Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Ben Lee on the Mobile Wallet

Mobile retailing guru Ben Lee has written a very interesting blog article on Google's new mobile payment platform. Some of the most interesting points are as follows:

Google’s next version of its Android Smartphone software will support a technology that lets people use their handsets, instead of credit cards.
Google CEO Eric Schmitt said that support for Near Field Communications will be integrated into the next version of its Android software.
Three of the four largest mobile phone carriers in the U.S. have formed a joint venture to turn phones into digital wallets.
Many mobile application developers will incorporate this new functionality into mobile retailing applications.

Bill Moylan, Syclo's EVP of Sales

This is part four of the an interview with Syclo's Bill Moylan.

Kevin: What other trends are you seeing in the enterprise mobility market?

Bill: We are actually still quite focused on the traditional market of field services. We have a narrower view of enterprise mobility than perhaps you. There are more devices, more operating systems and more choices for mobile devices, but the value propositions are much the same as we have been selling for sometime.

Kevin: What do you predict will be different in 2011 in the enterprise mobility market?

Bill: There will be a massive amount of options available for new mobile devices and operating systems. This will allow Syclo to recommend exactly the right kind of mobile devices for each kind of job. We will be announcing Android support soon.

Kevin: What industry markets are you focusing on today?

Mobile Coupons and Enterprise Mobility

In an article written by Helen Leggatt for BizReport, she writes that 54 percent of retailers will put m-coupon (mobile coupon) systems in place in the next 12 months. These systems will allow coupons to be dispatched to customers' mobile phones and scanned at the point-of-sale. I can anticipate that the "dispatched" component could easily be scheduled, location-based, by subscription or on-demand.

In a recent survey by mBlox it was found that over three quarters of all consumers surveyed use coupons when shopping, and 29 percent of UK and 15 percent of U.S. consumers have already used a mobile coupon. In addition, 71 percent of UK and 42 percent of U.S. mobile users said they would be interested in receiving mobile coupons/vouchers while they are shopping in a store to alert them to a special offer or promotion.

The mBlox survey also shows that there is a different level of adoption rate between UK and U.S. consumers when it comes to business communications use mobile phones.

59 percent of UK and 17 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed stated SMS is their preferred choice when being contacted about appointment reminders.
For payment reminders, such as credit card and utility bills, the consumer research showed that more than one in three consumers in the UK chose SMS as their preferred communication channel, but just one in 10 chose SMS in the U.S.
Almost 90 percent of consumers prefer multi-channel options for interacting with businesses.

It will be interesting learning what components of SAP will be integrated with mobile coupon applications. If you have insight into this, please let me know by commenting below. SAP service partner, Smartsoft Mobile Solutions is one company that I know specializes in the mobile retail application market.

***************************************************
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.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 3

Bill Moylan, Syclo's EVP of Sales

This is part three of this interview with Syclo's Bill Moylan.

Kevin: Do you talk about improvements to DSO (days sales outstanding) as a value that may be available through better field services processes?

Bill: Absolutely! Make sure that all billing is done accurately. Make sure you are providing the services in the SLA (service level agreement). Make sure you have all the warranty information. Get the customer to sign off on the work. SAP gives you a lot of strength in this area.

Kevin: What mobile device trends are you seeing in your markets?

Bill: Executives want BlackBerry applications. Executives are trying to get IT to accept iPhones.

Kevin: How are you working with Sybase?

Bill Moylan, EVP of Sales Syclo

This is the second part of this interview with Syclo's Bill Moylan.

Kevin: What advice do you give companies that are just looking to get into mobility?

Bill: Let me start out by giving some advice as to what companies should not do. I have seen many companies that try to build a strategy around what smartphones they happen to have in their pocket. Some companies say to me, “We use BlackBerrys, so we need a mobile application for a BlackBerry.” That is a wrong strategy, as mobile devices will change, but you want your enterprise mobility strategy to be long lasting. That is not a good strategic view.

Companies have key business objectives; they are usually around reducing costs and increasing revenue. Companies should look at their objectives and then hunt for areas in the various operational areas where mobility can help the company accomplish them. We work with a lot of life science companies. They may be looking for ways they can improve the efficiencies of their 1,500 sales reps. Walk around the entire organization, look for people not chained to their desk and look for ways to improve their operations business, ignore the devices.

Kevin: Do you see executives and board members starting to use iPads? Are iPad users more interested in funding mobile projects?

Bill: I see far more executives using BlackBerrys. Since they use BlackBerrys they are always asking what they can do with them. Often they are looking for approval management and things like that on BlackBerrys. I do see iPhones, but they are usually rogue iPhones.

Kevin: How does a company prepare for mobility?

Bill: The first step is that you need to understand your current processes. Where are you today? What are your current processes?

