Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Great Debate

When I was managing an enterprise mobility company a few years back, nearly all of my customers wanted the flexibility to customize their own mobile applications and develop new ones from scratch using our MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and SDK (software development kit).  The reality, though, was different.  Our customers seldom wanted to take the time to learn how to develop enterprise quality mobile applications.  They just called us and used our professional services to customize or develop new applications.

Here is the dilemma for mobility vendors:  Do they develop mobile solutions flexible enough, and with SDKs simple enough, for their customers to build their own solutions, or do they lock down templates and mobile applications with only limited configuration and customization capabilities? 

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?

1. Is it the ability to collect data? 
2. Is it the ability to query data from a backend databases? 
3. Is it the ability to synchronize? 
4. Is it the ability to store data on a mobile database in an offline mode?
5. Is it a mobile apps or forms builder?
6. Is it the integration with ERPs?
7. 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?

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst

Phone +1 208-991-4410
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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.