy' - which will allow Sony Ericsson Xperia users to book tickets anytime, anywhere.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Yatra-com--Sony-Ericsson-launch---Travel-Buddy--/679044

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You can read more about enterprise mobility at the blog site,
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

Mobile Expert Interview – Dan Homrich, Part 1
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2010/09/mobile-expert-interview-series.html

Mobile Expert Interview – Dan Homrich, Part 2
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2010/09/mobile-expert-interview-series_10.html

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

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

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3

In part 1 of this article series we focused on sales channel development and marketing strategies for mobile enterprise application vendors. In part 2 we focused on sales strategies. In part 3 we will discuss thought leadership.

In my experience companies looking to implement new mobile technologies and strategies appreciate help. They appreciate learning from your mistakes and others. Often they don't even know the questions they should be asking. They may not even understand the key considerations and choices they need to make. They need help even getting to the decision making stage. They need answers.

I am a big fan of experts teaching workshops. I have developed them myself. One or two day workshops that identify all of the key issues, considerations and critical decisions enterprises need to understand before they decide on a mobile application strategy. Thought leaders have this knowledge and provide it. Inexperienced vendors are still learning themselves and are in no position to teach others.

I know of many situations where the sales inhibitor was lack of knowledge. Some companies even have budgets and a desire but delay the sales cycle purely because they are not confident in their knowledge. They don't have the expertise to ask the questions necessary to make a buying decision.

There is value in experience. There are SAP mobility and Co-Innovation partners like Syclo that have been around for more than 15 years. They have been through just about every significant mobile innovation cycle and trend. They have been there and done that. You can ask them about the key issues that can make the difference between a successful project that is completed on time and on budget and the ones that weren't. They have enough experience to share.

Thought leaders tell you how it is. They don't hide behind marketing brochures. You want to get to the people that have real world experience and learn. I know some mobility vendors that hide all of their experts and let only the sales and marketing departments communicate to the world. This always makes me think they are hiding something.

I respect mobility thought leaders that share their expertise and participate in educating the community. A real voice, a real face and real world knowledge. People like Philippe Winthrop of The Enterprise Mobility Foundation, Ben Lee at Smartsoft Mobile, Gil Bouhnick at Clicksoftware and Lionel Carrasco of Leapfactor, and others voice opinions and educate the market weekly through blogs, tweets and other methods.

I commend enterprise mobility experts that share and educate. They demonstrate their experience and confidence daily in their communications.

Stay tuned for part 4 in this article series.

Let me know if you would like to be introduced to some of these opinionated and experienced mobile industry experts, and I will do my best to point you in the right direction. You can contact me here.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 4

This is part 4 of this article series.

I have consulted with many enterprise mobility vendors. The new start-ups are often the most concerned with hiding all of their secrets. They want every prospect to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and they only want to share the information that is on their marketing brochures. They soon learn or they go away.

There are already so many new things to learn, that prospects and potential resellers have no idea what secrets you have that are worth stealing. I have seen mobile start-ups delay or jeopardize entire sales cycles over confidentiality concerns. The bottom line is that it is important to protect your retirement but recognize what is worth protecting.

I have had companies go through long NDA discussions with me. They tell me they have the most important new mobile technology on the planet, only to discover weeks later that the technology they have I saw five years ago or my own team developed years ago.

There may be times when your technology is worth billions. However, if you prevent your business from taking off over confidentiality concerns, then you will never know. The value of your technology is based primarily upon the number of customers and potential customers that use or will use it. Your focus should be on building a customer base - sales trump secrets every time.

I have said it before, the high tech world is littered with "better technology" that nobody bought. If you are a mobile enterprise application start-up, the most important thing you can be doing is closing sales, building a customer base, and creating a brand through thought leadership - not protecting secrets that nobody even knows you have or cares that you have.

Smartsoft Mobile Solutions has over 400,000 mobile clients in the field. Many of these mobile applications are B2C (business to consumer) applications that were custom developed for their large multi-national retail customers. With 400,000 users you can be sure they don't make it difficult for their customers to use these mobile applications. They don't negotiate non-disclosures with hundreds of thousands of mobile customers. They recognize that the value is in the numbers of users.