Measure the current processes.
How much time do all your processes take?
How long are you traveling?
How long does it take to complete the work order?
How often are your service technicians completing a repair on the first visit, and how many times do they have to come back for a second and/or third visit?
Are your service technicians bringing the right tools for the job?
Do they have the right parts for the job?
How long does it take to fix that particular piece of equipment?
How much overtime am I paying?
Can they move to a more planned maintenance model? CMMS really help!

I spoke to a company two months ago about problems or failures in their processes. They said the two biggest problems were service technicians entering the categories of “other” and under this answer; they would add the second “other.” How can you use “other” to improve planning and processes? How can you use “other” to improve predictability? You need to require real answers that are useful answers.

“Be a work order.” Pin a work order to your shirt and walk the process. Understand all the hands that touch it, and all the steps. No cheating!

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 1
Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 3
Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 4

***************************************************
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.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 1

Bill Moylan, Syclo EVP of Sales

Bill Moylan, EVP of Sales at Syclo was kind enough to spend some time with me recently answering questions. Syclo is a co-innovation partner of SAP.

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

Bill: I am a mobile junkie! I have a BlackBerry 9700, iPhone, iPad, iPAQ, and I will occasionally carry a Symbol MC55. I want to get an ES400. I have been a mobile junkie for years! I use the iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry every day. The iPhone and iPad are mostly for personal use. However, the BlackBerry is chained to my hand for work. Oh yes, I have a Netbook in the livingroom to surf the internet while watching TV. I also have a laptop, but it stays in the office. I carry the iPad nowadays.

Kevin: How do you carry them all, one in each pocket?

Bill: No, I carry the iPhone and BlackBerry in the same pocket. I carry the iPad in my briefcase. The iPad is very useful. I used the iPad for navigation this week on a three hour drive. I sat in back and surfed the web on the long drive.

Kevin: What is your favorite mobile application?

Bill: The coolest mobile application that I have is called “Wine Snob.” At a restaurant, you can snap a photo of a bottle of wine, it captures the GPS, and it will instantly bring up the details and the retail price. That way you can see how much you are overpaying for the wine! You can rate the wine, see other people’s ratings and add comments; enter the restaurant name and the people with you. It keeps a historic log of the wine you have drank, your ratings and the location you had it.

Kevin: How romantic! A candle light dinner, you snapping photos of wine bottles, scanning ratings on your iPhone and complaining about overpaying.

Bill: No, it is not very romantic, but my girlfriend loves it too. She often carries my iPad. When my daughter is with me, she carries the iPad.

Kevin: What is your average mobile application deal size now days?

Bill: Average deal size – many are still SMEs, but average deal size is $250,000 because of smaller upgrades. Net new accounts are all $500,000-$1 million. The deals with SAP are very substantial.

Kevin: How is the SAP relationship going?

Bill: The relationship is going very well. I am on the road with SAP sales teams now all the time. I just got back from a sales call with SAP. It was with a company that does outsourced plant maintenance. I was with the SAP area VP of sales and the account executive. We had fun, as we got to see exactly what happens in the field. I love being in the field, and I training my sales team to be very thorough in the discovery process, so we understand the value.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 2
Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 3
Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Bill Moylan, Part 4

***************************************************
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.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: SAP's Usman Sheikh, December 2010

SAP's EcoHub is SAP's online market for certified partners' solutions. If you want to know what's new in the SAP ecosystem, EcoHub is the first place to visit. I wanted to learn what was new in the category of enterprise mobility on EcoHub, so I called up my friend Usman Sheikh, vice president of SAP's EcoHub. He was kind enough to answer a few questions and share his thoughts with us.

Kevin: Usman, you have a great vantage point as vice president of EcoHub. You get to see what your certified partners are doing. What is new at EcoHub?

Usman: Here are some interesting EcoHub facts. 15 percent of all EcoHub solutions are mobile. When we headline with mobility our EcoHub web traffic doubles. We get 30-40 percent more sales leads for mobile solutions than other solution categories. Twenty-five percent of leads that come into EcoHub are the result of social media marketing campaigns.

Kevin: What does EcoHub do for mobile application vendors?

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - November 18, 2010

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting information that reflects market numbers and trends.

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Smartphone applications will enable the mHealth industry to successfully reach out to 500 million of a total 1.4 billion smartphone users in 2015 the new "Global Mobile Health Market Report 2010-2015" by research2guidance says.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/500-million-people-will-be-using-mobile-health-applications-in-2015-107160173.html

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The new release of Open Text Everywhere features native client applications for Apple iPhone and iPad.

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/open-texts-enterprise-cms-mobile-app-befriends-iphone-ipad-009154.php

Vivido Labs Releases New Mobile BI Application for SAP Customers

I have been checking in with SAP's mobility partners this week to learn what is new. I contacted Vivido Labs and it turns out they were in the process of announcing a brand new Moible BI (business intelligence) application. So let's talk about it!

