Mobile Expert Interview Series: Smartsoft Mobile Solutions' CEO Dan Homrich, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin:  What is your favorite iPhone application?

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

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

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

Kevin:  What industries do you see adopting mobility today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more Mobile Expert Interviews read here.

For more Mobile Expert Videos watch here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – September 10, 2010

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile retail applications, mobile payments and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly - September 9, 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 versions of the newsletter here - http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/p/kevins-mobility-news-weekly.html.

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India has widened its security crackdown, asking all companies that provide encrypted communications — not just BlackBerry maker Research In Motion — to install servers in the country to make it easier for the government to obtain users' data. That would likely affect digital giants like Google and Skype.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5it_73CxzMozqkSOODLh2r7aCIlLwD9HVV8CO1

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LG Electronics announced yesterday its intent to launch a new line of dual-core smartphones, dubbed "Optimus," by year's end. The Tegra 2 incorporates two 1 GHz chips, which, according to LG, will mean "up to 2x faster web browsing and up to 5x faster gaming performance over single core processors running at 1 GHz."

http://www.dailytech.com/LG+Well+Have+DualCore+Smartphones+By+Years+End/article19568.htm

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Syclo announced today that it's rolling out major enhancements to its Agentry mobile enterprise application platform. Agentry is the backbone of Syclo's mobile solution framework as it provides both the tooling and infrastructure that enterprises need to develop, test, deploy and manage high availability mobile applications.

http://www.fieldtechnologiesonline.com/article.mvc/Syclo-Announces-New-Version-Of-Its-Agentry-0001

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Apple confirmed the launch of its new Apple TV device for later this month. The media player with HDMI and Wi-Fi will allow users to stream online movies and TV series as well as content from their PCs to an HD TV.

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?cid=754422

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Leapfactor, an SAP partner and start up, today announced a cloud-based system to support mobile applications, including back office custom applications for accounting and customer support.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9183898/SAP_partner_launches_cloud_based_mobile_app_service

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Google's Android Market has the largest share of free applications. App store analytics firm Distimo reports that 60 percent of Android apps are free, an increase of three percent from May. Windows Marketplace for Mobile has the lowest percentage of free apps with just 22 percent, while 26 percent of apps in both Apple's App Store for the iPad and BlackBerry App World are free.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/distimo-60-android-apps-are-free/2010-09-01?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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You are tasked with managing a team you cannot see. You are accountable for the safety of your employees in locations you have never been. Your success is based upon your team’s ability to overcome all kinds of technical challenges in remote and distant jobsites. You are responsible for your team following company standards, processes and industry best practices without any supervision. You must expertly balance their schedules, qualifications and workloads to maximize customer satisfaction and profitability from a distance.

http://theemf.org/2010/09/01/managing-the-mobile-workforce/

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Consumers buying items via iPads spend an average of up to 20 percent more per purchase than other mobile shoppers.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/peter-session-1-2/

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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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Google is hoping to debut an Internet based digital music service that would launch later this year in conjunction with version 3 of its popular Android operating system for smartphones, according to various media reports.

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/google-negotiating-android-music-service/2010-09-03?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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Total Twitter mobile users has jumped 62 percent since mid April, and, remarkably, 16 percent of all new users to Twitter start on mobile now.

http://blog.twitter.com/2010/09/evolving-ecosystem.html

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Sony Ericsson estimates that China will be its largest handset market in the next three to four years as it looks to increase its share of the country. The Japanese-Swedish joint venture said that smartphone use in China would reach 50 percent of all mobile phone users in the country by 2015.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/73510.html

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The mobile applications market is estimated to be worth around $25 billion by 2015. However, the economic meltdown has caused some big names within the applications and telecoms industry to shutdown recently and the fears of the aftermath of a recession are still on the clouds.

http://bharatbookseo.blogsome.com/2010/09/03/the-mobile-applications-market/

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SAP AG aims to make China “a second home” as local companies seeking management tools and real time business intelligence will provide “limitless growth” for the software maker, co-Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-03/sap-sees-limitless-potential-in-chinese-market-co-ceo-mcdermott-says.html

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

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

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Samsung, the world’s second largest cell phone maker, has decided to use Google’s Android as a key software platform for its smartphones alongside its own new bada software.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6811FI20100902

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According to IDC's worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker, handset vendors shipped a total of 317.5 million units worldwide in the quarter, up 15 percent year-over-year and eight percent sequentially, driven by seasonal strength.

