Mobile Expert Video Series: Smartsoft Mobile's EVP Ed Krufka

I had the opportunity recently to video record an interview with Ed Krufka, EVP at Smartsoft Mobile about their company and strategies.  Click here to watch the video interview on the YouTube SAP Mentor channel.

I think it is always interesting and useful to hear from someone that has 400,000 mobile users, and over 700 ERP/mobility consultants with over 5,000 man-years of experience on staff.

To watch other video interviews with mobility experts check out the complete list here.


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410

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.

Field Service Automation ROIs and Service Optimization, Part 1

Andy Wright, in a recent blog article wrote, "According to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group; organizations that adopt a scheduling solution see on average a 12 percent improvement in workforce utilization. While many field service organizations are slow to adopt a scheduling solution, those considered “Best-in-Class” are 50 percent more likely to adopt and implement resource planning tools that harmonize the execution capabilities of their scheduling applications."

From personal experience I would agree with the Aberdeen Group's findings.  When you consider all of the different areas where a service company can receive a positive ROI, not automating a field service organization seems simply irresponsible.

Here are some of the most basic areas to look for ROIs:

• Save the office staff's data entry time. Enter clean, valid data in the field using your smartphone and have it automatically synchronize with your office business software application.
• Dispatch service or work order information directly to your field worker's mobile device in real time. This improves work efficiency and customer care.
• Synchronize data from the field, so you don't have to drive into the office to deliver your paper work.
• Provide access to database information anywhere you go. This can mean customer history, product documentation, warranty information, inventory information, time sheets, work schedules and much more. This creates efficiencies both for the field worker and the office staff.
• Use bar code scanning on your mobile device to scan equipment, inventory, buildings, products, etc. Scan a bar code and have all the relevant information on your asset immediately available for your review on the screen of your smartphone.
• Immediate invoicing - complete work in the field and immediately print the invoice and hand it to the customer for collection. This improves cash flow and reduces collection issues.
• Create an immediate audit trail of work and locations by integrating GPS to your invoices and work orders. Detail work completed in that location.
• Take digital photos of before and after work to document tasks and the completion of work to reduce costly invoice disputes.

In part 2 of this article I will take a deeper look at ROIs available from mobilizing field services.  In the meantime, SAP mobility partner, Clicksoftware has a short video that describes how to mobilize various tasks in the field.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410

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.

Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos Announces $1 Billion in Mobile Sales

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO announced this week that they are seeing rapid growth in Kindle, Amazon web services, third-party sales and retail.  He added, "In the last 12 months, customers around the world have ordered more than $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device."

This is a very interesting report by Bezos on mobile sales numbers.  I believe it!  My wife is regularly using the Amazon iPhone application to order books and other essentials.  You can find a book on a store shelf, reach for your iPhone and enter the ISBN number.  You can immediately see the cost for a new and used version of the book on Amazon.  With one click shopping the book is on its way, and since we subscribe to the free shipping program at Amazon, even the delivery is free.

This process must frustrate bookstores or maybe not.  I guess any used book store can choose to sell books on Amazon -  they could be the one making money from the Amazon iPhone application.

I wonder how Amazon's mobile applications change the way a used bookstore operates?  I saw an example of some changes that I suspect have come about because of Amazon and mobile applications.  I was recently in the Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon.  As I was browsing the many rooms and floors of books (the store is enormous and a favorite destination of ours), I noticed that Powell's had covered all of the original ISBN numbers and barcodes on the books with a proprietary Powell's sticker and barcode.  Why would they do that?  It makes it far more difficult to look up the book on an Amazon iPhone application or scan the barcode with your iPhone RedLaser application.

Very interesting indeed!

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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 – July 22, 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.

You can read archived newsletters here - http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html.

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The FCC will announce at its open meeting Thursday a plan to create a $400 million program that would bring broadband connections to rural healthcare providers. The proposal comes from the FCC’s national broadband plan, which recommends making high-speed Internet service an underlying platform for transferring information between health care providers, patients and hospitals.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/07/fcc_to_propose_400_million_rur.html
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Apple posted revenue of $15.7 billion dollars for its most recent quarter, beating Wall Street analysts’ estimates yet again. Earnings were up more than 77% from a year ago, to $3.25 billion, the company said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/20/live-blogging-apples-earnings-call-2/

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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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ShopRite loyalists in the next few weeks will be able to update their loyalty cards with the grocery chain’s coupons right from their iPhone or Android-enabled phones. Digital coupons include those that are distributed electronically, including coupons printed, saved to a store loyalty card or redeemed on a mobile device. In 2009 digital coupons represented 10 percent of coupons redeemed, up from 1 percent in 2006.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/shoprite-to-integrate-mobile-coupons-into-in-store-shopping-experience/