It allows you to access BI data on your server and view the updated BI data from your smartphone. Now for the fun part? You can customize all the views of the data right from the smartphone. You can add columns, hide columns, and look at the data in hundreds of different ways. In my experience looking at the same data from different perspectives can give you unique insights.

I am a big fan of getting the right data to the right person at the right time. I see this as a good step in that direction.

Kevin's M2M News Weekly - November 17, 2010

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sky Technologies' Neil McHugh

I was having a discussion with some folks at SAP this week and they shared their impressions that Sky Technologies, an SAP mobility and EcoHub partner, has been winning a significant number of enterprise mobility deals around the world over the past few months. I thought what better time to check up on Sky Technologies than now. I called Neil McHugh, Sky Technologies VP of Sales and Marketing in Texas for an update, and he was kind enough to grant me an interview.

Kevin: Neil, tell me what is new at Sky Technologies since we last met at Sapphire.

Neil: In the first half of 2010 sales were slow as the economy was still an issue with large companies. After Sapphire and SAP announced the acquisition of Sybase, we decided to rethink our strategic plans to really understand what is best for us as a company. The results of our strategic realignment have been the following:

• The 2nd half of 2010 has been significantly stronger than the first half.

• Year to date, we are up 52 percent is sales. Our fiscal year is July to June 30, 2011.

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - November 16, 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.

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At its second annual developer conference, PayPal announced the release of Mobile Express Checkout, a platform that will allow customers to pay for retail products in stores using only their mobile phones.

http://blogs.forbes.com/moneybuilder/2010/10/26/paypal-wants-you-to-ditch-your-wallet/

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Retailers are wising up to the trend in mobile coupons, according to a recent report by IHL Group and RetailConnections. Many are set to implement systems that will allow them to deliver coupons directly to a consumer's mobile phone.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/11/54-of-retailers-to-put-m-coupon-systems-in-place-in-next-12.html

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 3

This is Part 3 of my interview with Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase.

Kevin: I have had SIs (systems integrators) calling me this week asking if I know where they can find experienced SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform) developers that they can add to their practice. It appears there is a big and growing demand. What are you going to do to help train, support and certify developers on SUP?

Willie: We have a phased approach. Within Sybase we have been training systems integrators for many years. We have already trained a number of SAP systems integrators on how to customize mobile CRM by using SUP. Our immediate focus is on training internal SAP folks on our solutions. We have been very busy for the past 90 days and have had great reception and results. This same training will soon be available to our systems integrators. We have a lot of plans underway for training.

Kevin: A few weeks ago I asked Vishal (SAP Board Member) what his advice was to companies and systems integrators that need a mobile strategy today. He said the "clean" answer is to get trained on SUP and use that as the platform for all mobile applications. My question to you is if that was the "clean" answer, what is the "dirty" answer?

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 1

Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase, was gracious enough to let me interview him about the latest developments in enterprise mobility at Sybase, an SAP company.

Note: The words in this interview are not always Willie Jow's exact words. I have condensed many of my questions and his responses to make them more concise for the reader.

Kevin: Willie, how does Sybase, which is known for its databases and mobile middleware solutions, become a mobile applications company?

Willie: It is true we are best known for our mobile middleware, and that our history has been focused on supporting channels like ISV, OEM and other kinds of partnerships that delivered the mobile applications. However, a couple of years ago SAP approached us about working on the mobile CRM application. We accepted this opportunit,y and when we completed the mobile application it was very well received by SAP and customers. We now have a great deal of experience developing mobile applications for SAP.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 2

This is Part 2 of my interview with Sybase's Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase.

Kevin: Tell me about the announced mobile SDK. Where will the SAP/Sybase SDK stop and the native development environments start?

Willie: That is still being finalized even as we speak. The target date for release is Sapphire 2011.

It is important to note that there are two different kinds of applications, 1) native applications like the CRM and field service apps, and 2) the container approach. The container is on the device, and we populate it with data. Our workflow app is a container application. However, our mobile CRM is a native app. Both will exist and be supported in the SDK.

Kevin: What do you mean by “container?”

Willie: Think of it like an application sitting on your mobile device using native features and code. However, it has no business logic, or data elements. We push data to the container. It is for simple queries and data collection. Our SAP workflow apps fit this model, like travel approvals or discount approval. We push the data to the mobile container application. We see HTML 5 also in this area and are evaluating.

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - November 11, 2010

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting information that reflects market numbers and trends.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive, said 200 million people now access Facebook through its mobile application, a threefold increase since last year.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/facebook-opens-up-about-mobile-strategy-unveils-new-deals-program.html

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Kicking a boot into RIM's side, Dell announced all 25,000 employees will be given Dell Venue Pros running WP7 in exchange for their BlackBerrys, but they're also offering a new service to their clients for help switching from BlackBerry.

http://m.gizmodo.com/5682309/dell-were-kicking-[blackberry]-out

I have been corrected by SAP on several points since I published this article earlier today. This is the revised and corrected edition.