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970204812504575469674114253814.html?mod=googlenews_barrons

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Over the past year Apple has lost ground to Google, losing 11 percent of the mobile web consumption market, while Google picked up 17 percent more market share. iOS still maintains a significant lead with 56 percent of the market, more than twice that of Android, but current growth trends could cause problems for Apple in the near future.

http://www.worldtech24.com/phones/android-gaining-apple-ios-mobile-web-market-share

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Google Android and Windows Mobile will see their smartphone market share increase by 2014, while BlackBerry and Apple will experience declines, according to a new research note from IDC.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Android-Windows-Phone-Will-Lead-Smartphone-Market-Surge-IDC-197754/

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Toshiba Electronics Europe has expanded its family of mobile peripheral device ICs with the TC358751XBG, which provides the interface between a mobile device's host processor and embedded displays as well as external equipment, such as a TV set or projector. The buffer content can be rendered simultaneously on two displays (typically with different content) and external equipment.

http://www.eetimes.de/en/new-mobile-dual-screen-display-ic-offers-1080p.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222903617&vID=8

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Automotive service organization AAA is driving foot traffic to the locations of its retail partners via a loyalty focused Android application. The AAA Discounts application lets consumers know about nearby discounts available to members of its Show Your Card & Save loyalty program.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/aaa-targets-android-users-via-loyalty-program-app/

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Amazon Kindle get’s new firmware and shows up on BestBuy.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Amazon-Kindle-Gets-New-Firmware-Shows-up-on-BestBuy-155779.shtml

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A new survey has revealed that 65 percent of adults sleep with their cell phones on or next to their beds. This latest sampling from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows how cell phones continue to grow ever more vital in our livelihoods.

http://www.technewsdaily.com/two-thirds-of-adults-sleep-with-their-cell-phones-1189/

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Salesforce.com, a provider of software as a service to companies over the web, has introduced mobile application Chatter for social networking inside companies.

http://telecomyatra.afaqs.com/news/index.html?sid=1835_Salesforce.com+introduces+Chatter+networking+solution

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

Compliance Functions for Mobile Applications
What Percent of the U.S. Workforce is Mobile?

NEW Recommended newsletter – Kevin’s Mobile Retail News Weekly

Recommended Webinar

I participated in the webinar, 10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting and Implementing a Mobility Solution this week. It can be viewed here, http://www.clicksoftware.com/96ec7ed7-023c-4260-a063-a7d5c320dd23/knowledge-center-on-demand-webinars-registration.htm?mgs1=06a52axCfU.

Recommended Whitepaper

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

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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What Percent of the U.S. Workforce is Mobile?

"The United States has the highest percentage of mobile workers in its workforce," says the IDC 2009-2013 forecast.  "With 72.2 percent of the workforce mobile in 2008.  The U.S. will remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers with 75.5 percent of the workforce, or 119.7 million workers, being mobile in 2013."

Those numbers represent enormous opportunities for enterprise mobility vendors.  The first question that came to my mind when I read that quote was, "What kind of mobile applications are they going to need?"  I think the answer is thousands of different kinds. 

I assume that others including SAP's co-Innovation partner Syclo also believe that.  Sylco has spent the last ten years investing in their Agentry Mobile Platform and Smart Mobile Suite to make them flexible enough to serve a broad market.  Here is how they describe themselves, "We offer fully configurable, rapidly deployed mobile applications that run on a variety of devices and support real time wireless and offline computing."  They don't know what mobile applications all of their customers will want, so they have invested years worth of effort developing capabilities that will enable it to be useful for a broad audience.  That is something I learned as CEO of a mobile application company.  The more flexible the platform, the more investment in time and money it took to develop.  Simple mobile micro-apps can be developed quickly that just connect point A to point B.  However, it you want point A to connect to point C, D, E and X then you have an expoentially larger task.

The point is that MEAPs (mobile enterprise application platforms) that are flexible enough to handle a broad range of mobile applications are extremely challenging to develop.  However, they offer enormous value, and the price is likely going to reflect the investment.

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

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin’s M2M News Weekly – September 8, 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.

Follow Kevin on Twitter @krbenedict.

Also available are Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly and Kevin’s Enterprise Mobility Blog.