If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail or discuss my consulting services please contact me.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting and Implementing a Mobility Solution

A couple of weeks ago Gil Bouhnick and I recorded a webinar called 10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting and Implementing a Mobility Solution. I opened with a 15 minute overview of the latest mobile technology that I have been researching. It was a lot of fun and we had the largest audience I think I have ever seen on a webinar.

If you missed it live, you can catch the recorded version here:

http://www.clicksoftware.com/96ec7ed7-023c-4260-a063-a7d5c320dd23/knowledge-center-on-demand-webinars-registration.htm

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2

In part 1 of this series I focused on the topics of sales channel development and marketing for mobile application vendors. In part 2 I will focus on sales and sales strategies.

Organize all of your custom mobile application development projects into categories and business processes so the finished mobile applications can be demonstrated and used to show prospects your expertise. When I was CEO of a mobile application company, we took inventory of all of our code and mobile applications and found we had dozens and dozens of different mobile applications that we had delivered to customers but had never leveraged with other prospects. There were a lot of very cool apps on our shelves.
Recognize that each custom mobile application may have many different features. Individual features may be of interest to different prospects. It would be good to catalog specific features so you can demonstrate them quickly.
Use sales teams to find opportunities and qualify them, but close them with senior managers or executives. You will save weeks or months in the sales process.
Once a qualified mobile opportunity is found, and the requirements are known, get your writers to write whitepapers specifically on the issues your prospects have. Detail the issues and solutions available in a formal publicly available whitepaper. The written word is very powerful and provides good documentation of your expertise. The same can be done with webinars, videos or podcasts. Be a thought leader.
Become experts in your field. Don't permit your sales people to learn only 5 percent of their product or the industry they are targeting. They don't deserve your prospects' time if they are not solution experts. If it is not possible for your sales people to be experts, then make sure you bring experts to your customer meetings. Time is precious and you need to trade time for knowledge.
Use a mobile application development tool (SDK - software development kit) to quickly provide screen shots and working proof of concepts for your prospects. A picture or image is very powerful in helping your prospects envision a solution. I have been very successful with this strategy over the years. I would go to prospective customer meetings, gather requirements, and then have my team brand (put the client's logo on it) a mobile application that showed all of the screens and fields they would need and included screen navigation. The sales prospects were very impressed and jumped straight into a deep dive discussion on how we could complete the application for them.

In interviews with companies like SAP Mobility partner Clicksoftware, I learned that many vendors use a template approach so they can quickly demonstrate mobile applications that are similar to the needs of their prospects and customers. This is also a very effective approach.

Look for part 3 in this series later this week.

Contact me if you would like to discuss these in more detail.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1

Over the weekend I had a mobile start-up contact me and share their challenges in getting a working sales channel set up and rolling in the enterprise mobility market. Since this is a challenge that is shared by many small mobile start-ups, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this matter.

One thing that I learned years ago is that resellers and systems integrators like to jump on a bandwagon. If there is no bandwagon, they aren’t motivated to jump. What does that mean? You need a bandwagon that plays music and attracts a crowd before the resellers or systems integrators come.
The bigger the market you are targeting, the bigger the amplification system your bandwagon needs. You need bigger and louder noise in order to be heard.
Another lesson I learned is that resellers want to focus on a repeatable model in a market they can leverage. What does that mean? It means if they sell to an SAP customer, they can reuse the SAP integration and experience with other potential SAP customers, have an SAP reference case and demonstrate knowledge in SAP environments. They can build a good reputation in a specific and defined market.
Understand resellers and their business models. They don’t care as much about what is the very best technology. They want the best selling technology. The high tech world is littered with better technology that went nowhere. The best selling technology is the one with a bandwagon. This is a very important concept to understand. They are out to make money. They want to offer solid, reliable technology that works and will make them the most money with the lowest cost of sales.
Some companies focus on extending SAP and other ERPs to mobile devices. These are large and defined market places. While other markets, like the mobile field data collection market, are made up of thousands of small niche markets with thousands of small resellers. It is hard to leverage a mobile bridge inspection application with an EPA application assessment or clinical trials project. The audiences, markets and resellers do not overlap so it is difficult to leverage success in one niche market into other small markets. It seems you are always starting from scratch in the next market. This means you cannot gain momentum and selling does not get easier over time. The cost of sales continues to be far higher than it should.
The marketing investment in one niche market is difficult to leverage in another dissimilar market. The result is a higher marketing budget requirement per customer. It is easier and more cost effective to attend one ASUG Sapphire or TechEd conference and meet thousands of potential customers, than to attend many small conferences and meet dozens of prospects in different markets.
It often takes the same sales and market investment to close a $50,000 deal as it does to close a $500,000 or $5 million deal. The difference is you may lose money on the $50,000 deal when the cost of marketing and the cost of sales is factored in.
A rule - The sales process must get easier over time. You need your marketing system, your reputation, brand, reference cases, industry expertise and referrals to help you gain momentum and speed. If your sales process does not get easier over time it is broken.
Once you have worked with the big boys in the ERP space you can understand why this is a good market. Good reputations can be developed through an accumulation of successes and SAP customers are often large enough to buy thousands of software licenses.
SAP customers within certain industries like oil and gas or chemical all belong to the same special interest groups and they talk. Not only do they talk, they attend meetings together and have regular webinars. SAP has dedicated sales and industry experts that support these markets. Success with one large customer is quickly known around the industry. With each success the work is easier and the cost of sales goes down.
You can replace the name “SAP” with Oracle or IBM Maximo or any number of companies and ERPs. The idea is that big markets, with large customer bases, that belong to the same industries are very good areas to invest in. It takes big markets to gain leverage and economies of scale.