This is my understanding of how the SAP/Sybase mobility business unit is now organized. The Mobile Business unit will be under John Chen and it has three main groups:

Mobile Platform – led by Billy Ho
Mobile Apps – led by Bob Stutz
Mobile Services – led by Marty Beard

Terry Stepien, will also report to John Chen and lead the Mobile Business unit's managed mobility efforts through the various MNOs (mobile network operators) and ODMs. Willie Jow will be responsible for supporting sales.

I understand that eventually Kevin Nix's team will also move to Bob Stutz's group.

If I have any of this wrong, please correct me.

Thanks,
***************************************************
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 - November 10, 2010

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - November 9, 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.

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Amazon.com just made an interesting upgrade to its iPhone mobile shopping app. Users of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3Gs running iOS 4 can now scan a barcode on a product and instantly get matching product and pricing information from Amazon's catalog.

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/amazon_adds_barcode_scanning_to_iphone_shopping_app.html

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Savvy apparel retailers are having no trouble wrapping their heads (and dollars) around mobile friendly sites and apps as a way to boost revenue and connect with consumers.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/publishing-style/how-fashion-brands-can-make-the-most-of-m-commerce/937

Report from Last Week's ClickConnect North America 2010 on Enterprise Mobility

I had the opportunity to attend ClickSoftware's user conference for a couple of days last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was at the Royal Palm, a beautiful resort located in an orange grove. I was able to meet with many large utility customers and large field services organizations and spend some quality time with Shawn McEwan from Sybase and interview many of the executives from ClickSoftware.

Sybase an SAP company, was attending in support of their recently announced partnership with ClickSoftware who is utilizing the Sybase Mobility Platform in their solutions. Terry Stepien, president, Sybase iAnywhere attended and spoke at the conference. Here are some of his comments on the partnership, “By implementing ClickSoftware’s mobile applications on components of the Sybase mobility platform, the service industry benefits from an integrated offering from two industry leaders; proven mobility infrastructure from Sybase and proven mobile applications from ClickSoftware. This partnership will transform ClickSoftware’s customers through highly productive enterprise mobility solutions. We look forward to growing this partnership into 2011 and beyond.”

I spent time at the CIO Council last week with Kris Muller in product marketing with Salesforce.com. He was at the CIO conference speaking about Salesforce.com's new solution called Chatter. Here is the official description of Chatter from Salesforce.com:

Chatter is a brand-new way to collaborate with people at work. Where the status of important projects and deals are automatically pushed to you — so you're always in the loop.

Share securely and collaborate instantly
Stay on top of what matters most
Gain insight and make smarter decisions

I am a big fan of mobile knowledge management and collaboration tools and this fits right in. It is a secure way for all members of a sales team (account reps, pre-sales, product marketing, product management, sales management, etc.) to closely follow developments on a specific account. The team can quickly and securely share information, deal documents, collateral and discussions.

JiWire, Mobile Check-In and Mobile Retailing Applications

I was a guest speaker at the CIO Council 2010 sponsored by Panorama Capital in Las Vegas last week. I was able to spend a couple of days with a number of high tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and a leading edge group of industry CIOs. The main focus of the conference this year was enterprise mobility.

One of the most interesting discussion tracks at the conference was the increasing role that WiFi may have as MNOs (mobile network operators) increasingly have bandwidth problems. There are more companies looking to add hotspots, expand coverage and other related services. One of these companies is JiWire.

Enterprise mobility is a term often used in the context of remote and traveling workers, but it can also be used for situations inside the four walls of a manufacturing plant. This article explores the use of enterprise mobility solutions within the four walls of a plant using SAP.

First, let's review what SAP says about their "Perfect Plant" initiative. SAP is enabling companies to create a framework for the “Perfect Plant” by integrating planning, asset management and execution with real-time visibility. As a result, manufacturing networks are more agile, responsive and operationally efficient with SAP solutions. Manufacturers embarking upon the journey towards a “Perfect Plant” gain visibility into all aspects of manufacturing operations, providing the ability to respond faster and minimize impact to the business and bottom line, driving increased yields, asset utilization and order fulfillment. The “Perfect Plant” is the ultimate goal for manufacturers looking to optimize utilization of their manufacturing assets and drive increased production performance in concert with enterprise objectives.

Mobile Retailing and NFC - Near Field Communications

The host of our CIO Council, Chris Albinson of Panorama Capital, today predicted that within one year mobile money will be on everyone's radar. I asked for more details from several experts over dinner this evening and they predicted that iPhone 5 will have embedded NFC (near field communication) chips. Google will announce mobile payment strategies, and so will other big players in the mobile money space like PayPal. NFC are chips that can communicate personal data when they touch POS (point of sale) sensors.

