Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

ClickSoftware and Rugged Working Environments

It is easy to forget about the world beyond the pocket, but it remains out there. There is a large market for mobile devices that must survive the rigors of rain, sand, mud and daily impacts. In the field service automation space, these working environments are the norm. SAP mobility partner ClickSoftware focuses on this area of enterprise mobility, and this means they add features to their mobility suite that others don't.

I had the opportunity to interview Gil Bouhnick from ClickSoftware a few months ago, and he shared that one of their recent projects included building union regulations and rules into the mobile application. Before certain tasks could be requested or started the union rules were considered in the mobile application. How many iPhone and BlackBerry applications have these requirements?

Because ClickSoftware focuses on rugged environments where the field service technician, lineman, or inspector may be working in solitary and remote locations, features have been added to their solutions that would alert the office in case of an emergency. Again, not many BlackBerry or iPhone applications have that requirement.

I have worked on many mobile forms projects in my time, so I appreciate that ClickSoftware has the solution ClickMobile Forms Editor. Mobile forms may seem like a rather simple applications these days, but they can be of enormous value. Let me explain. Mobile forms applications can have branching workflows in them. If an inspection reveals a measurement is XYZ, then it automatically jumps to mobile form page 16 where additional questions are asked. If the measurement was ABC, then it automatically continues to form page 2. These types of automated mobile forms and their workflows can direct the mobile workforce to complete the field data collection task completely and accurately the first time. Enterprise asset management, field services and inspection services all require extensive field inspection work that can benefit from mobile forms that wireless synchronize with the office.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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M2M Market Overview Part 2 - Consumer Electronics

I just completed a 40 page analyst report on the M2M industry last week. It is a fascinating market, but I am relieved it is finished. Analyst reports are like taking a four week final exam at the university. If you are interested in the M2M (machine-to-machine) or embedded mobile devices market for consumer electronics, you may want to watch this short video that I recorded on the consumer electronics segment of M2M.

I am now working on an executive workshop to help companies understand M2M and the value for remote asset management. Contact me if you would like to discuss!

One of the things I am watching closely these days is to see if enterprise mobility vendors will add M2M data management to their offerings, or whether they will limit their support to smartphones and mobile computers. What makes this interesting is that M2M/embedded mobile devices are sending mobile data to servers that are increasingly useful and valuable to ERPs (see attached image from http://www.m2mexpo.com/). Where will the line be drawn between mobile enterprise applications and data from embedded mobile devices. One is data from a human, and the other is data sent wirelessly from a machine. It will be fun to watch!

For more information related to M2M see the links below:

Article - M2M Market Opportunities - An Introduction
Short Video on M2M- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob3C5t_6kAQ

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh

Usman Sheikh is VP of SAP's EcoHub, and I had the opportunity at Sapphire this year to interview him about SAP's ecosystem of mobility partners.

What is the SAP EcoHub? EcoHub is a website and a mobile application that accelerates the process of finding the right solution at the right time and provides a new means to address key questions including:

Have I considered all relevant solutions?
Is this applicable to my business?
Are there success stories in my industry?
Is this partner solution certified?
What are my peers saying?

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst

CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC

http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's CEO Rich Padula

SAP has many partners in the mobility industry, but only three co-innovation level partners in the enterprise mobility space. They are:

Sybase (SAP announced their intent to acquire Sybase)
RIM (the BlackBerry folks)
Syclo (EAM - mobile enterprise asset management experts)

At Sapphire this year I was able to interview Rich Padula, Syclo's CEO. I asked him to explain the "co-innovation" partnership program with SAP and what it really means.

Syclo's mobile solutions include pre-packaged and pre-integrated applications that mobilize CRM, ERP and EAM systems to improve communications and data capture.

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' CEO, Greg Tomb

I was the moderator at several enterprise mobility events at Sapphire this year and following one of the sessions I was able to sit down and interview Greg Tomb, the former President of SAP Americas, and now the CEO of an enterprise mobility company called Vivido Labs. In the interview, he makes three very interesting points about mobility:

Mobility is a way of getting more value out of your existing SAP investment by making it available to those in the mobile workforce.
Mobility can enable business process re-engineering by compressing the time of some business processes from days to hours.
Extending SAP mobility into the hands of those not at their desk, can increase productivity for many users.

Vivido Labs describes themselves as leaders in smartphone enterprise mobility with their Mowego mobile platform and their portfolio of mobile enterprise business applications.