You can see these strategies being implemented by SAP mobility partners like Clicksoftware, Leapfactor and Syclo. They are focused on supporting the needs of SAP customers and developing a great reputation mobilizing the business processes of SAP users. As their customer bases grow, so does their expertise, brand recognition and reference list.

If you are interested in discussing this topic in greater detail please contact me.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 4
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 5
My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 6

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

http://www.clicksoftware.com/e86e075b-4fca-44c9-bfeb-4efcc978f416/knowledge-center-white-papers-delivery.htm

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Smartsoft Mobile Solutions' CEO Dan Homrich, Part 2

This is part 2 of an interview that I did with Smartsoft Mobile Solutions' CEO Dan Homrich. You can read part 1 here.

Kevin: What are some of the most interesting mobile applications that you have seen recently?

Dan: I have seen some very interesting mobile business intelligence applications that give the user very specific information based upon their GPS coordinates. Where are my customers relative to my location? I love mobile applications that provide just the information I need, when I need it, Mobile Business Intelligence applications with dashboards that show exactly what the user needs. I have also seen iPhone applications that utilize barcodes to do things that only industrial grade handheld computers could do in the past. I am a big fan of mobile applications that take the mobile user's perspective, rather than an office out perspective.

Kevin: What are some of the most unusual mobile applications you have seen?

Dan: A construction level and measuring stick mobile application. In the mobile applications I love category, I would add the Pandora music application and the CNBC real time application.

Kevin: When is a consumer grade mobile application sufficient for a mobile worker, and when is a ruggedized or industrial grade mobile device needed?

Dan: It is the working environment that determines it. How much money does the company have available to invest in devices? How much water and dust are in the working environment? What is the working environment temperature? What is the drop rating requirement? What are the expectations of the users? What does the user believe they need? Do you need a high volume scanning device that has large batteries that can last all day? All of these issues must be considered.

Kevin: What is the most complex enterprise mobility application that you have seen?

Dan: I have seen a DSD (direct store delivery) mobile application with 350 different screens. It was used in an offline mode by 4,835 delivery people. Since there was not a real time connection to SAP, it required a complete mobile version of the SAP pricing module. Yikes!

Kevin: What are some of the biggest challenges you see in enterprise mobility today?

Dan: The need to make internet connectivity truely ubiquitous. Educating the market and demystifying mobility. Helping customers develop a mobile strategy.

Kevin: What strategies do you see the big ERP vendors taking toward mobility?

Dan: They are taking a self-serving view of mobility. They are not taking into consideration that many companies have multiple ERPs and business applications. ERP vendors are concerned only with mobilizing themselves, not their customers' enterprise.

Kevin: What is missing from most MEAPs (mobile enterprise application platforms) today?

Dan: Missing today is a good understanding of the differences between the world of smartphones and the world of industrial mobile handheld computers. (SLAP MY FOREHEAD - I should have asked a follow-up question. Obviously, I am no Larry King.)

Kevin: Where does Smartsoft Mobile Solutions fit into the enterprise mobility ecosystem?