What does this mean for enterprises in the retail space? Who knows! All I know is that everything from POS systems, to banking systems, EDI transactions and credit and debit card systems will be impacted. Your smartphone will likely become your wallet. The chip in the smartphone will uniquely identify you and provide you with the ability to pay for all kinds of things by just touching your smartphone to a counter top sensor.

Mobile Payments and the Mobile Money Ecosystem

More from last week's CIO Council. Chris Albinson from Panorama Capital shared his predictions that mobile payments and location-based services are going to be the two hottest areas of enterprise mobility in 2011.

Others at the event shared that they expect smartphones will soon be available with a specific NFC (near field communications) chip that will enable your phone to be used for mobile money. The chip will be uniquely tied to you and your bank account in a secure way.

I also heard rumors that Apple may soon launch a mobile money capability through iTunes. Just rumors now, but I can easily image Steve Jobs transforming banking through iTunes and everything "i".

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - November 4, 2010

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting information that reflects market numbers and trends.

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AT&T announced Thursday a new practice area and portfolio called AT&T ForHealth, which will develop wireless, networked, and cloud-based solutions for the healthcare industry.

http://vator.tv/news/2010-11-04-at-t-announces-new-health-division

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Gold-Mobile, a leading provider of Mobile Enterprise CRM Solutions, and Howard University unveiled a new mobile student, faculty and alumni engagement platform as a part of Howard’s 2010 Homecoming Celebration.

http://www.prlog.org/11035234-howard-university-launches-advanced-mobile-solution-for-higher-education-with-gold-mobile.html

Custom Mobile Applications for the Enterprise

When I was managing a mobile applications company a few years ago, our entire market was SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises). In over half the mobile application development projects that we worked on there was NO existing backend database. Companies would contact us and say they needed the following:

A mobile application for a specific business process, inspection project, or unique business model.
They needed a database to store the data they collected in the field.
They needed mobile middleware to synchronize the data from the mobile devices to the database
Web access to the database so people around the company could easily view the data.
Reports on the data collected in the field.

Sometimes it is easy to focus only on the largest companies that use ERPs, but it is important to recognize that the majority of companies in the world do not use big ERPs and these companies are often service companies doing work in the field. These SMEs do not often have their own mobile middleware. They want as much simplicity as possible.

iPad Databases, Gartner and Enterprise Mobility

I was given a demo of ClickSoftware's field services application using HTML 5 and running on an iPad earlier this week. Very cool! It runs in both offline and online mode and can store the data on the iPad in an offline mode. This is significant because iPad is not set up to store content on the device.

I wonder what HTML 5 will mean to Sybase's mobile database business. Will HTML make developing mobile devices easier? How will HTML change the opportunities for mobile application developers?

I attended a briefing by Gartner's Michael King this week on enterprise mobility. Here are some of his comments:

Security and Enterprise Mobility

A VC (venture capital) firm called me yesterday asking my opinion on the importance of security in enterprise mobile applications. I told him every large enterprise asks about security, but they generally expect the mobile platform to address this issue. For example, if a large enterprise purchased the Sybase Mobility Platform, they would expect that the platform would include a solid security component.

Is that how you see it, or am I wrong?

The VC was looking at potentially funding a number of mobile security start-ups. They wanted to know if there was a market for third party mobile security solutions in large enterprises. I would like your feedback and thoughts on this. Is security simply a check box on a feature list of a mobile platform, or will large enterprises look for additional third party mobile security solutions?

***************************************************
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.

Questions about Enterprise Mobility and Recent Industry Developments

I have been contemplating two enterprise mobility subjects today.

1) Syclo is known in the industry for having a very good mobility platform. This has served them well, but may now also be the source of a dilemma. What are they to do with their mobile platform investment in light of SAP's acquisition of Sybase? Syclo, as a co-innovation partner of SAP, will want to support SAP and their Sybase Mobility Platform, but they have a decade worth of investment into their own comprehensive mobility platform.

Here is how Syclo describes their platform, "Syclo's mobile solution framework (Agentry Platform) makes it easy to deploy and manage multiple mobile solutions in all areas of your business. For over a decade, Syclo has built on its mobile expertise and experience at over 750 organizations worldwide to bring you a family of 80 percent preconfigured mobile products that automate work order management, inventory management, scheduling, rounds and readings, turnaround tracking and more. "I image Syclo will now want to offer their customers a choice of two very good platforms, 1) Agentry Mobile Platform, or 2) Sybase Mobility Platform. This will be great for customers, but the challenge for Syclo is developing on and supporting two different platforms and re-engineering their existing mobile applications to run on either. They are self-funded, and this is not a small or inexpensive task.