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Domino’s Pizza claims that its mobile program via Foursquare has contributed to a 28.6 percent increase to the pizza chain’s online profit across Britain.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/domino%e2%80%99s-foursquare-program-contributes-to-29pc-increase-in-online-sales/

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Companies rarely understand the full extent of the changes mobile software solutions will bring to their organization. They appreciate the concept of having access to enterprise content in mobile environments and converting paper document processes to electronic, but they don't often see the complete vision for how enterprise mobility can re-engineer business processes until they have walked the path for a while.

http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2010/07/mobility-changes-enterprise-and.html

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Android Market now boasts about 92,000 applications, and is on pace to surpass the 100,000 benchmark by the end of this month. Android developers have already submitted over 10,720 new Market applications through the first 15 days of July, compared to 15,288 new Android apps in all of June.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/android-market-application-downloads-surpass-1-billion/2010-07-15?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0tmA1BJ7M

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In a survey of consumer mobile banking preferences released today, IDC Financial Insights found mobile banking usage has almost doubled since last year's survey, and the number of institutions offering the service has also increased.

http://www.banktech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225702881

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“iPhone subscribers are way ahead of every other category of mobile phone users in terms of banking, mobile payments, coupons, and mobile shopping,” said Carl D. Howe, director of anywhere consumer research for the Yankee Group, Boston. “They are leading adopters of mobile commerce.”

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/41pc-of-iphone-users-interested-in-mobile-transactions-study/

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The Walt Disney Company announced its Toy Story 3 application for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch exceeded 1.7 million downloads a month after its App Store debut.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/disneys-toy-story-3-iphone-app-tops-1-7m-downloads-first-month/2010-07-16?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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Retailers are seeing a solid return on their mobile channel investments. Sixty-two percent say their mobile channel returns are either exceeding (17 percent) or meeting (45 percent) expectations.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4329935

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Nokia just announced that net sales in the second quarter of 2010 topped 10 billion Euros across units, and that it has shipped more than 111 million mobile devices, up 8 percent from third quarter 2009. Net income, however, fell to 227 million Euros, down from 380 million Euros a year earlier. That’s a 40 percent drop in net profits. Nokia’s preliminary estimated mobile device market share was 33 percent in the second quarter 2010, down from an estimated 35 percent in the second quarter 2009.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/22/nokias-earnings-q2-2010/

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AT&T's net income rose to $4.02 billion in the second quarter, up from $3.2 billion a year ago. Consolidated revenues totaled $30.8 billion, up 0.6 percent over the year earlier quarter, heralding the operator's second consecutive quarter with a year over year revenue increase.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/t-mobile-data-revenues-grow-4-4-billion-q2/2010-07-22?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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Socket Mobile, Inc. a provider of mobile productivity solutions, announced its new line of wireless barcode scanners designed specifically to work with the Apple iPad™, iPhone™ and iPod™ touch.

http://www.datacollectiononline.com/article.mvc/Socket-Mobile-Introduces-Line-Of-Low-Cost-0001?user=2373698&source=nl:28232&VNETCOOKIE=NO

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A new report by the independent telecoms analyst states that mobile application downloads generated by non-operator application stores will grow by a compound annual growth rate of around 41 percent globally over the next five years, with total downloads reaching almost 21.3 billion by 2015. That's up from 2.69 billion in 2009.

http://www.mobile88.com/news/read.asp?file=/2010/7/14/20100713213019&phone=mobile-app-growth

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On Linkedin there is a group called SAP Enterprise Mobility, http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro that focuses on issues related to SAP mobility.

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SAP has a dedicated website for SAP mobile technologies at http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-mobile.

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I have recently started a second weekly newsletter to track the very interesting and emerging M2M and mobile embedded device market that you can read here: http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/m2m.html.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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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http://www.clicksoftware.com/e86e075b-4fca-44c9-bfeb-4efcc978f416/knowledge-center-white-papers-delivery.htm

Kevin’s Weekly M2M Newsletter – July 21, 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 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.

You can read archived editions of Kevin's M2M News Weekly at http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/m2m.html.

Also check out Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly and Kevin’s Enterprise Mobility Blog.