Dan: Smartsoft Mobile Solutions has a very strong focus on supporting business to consumer (B2C) mobile applications. We look for opportunities to provide very fast ROIs. Often mobile micro-applications (light weight mobile applications) can provide big value quickly and be used by large numbers of people. Companies are wanting to stay in close touch with their partners and with their customer base with mobile applications.

Kevin: What can we expect to see from Smartsoft Mobile Solutions over the next few Quarters?

Dan: A big focus on helping our customers communicate better with their customer bases.

I want to thank Dan for sharing his thoughts and insights with all of us!

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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: Smartsoft Mobile Solutions' CEO Dan Homrich, Part 1

I was lucky enough to catch up with Dan Homrich, CEO of Smartsoft Mobile Solutions (SMS) recently for an interview. I am particularly impressed with one data point about Smartsoft Mobile Solutions - they have over 400,000 mobile clients in the field. That means something they are doing is being done very right!

Kevin: Dan, how long have you been involved in the mobility industry?

Dan: I have been using mobile devices since the 1980s. I have a story about using a 300 baud audio coupler on a pay phone to submit orders, but I have been in the industry for over 15 years. Fifteen years ago I was involved in implementing industrial grade handheld computers for use in warehouse management.

Kevin: What was your first PDA, and what mobile device do you carry today?

Dan: My first PDA was an iPaq using Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. I now carry an Apple iPhone 4 and love it! The multi-tasking is a big improvement.

Kevin: What is your favorite iPhone application?

Dan: The Home Depot iPhone application. It helps you find products, see the products, see the prices, locate the products, etc.

Kevin: What is your role today and what does that role involve?

Dan: I am the Chief Executive Officer, and my responsibility is strategic direction and customer satisfaction.

Kevin: What industries do you see adopting mobility today?

Dan: We see a big interest in mobile applications from retail companies. We call this market the B2E (business to everyone) or B2C (business to consumer) market, retailers wanting mobile customer focused applications. We also see a big interest for any kind of mobile application that can help companies sell more products.

Kevin: What mobility trends do you see for the rest of 2010 and 2011?

Dan: There are going to be an increasing number of mobile devices and mobile operating systems. We do not see a market consolidation yet. The market continues to grow and diversify. That means enterprises are going to need a plan to support an increasing number of devices and mobile OSs. I also believe that if Verizon sells the iPhone, there will be another huge explosion (increase) in interest around the iPhone.

Kevin: What are you hearing in the market about mobile device management? Is there an increasing need given your prediction of diversity in mobile devices and mobile operating systems?

Dan: In the past I have worked on projects where we deployed 5,000 rugged and industrial grade mobile handheld computers. At that time mobile device management seemed critical. Today, I hear less interest in mobile device management. It is a company culture thing. When devices were specialized for niche markets and specific to a task, companies were concerned about keeping them up and functioning. With today's smartphones, you can replace the device and be up and running in a few minutes.

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This is part 1 of the interview with Smartsoft Mobile Solutions CEO Dan Homrich. Read part 2 here.

For more Mobile Expert Interviews read here.

For more Mobile Expert Videos watch here.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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 – September 10, 2010

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 retail applications, mobile payments and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

Additional weekly newsletters on the subjects of enterprise mobility and M2M from Kevin Benedict can be found here http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

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This week credit card giant MasterCard launched a version of its MoneySend mobile app for BlackBerry. Similar to the iPhone version, MasterCard MoneySend for Blackberry can settle peer to peer balances by sending money to friends and family and purchasing goods from an informal vendor.

http://mobile.cnet.com/site?t=OFwKYRJPIl1Vm2aMwLYjDw&sid=cnet

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Starwood Hotels & Resorts is letting guests book their travels and make reservations across 1,000 of its properties via a BlackBerry application. Consumers can access their accounts, check reservations and get directions. The application is available in BlackBerry App World.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/starwood-hotels-resorts-accommodates-guest-via-mobile-booking-app/

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Smartsoft Mobile empowers some of the world’s largest multi-national organizations to extend and improve business processes by providing mobile solutions to their employees and customers. Smartsoft has more than 700 experienced ERP/mobile consultants with over 5,000 man years of experience helping 400,000 plus mobile users achieve their business goals with powerful mobile B2B and B2C applications, designed and developed specifically for today’s popular consumer and industrial grade mobile devices. For more information please visit, http://www.smartsoftmobile.com/. This newsletter is sponsored in part by Smartsoft Mobile Solutions.