For more videos interviews from the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of Enterprise Mobility, Prashant Chatterjee

I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with SAP's VP of Enterprise Mobility, Prashant Chatterjee at Sapphire this year and record an interview. In this interview Prashant describes how enterprise mobility is key to SAP reaching 1 billion users by 2014.

For more videos in this Mobile Expert Video series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Best Sources of Information on Enterprise Mobility

Outside of SAP's SDN site, the SAP Enterprise Mobility group on Linkedin has some of the smartest people in the world sharing their thoughts on enterprise mobility. The membership includes the thought leaders from just about all of the big enterprise mobility vendors.

I was reading through some of the discussions today and the comments included in-depth advice from SAP on architecting mobile applications and understanding what mobility platforms are needed in different situations.

If you or anyone in your company is interested in subjects related to enterprise mobility I would encourage you to join. Here is the link.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: Smartsoft Mobile's CEO Dan Homrich

Dan Homrich, Smartsoft Mobile Solution's CEO likes to talk about mobile B2E (business-to-everyone) solutions for smartphones. These are mobile applications that companies provide to their customers, partners and service providers.

Mobile B2E solutions are intended to address large markets. Insurance companies can provide mobile solutions to their customer bases. Banks and retail companies can provide mobile applications to their hundreds of thousands of customers. This is a very interesting target market. Watch the video interview that I recorded with Dan Homrich at Sapphire and learn about his strategies.

Related videos:

The video interviews listed below can all be found here :

Mobile Expert Video Series: Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group Patrick Barnert
Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' CTO Steve Ware
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group Patrick Barnert

I am a big believer in the saying "content is king!" So when I read recently that Open Text announced they were going to mobilize their enterprise content management products with a solution called Open Text Everywhere, I was intrigued but skeptical. Open Text provides powerful enterprise content management solutions, the SAP Invoice Management solution, and collaboration and social networking tools for the enterprise, but now mobile solutions as well? At Sapphire I was able to schedule a video interview with Open Text's VP SAP Solutions Group, Patrick Barnert. One of the first questions I asked Patrick was, "Are you serious or just playing around with mobility?" You can watch and hear his response here.

I appreciate mobile applications that add value in unique and powerful ways. The accounts payable processes in large enterprises is a very important area. Companies can save millions by processing invoices quickly and capturing early payment discounts from suppliers. The ability of a manager to approve an invoice while traveling so the company can capture these discounts can provide millions of dollars in savings with the push of a button on a mobile smartphone application. I like mobile applications with that kind of ROI! Open Text is developing that mobility solution now for SAP Invoice Management.

The video interviews listed below can all be found here :

Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' CTO Steve Ware
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies' Steve Ware

I was able to meet up with Sky Technologies' CTO, Steve Ware, at Sapphire a few weeks ago and unfortunately for him I had a digital video camera in my hands. SAP had provided us SAP Mentors with very small Flip digital video cameras, and I recorded his views on MEAPs (mobile enterprise application platforms).

I also noted this week that Sky Technologies is now supporting Sprint's enterprise initiative for the new Android phone HTC EVO 4G as described below:

Sprint's new HTC 1GHz EVO- 4G smart-phone enables true multi-tasking while on the move. Road warriors can now view documents and files while simultaneously having a conversation with a colleague on the phone. With the large HTC 4-3 inch touch screen and superfast processing power, the HTC is aimed at customers who have serious mobile business requirements. The HTC EVO 4G boasts thousands of Android-driven mobile applications, with many geared toward businesses across a variety of industries.

Sky Technologies is a mobile applications company specializing in extending all varieties of business applications to any mobile platform. They have 12 years of experience in the enterprise space.

Related videos:
Mobile Expert Video Series: Leapfactor's Luis Cabrera
Mobile Expert Video Series: Sky Technologies President Bruce Johnson
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP's VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh
Mobile Expert Video Series: Infologix's Senior VP Brian Thorn
Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's Founder Rich Padula
Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' Founder Greg Tomb
Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP Senior VP of Enterprise Mobility, Kevin Nix
Mobile Expert Video Series: PriceWaterhouseCooper's Director of Mobility, Dr. Ahmend El Adl
Mobile Expert Video Series: DSI's VP of Sales, Mark Goode
Mobile Expert Video Series: Mellmo's Santiago Becerra

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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