Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

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

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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The number of financial institutions offering downloadable applications, customized websites and check depositing services for mobile devices is expected to skyrocket in the next year.

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/175_203/mobile-banking-payments-1027486-1.html

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 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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Microsoft Corp's resident visionary and departing software chief, Ray Ozzie, has urged the company to move on from its Windows and Office roots and imagine a "post-PC world" of simple, global Web devices.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69O5AN20101026

Kevin's M2M News Weekly - October 27, 2010

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - October 26, 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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Retailers are hitting up consumers the way they are most likely to pay attention: with that ringing, vibrating gadget that's always close by.

http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/10/24/1768832/mobile-deals-grab-shoppers.html

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 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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More shoppers flocked to Amazon’s website during the third quarter, helping the online retailer's net income climb 16 percent and easily beat analyst expectations.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/21/ap/tech/main6979245.shtml

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.

Tuesday at SAP's TechEd 2010 - Focus on Enterprise Mobility

I am sure one could have found sessions and topics unrelated to SAP enterprise mobility at TechEd today, but I didn't. My day was packed from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. with non-stop enterprise mobility. Please follow me on Twitter @krbenedict if you are interested in hourly and daily updates on enterprise mobility news here at TechEd. Here was my day:

Vishal Sikka spoke all about enterprise mobility during his 8:00 a.m. keynote. Yes, you read that right, an 8:00 a.m. keynote.
I interviewed Willie Jow of Sybase today about all kinds of Sybase mobility related subjects. I will be publishing his interview next week.
I interviewed Oliver Bussmann, SAP's CIO on enterprise mobility. I posted the video interview here.
I interviewed Adobe's Matthias Zeller on Adobe's enterprise mobility work. I posted the video interview here.
I lead an Expert Networking session on SAP enterprise mobility and spoke to many companies that are implementing mobile proof-of-concepts. We had some fascinating discussing about real life experiences. I will certainly blog on these discussions.
I spoke with Sybase's mobility guru, Senthil Krishnapillai. We discussed the Sybase solution "mobile workflow" an under-appreciated, but powerful application.
I had a long discussion with fellow SAP Mentor John Appleby on his experiences with enterprise mobility in the UK.
I spoke at length about mobile strategy with Dr. Ahmend El Adl of PWC.
I spoke with Vivido Labs' mobility guru Steve Goldman and discussed his most recent mobility projects.
I am exhausted, but have two more meetings this evening.

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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 Mobile Retailing News Weekly - October 19, 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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For the second consecutive year, the American Bankers Association has found through their annual survey that many Americans prefer online banking than any other method in dealing with their banks.

http://seerpress.com/u-s-customers-prefer-online-banking-survey-shows/9480/

Throwing Your Food Away and Mobile Applications

In Jonathan Bloom's new book American Wasteland he reports that the US produces about 591 billion pounds of food each year of which about 50 percent goes to waste somewhere along the food supply chain. This includes unused restaurant food, food in the field and vegetables and fruits in the grocery store as examples. Grocery stores throw away an estimated 30 million pounds of food each day.

The New York Times, Starbucks and Other Retail Locations that Need Mobile Applications

I was in Starbucks with my family this evening. The only thing unusual about this was that it was the evening. As I stood in line waiting to order I noticed nine New York Times that remained in the rack. No one is going to buy a Sunday edition on Monday, so these were retail products that were also perishable. This reminded me of a project that I was involved in a few years ago with a newspaper company.

The Transformational Power of Mobile Enterprise Applications, Part 2

This is Part 2 in this series.

Last week I read an announcement from SAP mobility partner ClickSoftware, the company that developed the SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization solution, concerning their new Facebook integration. Here is an excerpt, "ClickSoftware announces tight integration between Facebook and its ClickContact self-service customer portal - helping service businesses deliver a high-value customer relationship online . . . customers can book and change service appointments directly on a service organization's Facebook page, receive reminders and notifications on the expected arrival time of the service engineer to minimize wait times - and reduce the chance that the service engineer will not find the customer at home." You can read the full press release here. ClickSoftware's solutions also come with mobile enterprise applications that are integrated with them.

In P.W. Singer's New York Bestseller, Wired for War, he writes, "World War I proved to be an odd, tragic mix of outmoded generalship combined with deadly new technologies." The generals were simply not able to comprehend how new technologies were fundamentally changing warfare and the ways battles would be fought and won. They continued to cling to the traditional methods and models passed down over generations. I know there are challenges today with executives and managers struggling to understand how to use new mobile technologies and social networking in their organizations.

Link to Recorded SAP Enterprise Mobility Webinar

http://www.sap.com/community/events/2010_10_12_EMW/index.epx

This is the link to the recorded SAP Enterprise Mobility webinar that was conducted about a week ago.

Here are the promoted contents:

The now and future of enterprise mobility.
Trends - How did we get here?
What are some strategy and organizational considerations to ensure success?
What is the role of a robust mobility platform?
Implementation challenges with enterprise mobility and best practices.
How will the new SAP/Sybase mobility product roadmap help you to implement your enterprise mobility strategy?