Kevin's M2M News Weekly - November 3, 2010

Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Great Debate

When I was managing an enterprise mobility company a few years back, nearly all of my customers wanted the flexibility to customize their own mobile applications and develop new ones from scratch using our MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and SDK (software development kit). The reality, though, was different. Our customers seldom wanted to take the time to learn how to develop enterprise quality mobile applications. They just called us and used our professional services to customize or develop new applications.

Here is the dilemma for mobility vendors: Do they develop mobile solutions flexible enough, and with SDKs simple enough, for their customers to build their own solutions, or do they lock down templates and mobile applications with only limited configuration and customization capabilities?

Mobile Applications and Their Real Value

Where is the true value in mobile applications? This is a big question right now for mobility vendors, especially in the SAP ecosystem. SAP acquired Sybase and their SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform), so the platform question is now answered. So where is the real value now for mobility vendors? What are they going to bring to the market that is of great value and provides them with a defensible market position?

Is it the ability to collect data?
Is it the ability to query data from a backend databases?
Is it the ability to synchronize?
Is it the ability to store data on a mobile database in an offline mode?
Is it a mobile apps or forms builder?
Is it the integration with ERPs?
Is it mobile web tools?

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - November 2, 2010

What Do Customers Want from a Mobile Retailing Application?

I came across a interesting report today about mobile retail applications. This report came from the EDI/B2B company, Sterling Commerce. You may not expect an EDI/B2B company to be conducting research on mobility, but they provide web portals and other solutions that are now accessed by mobile devices. As a result, it makes sense to conduct research on why customers are accessing portals on mobile devices.

The Sterling Commerce report indicates that product availability is becoming a necessity for impatient shoppers. Nearly two thirds (66 percent) of consumers surveyed considered it important to very important to be able to conveniently determine in-stock availability before visiting a store. It was significantly more popular than store locators and even the ability to read product reviews while in the store.

Microsoft, Enterprise Mobility and Software Development Kits

I read an interesting article on CNET written by Josh Lowensohn on the future of Microsoft's Silverlight. He quotes Microsoft's president of server and tools, Bob Muglia, as saying "our strategy has shifted," and noted that major release cycles for the runtime had slowed. This is an interesting subject for the developers of enterprise mobility applications designed for the Microsoft platforms.

Here is another quote from Microsoft's Muglia, "When we started Silverlight, the number of unique/different Internet-connected devices in the world was relatively small, and our goal was to provide the most consistent, richest experience across those devices, but the world has changed. As a result, getting a single runtime implementation installed on every potential device is practically impossible. We think HTML will provide the broadest, cross-platform reach across all these devices."

Recently I have been seeing and hearing that more and more of the enterprise mobility vendors are looking at HTML 5, and hybrid mixes of native application support and HTML 5 for their roadmaps. I believe we are seeing a significant trend here.

What do you think? Is this a good thing?

Click to Download a Free Aberdeen Report on Mobility in Service

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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 - October 28, 2010

Kevin's M2M News Weekly - October 27, 2010

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - October 26, 2010

Facebook and Mobile Retailing Applications

For about a month my Facebook wall was invaded by friends involved in raising money for their schools. It seems Kohls' retail stores were running a program that would award a few schools with $500,000 each toward projects if their schools were able to get the most people to visit Kohl's website and "check in."

I most often browse Facebook from my iPhone or iPad. By simply clicking on the Facebook link I would be sent to Kohl's website and encouraged to browse. The browsing, however, was for a good cause. The students, parents, families and friends all encouraged their networks of contacts to visit Kohls website and browse. Although it got kind of old after receiving the 133rd Facebook message reminding me to visit Kohl's website to benefit the school, it was effective in getting thousands to visit. I found the approach and program interesting.

Mobile Retailing Apps

Most significant mobile applications are integrated with a powerful database application. At the SAP TechEd conference last week SAP demonstrated an iPad business solution that considered the weather forecast in various regions as indicators of sales. At TecEd I also met with Ed Krufka, EVP of Solution Services at Smartsoft Mobile Solutions. He shared some of the complexity of applications he has been working on in the mobile retailing space.

These mobile applications are powered by sophisticated business intelligence solutions that are used to help sell more products to retail customers. They use knowledge of the customer's history, buying patterns, the weather, locations etc., to change and customize the content on mobile applications.

Mobile Data Collection is a Different Breed of Mobile Application

There is a whole category of mobile applications that is easy to overlook. It is the mobile data collection category. Many of these solutions are project specific. That means a large utility, contractor or government agency needs to collect data on mobile devices in the field for a project, but there is no existing databases to store this data and/or to create reports on it.