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Trilliant, a California-based provider of smart grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, this morning announced that it has secured a whopping $106 million in funding from a global syndicate of industry and financial big-names: Investor Growth Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, ABB and GE. In August 2008 Trilliant raised $40 million from MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/15/smart-grid-company-trilliant-scores-106m-in-funding-next-up-an-ipo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

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Enphase Energy's new Environ Smart Thermostat lets you control your home’s temperature and monitor your solar installations remotely. All of the data is transmitted to a website where you can analyze your energy consumption and, with the new thermostat, control your home’s temperature from afar.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/enphase-energy-remote-thermostat/

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T-Mobile USA is continuing its aggressive push in the increasingly important M2M services market by striking a partnership with asset protection provider IContain and Asset Protection Products LLC to help reduce operating costs in the $7 billion US rent-to-own sector.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=194363&f_src=lightreading_gnews

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The world of M2M communications is no longer just about vehicle tracking applications, Kore Telematics is fond of saying. But according to its own numbers, 70.7 percent of the M2M device connections Kore manages still connect GPS devices in vehicles and other assets.

http://connectedplanetonline.com/topics/machine-to-machine/kore-m2m-connections-071510/
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Cinterion Wireless Modules, a leader in cellular M2M communication modules, and Airo Wireless, a maker of ruggedized cell phones, today announced their collaboration on the Airo A25 is, the first ever intrinsically safe, ruggedized cell phone certified for use in explosive, hazardous environments.

http://newsblaze.com/story/2010072005091700003.bw/topstory.html

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Elan Digital Systems UK believes that the next standard for M2M high speed data interface will be SDIO.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Elan-Digital-Launches-New-Dedicated-Custom-Design-Service-for-SD-SDIO-1293019.htm

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iSupplie has stated that embedded GPS technology won't just be limited to smartphones in the future. iSuppli says by 2014 there will be increased penetration in a variety of consumer and computer electronic devices. Examples of devices that will have embedded GPS in 2014 include 18 percent of all laptops and 42 percent of portable handheld video game players, the firm is estimating.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225900135

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While embedded and remote devices are not always highly visible because of their behind-the-scenes role, they are becoming pervasive. There will be more than 400 million embedded devices and M2M connections by 2014, when more of the world’s mobile data traffic will be transferred monthly on embedded computing systems than during all of 2008.

http://advice.cio.com/mark_gentile/11122/embed_management_capabilities_wherever_there_are_embedded_devices

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AT&T announced Wednesday it's signed an agreement to allow Petra Solar solar panels in New Jersey to communicate with the utility Public Service Electric and Gas over its wireless network. The AT&T agreement will allow the solar panels, which have their own smart-grid communication tools built in, to communicate with PSE&G's smart grid via the AT&T wireless network. The solar panels will even have their own pricing plan as part of the company's M2M service plan.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20011178-54.html

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US operator AT&T has announced new products aimed at the mobile enterprise, and a new partnership in the M2M space.

http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/article/at-and-t-launches-encrypted-voice-expands-m2m

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Telit Wireless Solutions, Inc., the U.S. based mobile technology arm of Telit Communications, announced today that its CC864-DUAL, a CDMA-1XRTT dual-band cellular M2M communications module, is now certified for use with Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless service provider in the United States. Telit customers can now leverage the CC864-DUAL to launch smart, embedded cellular products on Verizon Wireless' nationwide wireless network.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/telit-technology-certified-to-connect-smart-devices-over-the-verizon-wireless-network-2010-07-21?reflink=MW_news_stmp

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With mobile services still on a rapid upswing in markets such as India and China, the past week saw the global mobile subscriber base reaching a new high of 5 billion on Thursday July 8, 2010, estimates leading telecom vendor, Ericsson. In the days to come, mobile services are also expected to be converged with M2M, and this is estimated to be a key component in the future growth of mobile services.

http://www.telecomtiger.com/Wireless_fullstory.aspx?storyid=9617&flag=1&passfrom=topstory§ion=S216

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The Subscriber Identity Module – that standard little chip that houses all of a subscriber's information for GSM-based networks card is changing. Long Term Evolution technology is advancing the smart card, while the potential of M2M communications is evolving the size and form factors for SIMs.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20100713/BSS_OSS/100719988/sim-card-evolves-with-lte-technology

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Rapidly falling chipset prices are making WiMax well suited for M2M communications, but expensive Long Term Evolution modules may be the only safe bet for the long haul, says Heavy Reading Mobile research analyst Tim Kridel.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=194172&f_src=lightreading_gnews

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What do Jeff Bezos and Lindsay Lohan have in common? They are two examples of how the definition of M2M communications has broadened over the past two years.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=194054

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry
Analyst CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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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