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Toys “R” Us has announced a new iPhone application that integrates QR codes and content such as videos and rewards into a daily retail shopping experience to enhance its marketing and loyalty initiatives. The application is a consumer engagement tool that blends audio, visuals and rewards with traditional media platforms via mobile bar codes.

See more in this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTu57Sx5VnI&feature=player_embedded#at=13

Read more - http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/toys-r-us-unveils-multichannel-mobile-crm-tactics/

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AAA has announced an Android counterpart to its popular iPhone app, which displays businesses which feature discounts for AAA members based on location. There are more than 110,000 such locations in the US, and the application, along with your phone’s GPS, will let you know which ones are directly in your area.

http://www.talkandroid.com/13836-aaa-app-now-available-for-android/

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Consumer appetite and enterprise adoption is fuelling the growth in volume, availability and sophistication of mobile services. According to the Sybase 365 Global Consumer Acceptance and Usage Report 2010, 70 percent of consumers were interested in additional mobile services. Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, is now processing more than 1.5 billion messages per day.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sybase-365-achieves-new-milestone-delivering-one-trillion-mobile-messages-2010-09-08?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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eBay has invested over $600 million into mobile apps over the past two years, and users have gained expanded mobility functionality as a result, most notably the ability to process payments for auctions using mobile apps.

http://www.benzinga.com/news/10/09/463375/ebay-mobile-division-planning-major-overhaul-ebay

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According to the Adobe Scene7 Mobile Commerce Survey, 55 percent of respondents cited full screen image zoom and videos as indispensable mobile viewing features for driving conversion, and 96 percent of respondents asserted the most effective visual merchandising features were catalogs and brochures, alternative images, and zoom and pan. Only 18 percent of respondents said they use rich visual merchandising features for mobile commerce today. However, 81 percent cited plans to deploy these features, thus implying richer mobile experiences will be created and offered during the next 12 months.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/09/08/rich-media-way-mobile-commerce-survey-says

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According to Forrester, 47 percent of consumers expect to wait no more than two seconds for a Web page to load; 58 percent of mobile phone users expect websites to load as quickly on their mobile phone as on their PC according to Gomez research.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/compuware-gomez-presents-webinar-on-the-top-e-commerce-strategies-for-turning-web-traffic-into-sales-2010-09-08?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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eBay will launch a "motors app" later this year that will let people use a built-in barcode reader feature to scan the Vehicle Identification Number of a car and do a Carfax lookup. The app will also let users enter the make and model of their own car and then filter searches for compatible parts and accessories. eBay also wants to build more "augmented reality" features into eBay's mobile applications. One example could be where a seller could take a video of an antique chair. An eBay application would turn that video into a 3D image that a potential buyer could overlay on a photograph of their room, letting them see how it would look.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/204970/ebay_bringing_mobile_apps_into_the_future.html

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The mobile web (web 3.0) is projected to grow at an annualized 500 percent over the next three years. How can your business benefit from this spectacular growth?

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/02/why-is-it-valuable-to-have-a-mobile-enterprise-strategy/

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In a development with importance to e-commerce merchants and other marketers moving to mobile commerce, phones using Android accounted for one quarter of all North American mobile page views in August, up from 6.4 percent in August 2009, according to the latest numbers from Quantcast Corp. Google’s gain came mostly at the expense of iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone. That system lost 11.4 points of mobile Web share, to finish at 56 percent in August.

http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2631

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AT&T appears to be in a position to offer the largest selection of Windows Phone 7 devices. We’ve heard rumors of HTC (T8788 or HD7?), Samsung (Cetus), and LG (C900 and GW910) devices headed to AT&T. Our count shows as many as four Windows Phone 7 devices hitting AT&T’s shelves this Fall. Unless something changes over the next two months, AT&T will be at the forefront of Windows Phone 7.

http://smartsoftmobile.com/wordpress/2010/09/07/windows-phone-7-what-are-the-carriers-going-to-do/

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You can read more about enterprise mobility at the blog site, http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/.

Mobile Expert Video Interview – Ed Krufka, http://www.youtube.com/sapmentors#p/u/10/NrF7LvLLlNE

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility 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.

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