When I was the CEO of a mobile software company I was surprised by how much database work my team ended up doing. We were a mobile applications company, but since there were no existing backend database applications to store the data, we ended up developing those as well. Once the database was developed, our customers would often want browser access and reports. Good development work, but it could quickly divert your focus away from mobility.

SAP Mentor John Appleby on SAP Enterprise Mobility Plus News and Thoughts

Fellow SAP Mentor John Appleby published a terrific and well thought out article summarizing his views on the current state of SAP enterprise mobility. He works as a technical consultant in the UK for Bluefin Solutions Ltd., so has a much more technical view than I can provide. I recommend reading it.

I do have a question that has been in the back of my mind this week. If mobility is so important to SAP, where were all their mobility executives at SAP TechEd? Where was John Chen, Bob Stutz, Kevin Nix, etc, which are the folks responsible for SAP enterprise mobility? There were over 5,000 attendees. My session on the Future of Enterprise Mobility had over 200 registrants. It seems in hindsight, that SAP should have brought the big boys of mobility to the show.

Thursday at SAP's TechEd 2010 - Enterprise Mobility

Today (Thursday) I was able to finally get enough time to sit down in the Innovation Center with SAP folks and see demonstrations of their new enterprise mobility applications. I saw the following applications:

SAP Prove - Workflow approvals (expense approvals)
SAP CRM Mobile
SAP Expense Reports

I loved the SAP Prove application because of the GUI. It was an image of a desk with a crumpled piece of paper on it that had an expense request written on it. Next to it were two rubber stamps. One that said Approved, the other Rejected. By tapping one or the other it would stamp the paper. I loved it. I kept stamping all of them with Reject, Reject, Reject. I could do that all day. What power!

At SAP TechEd 2010 this week, I learned about a very interesting mobility project. A large manufacturer is so concerned about the security of their data, that they have special requirements that all components of computers and servers be cleaned and verified as clean and secure before they are assembled. All steps in the server manufacturing process are audited and verified as clean.

This manufacturer is concerned that a worm, or other malicious bug can be introduced to the system during the installation of software, or the manufacturing of memory or hard drives. Wow, I have just not thought this issue through. They point to the example of the Iranian Nuclear plant that was infected by a worm that was introduced by someone bringing in a flash drive to the secure environment.

SAP Enterprise Mobility Vendor Chooses Sybase's Unwired Platform

When SAP announced they were going to acquire Sybase, the SAP enterprise mobility market paused. Now it is moving again and SAP's mobility partners are aligning with SAP's mobility strategy and announcing support for the Sybase Unwired Platform as this announcement today demonstrates - ClickSoftware Partners With Sybase to Deliver Best-in-Class Mobility for the Service Sector.

Here are some interesting excerpts:

Wednesday at SAP's TechEd 2010 - Enterprise Mobility

Wednesday was another long and interesting day at TechEd. It started with a 7:00 a.m. breakfast with SAP's Premier Customer Network (largest worldwide customers) where Sybase's Sam Lakkundi and Senthil Krishnapillai briefed the attendees on the Sybase Unwired Platform.

For the first time, I saw a product roadmap slide in the presentation from Sybase. Sybase has always been hesitant to share the product roadmap in the past. I am not sure why. SAP likes to say that 70 percent of the world's GNP runs through SAP systems. With those numbers, it seems they have some responsibility to ensure reliable roadmaps are defined and published so the rest of their partner ecosystem and customer base can plan and design accordingly. Sybase - thank you for showing us that roadmap slide! Now if I can only get my hands on it.

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – October 21, 2010

Kevin's M2M News Weekly - October 20, 2010

Welcome to Kevin's 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 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.

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Infonetics Research predicts that the number of connections for embedded M2M applications will jump to 428 million by 2014, from 87 million in 2009.

http://urgentcomm.com/networks_and_systems/news/m2m-applications-market-20101013/

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Companies like Kore Telematics have been working with medical device makers to embed wireless connectivity into devices to create feedback loops, remote monitoring mechanisms and more.

http://mobihealthnews.com/9159/there-is-no-single-business-model-for-mobile-health/

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4G chipmaker Sequans unveiled its latest Mobile WiMAX solution, the SQN1280, an all-in-one WiMAX system-in-package for makers of handsets, tablets, USB sticks, portable hotspots, M2M modules, and a variety of consumer electronics devices.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/364604/mobile_telcos_must_prepare_m2m_ericsson/?fp=4194304&fpid=1

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A leading provider of vehicle fleet location based services and telematics technology, WebTech Wireless Inc., has installed five additional NextBus LED signs, providing predictive bus arrival information.

http://communication-solutions.tmcnet.com/topics/communication-solutions/articles/109153-webtech-wireless-installs-five-additional-nextbus-led-signs.htm