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There's no question that many wireless operators consider the next growth opportunity to rest with embedded wireless devices. Some operators estimate that by embedding wireless connectivity into all types of devices -- from netbooks to e-readers to GPS devices -- the wireless industry could reach a penetration rate in the range of 300 to 500 percent. Indeed, in a recent ABI Research study, the firm predicts manufacturers will ship 54 million mobile broadband enabled consumer electronics devices by 2014.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/what-devices-are-early-winners-embedded-and-m2m?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

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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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A team of investigators in Spain is currently developing remote sensing technology that could keep a virtual eye on pollution levels being generated by traffic jams.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Remote-Sensing-Technology-Analyzes-Pollution-155428.shtml

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OEM and aftermarket consumer telematics systems continue to gain momentum in both developed and developing regions due to growing popular awareness of their many benefits related to safety, security, maintenance, convenience, infotainment, and cost savings. These benefits will drive growth from 37 million telematics users in 2010 to more than 211 million in 2015, well over a five fold increase.

http://www.eetimes.de/en/consumer-telematics-users-to-reach-211-million-by-2015-says-abi-research.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222903452&vID=391

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Christiana Care launched its tele-ICU program five years ago to better monitor patients at Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital, but for the past 17 months it also has been working with rural and small hospitals in Maryland. Because the technology feeds real time patient data and live video from afar, the services of local intensivists can be used to monitor patients hundreds of miles away.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100905/HEALTH/9050373/Giving-patients-hands-on-care-from-afar

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St. Jude Medical has paid $60 million to acquire a 19 percent stake in CardioMEMS, a firm that's developed a wireless patient monitoring technology.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2010/09/06/daily1.html

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While media coverage is certainly not a new concept at the race, at the 2010 Tour de France, fans had access to more information about their favorite riders than they had in previous years thanks to M2M technology. Fans were able to get real time statistics on cyclists such as their location, distance traveled, even heart rate, via the Web.

http://connectedworldmag.com/latestNews.aspx?id=NEWS100901093605933

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Location based Web services like FourSquare, Gowalla or Facebook’s Places feature may be all the rage in the tech news, but by and large, Americans aren’t buying into it, according to a recent article in the New York Times. Location based Web services generally allow people to “check in” via their Mobile devices -- actually registering their physical location with the Web site -- with the goal of playing a game, receiving a coupon or discount, or connecting with friends who may be nearby.

http://m2m.tmcnet.com/topics/m2mevolution/articles/98453-location-based-mobile-services-more-hype-than-hot.htm

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Recently, Peter Hartwell an engineer from computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. told the audience at the firm's Executive Energy Conference in Dubai he believed intelligent sensor technology deployed on oil rigs and other drilling equipment could have prevented the disaster had they been installed, and that certainly in the future, such measures should be taken to avoid a repeat of the disaster.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20100901/DEVICES/100909996/mobile-technology-seen-as-critical-in-disasters

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An ABI report indicates that renewed interest from mobile operators in the M2M space, coupled with the widespread deployment of 3G, has led it to predict the M2M market will be worth $3.8 billion by 2015.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/what-devices-are-early-winners-embedded-and-m2m

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

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

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As part of its ongoing commitment to improve driver safety for its commercial auto customers, Travelers today announced a potential discount of up to 15 percent on certain auto liability insurance premiums for qualifying businesses that effectively use telematics technology to monitor their commercial fleets and driver behavior. Similar to GPS, vehicle telematics go beyond navigation and positioning by storing and sending data on how a vehicle is operated.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/53997120/Travelers-Embraces-Fleet-Vehicle-Telematics-to-Improve-Roadway-Safety

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Technologies such as wireless sensor networks, real time distributed sensor networks, and FPGA-based reconfigurable I/O hardware are relatively new to the wind industry. But the reconfigurable hardware is central to many network applications.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-nervous-system-for-renewable-energy-projects/

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In the years ahead, the National Football League looks set to dial up some new tech blitzes that will make the game fairer and safer. Among the technologies most likely to make it onto the field soon are wireless sensors in the ball and in players' gear.

http://www.technewsdaily.com/going-deep-the-future-of-technology-in-the-national-football-league-1171/

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Putting chips into devices other than computers and mobile phones - a market known as embedded processors - represents a $10 billion opportunity, according to Intel's Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini. The market for PC processors is $34.5 billion.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/06/BUHI1F8BJF.DTL

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3M has agreed to acquire Tel Aviv based Attenti, a remote people-tracking technology provider for $230 million.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/48119/20100901/3m-attenti-cogent-google-facebook-location-based-services-geriatric-care-acquistion.htm

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410 twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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