MobileDataforce Delivers Mobile Solutions to Large Enterprises

MobileDataforce is doing very well. We are succeeding at winning large mobility projects around the world including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, UK, The Netherlands, Canada and in the USA. Why are large companies trusting MobileDataforce (a relatively small company) to deliver these mission critical applications?

MobileDataforce - with 6 years of experience delivering mobile solutions, is one of the most experienced veterans of this industry. We have some of the smartest and most experienced mobile software developers and project managers in the world, and we have invested over 24 man-years of development into our PointSync solution. Our strategy from day 1 has been to create RADs-ME applications (rapid application development solutions for mobile environments) that would help IT departments, Systems Integrators, and my own services teams deliver powerful mobile solutions quickly and affordably. We want our customers to be receiving their ROIs in as short an amount of time as possible. This required us to develop applications and frameworks (that we call PointSync) that allow the user to develop a wide variety of different mobile applications for a wide variety of industries quickly and effectively.

MobileDataforce also partners with the best. We have more experience than any other company at developing and delivering RADs-ME applications, but not in developing mobile relational databases. In order to have the fastest, and most powerful mobile databases in the world embedded within PointSync - we have partnered with Sybase/iAnywhere to deliver them as part of the PointSync solution.

Sybase/iAnywhere has a $2 Billion market cap, and has been building enterprise database solutions since 1984. They have thousands of employees, offices around the world, and over 10 million licenses of their mobile database called Ultralite distributed around the world. Sybase is the world's leader in mobile databases and synchronization technologies. We partnered with Sybase in order to offer our clients the fastest mobile application development environment, with the most powerful and proven mobile relational database technologies. The combination of MobileDataforce's and Sybase's mobile technologies provides our customers with the most experienced, secure, scalable and proven solutions in the industry.

PointSync enables our customers to quickly create powerful mobile database applications, using the best technologies from the best software companies in the industry. Here are a few of our large enterprise customers:

National Park Service
Department of Environmental Quality
Department of Agriculture
Department of Fish and Game
Micro Beef
Exxon
Cartegraph
Unilever
Fulton Hogan
US Air Force
Alabama Power
Idaho Transportation Department
Rail Crew Express
New York Power Authority
Gillette
Washington Group International

P.S. we also have a large number of small customers that have 5-25 mobile users as well. We keep our software prices low enough that even small companies can earn a good ROI in a few months.

Mobilizing Business Processes for Handheld Computers

I often get asked if we have experience delivering mobile solutions for a specific industry and a specific company's unique business process. For example - ACME Air Conditioning Ltd wants to know if we can deliver an ACME mobile work order solution. This is a fair question, since everyone wants to work with a company that has experience, however it is also important to understand what is unique about your business process and what is not. I will explain in a moment.

Let's first discuss a few definitions:

• Mobilizing - replacing paper forms with mobile applications on a mobile handheld computer, or taking an existing software application that runs only on desktop or laptop computers and configuring it to operate on a mobile handheld device such as a Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, or a Win CE device.
• Business Process - It is the steps or tasks that are involved in doing a business function.

Now let's review a work order business process. This business process is used by many different industries including:

• Sign Installers
• Government Agencies
• HVAC
• Building maintenance
• Elevator Maintenance
• Manufacturing operation
• etc.

A work order often has the same common components across many industries:

• Identify the service technician's name/ID
• Time/Date
• Customer
• Warranty information, equipment description
• Work/job location
• Service assignment/task
• Description of work completed
• Parts used
• Status of work
• Technician closes work/service order or selects a follow-up task
• Total charges
• Technician and/or customer signs the work order

A work order looks quite similar all over the world no matter what the company, industry or geographical location. So developing and customizing a mobile work order for a company is relatively simple.

Now let's consider the data synchronization process. The movement of data between a handheld computer and an enterprise database is also quite similar across most business processes.

Handheld computer application==>synchronization server==>enterprise database

Then back enterprise database==>synchronization server==>handheld computer application.

The path the data follows is nearly the same no matter the business process. So our synchronization technology can easily support ACME Air Conditioning Ltd's requirements with little or no customization.

The mobile application is where one needs to create customized configurations and features. However these features in some form or another are used by nearly all mobile applications. I covered this in another blog article. Features include the user interfaces, business logic, validations, support for special handheld device features (barcode, RFID, GPS, etc), mobile printing and customized logos/branding. This is all done using a RADs-ME application (such as MobileDataforce's PointSync Developer). PointSync Developer enables the user to configure these features and functions with point and click selections. Every organization, every solution, and every geographical region of the world requires these same features. So none of these application requirements are unique to a business process or industry - every mobile application requires them.

So the important question is not if we have experience working with ACME Air Condition work orders, but rather do we have experience developing work order business processes in general, and can our software application provide all the functionality, flexibility, security, and synchronization technologies required to quickly configure your mobile application at a cost effective price.

To summarize -

1. Business processes (such as work orders) often are very similar across many different industries around the world. Therefore experience developing a work order business process - prepares you for supporting many different work order formats in many different industries.
2. The flow of data (synchronization) between a handheld computer and the enterprise database is also quite similar around the world, and across industries.
3. The features and functionality required in most mobile applications are also very similar across industries, business processes and geographies.
4. The most important questions a company needs to ask are - Does a particular mobile software solution provide the flexibility and functionality required, at a cost effective price, and does the vendor have experience mobilizing your specific business process?

Asset Management, PDA Handhelds & Village Governments

We sent Eric Freed, one of our senior PSO team members, out to West Dundee, IL to implement a mobile asset management solution for the village of West Dundee. It turns out that one of the village officials is also a member of the local fire department. When Eric needed a place to stay overnight, they volunteered an empty room in the brand new fire station.

Eric insisted that the alarm going off three times during the night was not too bad, but there were no mints on his pillow and the beds were not turned down. He also recommends wearing pants when sliding down the fire pole.

The solution that we implemented involved using Trimble ruggedized handheld computers, MobileDataforce's PointSync, and Cartegraph's asset management software called SignView.

Mobile Handheld Applications & Marketing in Canada

Marketing is an interesting phenomenon. Why do some geographical areas suddenly generate a lot of sales opportunities, when prior months they were silent? Ontario, Canada is suddenly on fire. We are receiving all kinds of phone calls and emails from companies in Ontario this month interested in MobileDataforce's mobile solutions. I shrug my shoulders and am thankful.

Perhaps with the hint of autumn in the air, companies are back to thinking about how to improve their remote business processes. As field services teams complete their seasonal work and return to the office with suggestions for improving their field data collection processes, IT teams call MobileDataforce asking for recommendations.

If a PDA phone can be used to keep remote and mobile workers updated, why can't those same devices communicate with their enterprise databases? THEY CAN! Perhaps thoughts like this motivate Canadians to call in September!

Coming Back for More - Mobile Applications

In the world of software and services, the best compliment a customer can give is to come back for more. In the last month, these existing customers, have requested additional products and services from MobileDataforce:

• Pepsi MidAmerica
• Unilever
• St. Gobain
• Cartegraph
• Idaho Department of Agriculture
• City of Los Angeles
• Teph Seal
• Micro Beef

There were many more, but these are fresh on my mind. I want to thank all of our customers for your continuing confidence and business!