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Why isn't the embedded mobile market growing gangbusters? Although more and more devices are now being equipped with mobile connectivity, this decade old market is still small beer in comparison to the conventional mobile handset market.

http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/article/trust-me-i-m-an-embedded-mobile-operator

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By harnessing the resources of MapMechanics’ TruckStops VRS routing and scheduling optimization system, work wear rental and cleaning specialist Fenland has achieved major efficiency gains in its collection and delivery system – reducing fleet strength by around 15 per cent.

http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/21664/2/

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GE Capital Fleet Services has announced a new, three year agreement with a national laundry services provider to use GE's Monitor and Intelligent Ops telematics solutions, with a goal of significantly reducing Web Service Company's operating costs.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ge-capital-fleet-services-providing-telematics-solutions-for-national-laundry-services-company-2010-10-13?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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The FieldLogix Green Fleet Management System uses telematics technology and GPS fleet tracking data to produce several Green Reports to help fleet managers to cut costs and reduce their carbon footprint.

http://www.fieldtechnologies.com/nearly-half-of-fleets-measuring-emissions/

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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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Mobile computing places intelligence at the fingertips of first responders, enhances mission critical operations, and improves safety; but consumer products represent an expensive false economy when it comes to meeting the demands of public safety agencies.

http://www.bapcojournal.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1780/Rugged_mobile_computing__96_consumer_products_are_an__93expensive_false_economy_94.html

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Australian scientists are preparing to use data from a $22 million array of high tech equipment to help them probe deeper into the nation’s coastal oceans.

http://spatialsource.com.au/2010/10/19/article/Gliders-to-probe-ocean-depths/GAJSVMDHCI.html

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AirStrip Technologies has developed one of a kind remote patient monitoring applications that deliver real time vital waveform and other critical patient data directly from hospital monitoring systems to mobile devices to enable healthcare providers to continually monitor vital signs from virtually wherever they are.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/airstrip-technologies-and-sprint-put-critical-patient-monitoring-information-at-the-fingertips-of-medical-professionals-2010-10-19?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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“There exists a mostly untapped opportunity around M2M, smart grid solutions, and especially mobile consumer electronics. In addition, there are opportunities for existing companies and newer entrants to compete around USB modems and a wide range of mobile computing devices as key WiMAX service providers increase their network coverage."

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/18/2324588/sequans-announces-new-wimax-system.html

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Digi International has introduced the Digi m130, an embedded module that allows OEMs to enable their products with GSM/GPRS, GPS and ORBCOMM satellite connectivity in a single solution.

http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/articles/electric-light-power/products/mobile-communications/2010/october/embedded-module_enables.html

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M2M Communications, an Idaho based tech company, has been named one of the most innovative providers of M2M communication technology.

http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/manufacturing/6755-m2m-communications-makes-industry-list

Recent articles by Kevin Benedict
Mobile Expert Interview Series – Energy4U’s Florian Ganz, Part 1
Mobile Expert Interview Series – Energy4U’s Florian Ganz, Part 2
Aware and Intelligent Mobile Applications
Mobile Retailing and Location Aware Applications
Who is Paying for Mobile Applications Today?
Link to Recorded SAP Enterprise Mobility Webinar
The Transformational Power of Mobile Enterprise Applications, Part 1
The Transformational Power of Mobile Enterprise Applications, Part 2
The New York Times, Starbucks and Other Retail Locations that Need Mobile Applications
Throwing Your Food Away
Social Networking, ClickContact and Enterprise Mobility

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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.

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

Social Networking, ClickContact and Enterprise Mobility

Yesterday, I wrote an article about ClickSoftware's integration between their ClickContact application and Facebook. This is a big deal, so I want to comment more. First let's take a look at what ClickContact does:

ClickContact enables service organizations to put the management of the service experience into the hands of their customers by providing self-service appointment booking and updating over the Internet, including automatic customer notifications, and the option for a post-service survey. ClickContact allows a customer to schedule a service call for themselves, without the help of any of the organization's customer support staff.

ClickContact's functionality is now available in an application frame for inclusion on a service company's Facebook page. This means their customers can schedule appointments, change appointments, and receive appointment updates all on Facebook. Service companies will not be required to create their own websites in order to provide this functionality.

The Facebook application enables the service organization to send customers automatic updates via email, text and voice message, etc., including confirmations, updates and estimated arrival time of the service resource to the service location. This can all be received on the customer's mobile device. Changes that the customer makes to their schedule on Facebook will then be reflected on the mobile applications of the service technicians via ClickSoftware's software for the service sector.

"The most successful service businesses tightly link the human experience with the social web," said Simon Morris, of ClickSoftware. This is a very interesting model. It is one of the first examples I have seen of an enterprise mobility company integrating popular social networking sites into enterprise applications.
If you know of other enterprise applications that are integrated with popular social networking sites please share them with us.

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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.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict