Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sky Technologies' Neil McHugh

I was having a discussion with some folks at SAP this week and they shared their impressions that Sky Technologies, an SAP mobility and EcoHub partner, has been winning a significant number of enterprise mobility deals around the world over the past few months.  I thought what better time to check up on Sky Technologies than now.  I called Neil McHugh, Sky Technologies VP of Sales and Marketing in Texas for an update, and he was kind enough to grant me an interview.


Kevin:  Neil, tell me what is new at Sky Technologies since we last met at Sapphire.

Neil:  In the first half of 2010 sales were slow as the economy was still an issue with large companies.  After Sapphire and SAP announced the acquisition of Sybase, we decided to rethink our strategic plans to really understand what is best for us as a company.  The results of our strategic realignment have been the following:

• The 2nd half of 2010 has been significantly stronger than the first half.

• Year to date, we are up 52 percent is sales.  Our fiscal year is July to June 30, 2011.

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - November 16, 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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At its second annual developer conference, PayPal announced the release of Mobile Express Checkout, a platform that will allow customers to pay for retail products in stores using only their mobile phones.

http://blogs.forbes.com/moneybuilder/2010/10/26/paypal-wants-you-to-ditch-your-wallet/

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Retailers are wising up to the trend in mobile coupons, according to a recent report by IHL Group and RetailConnections. Many are set to implement systems that will allow them to deliver coupons directly to a consumer's mobile phone.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/11/54-of-retailers-to-put-m-coupon-systems-in-place-in-next-12.html

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 3

This is Part 3 of my interview with Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase.

Kevin:  I have had SIs (systems integrators) calling me this week asking if I know where they can find experienced SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform) developers that they can add to their practice.  It appears there is a big and growing demand.  What are you going to do to help train, support and certify developers on SUP?

Willie:  We have a phased approach.  Within Sybase we have been training systems integrators for many years. We have already trained a number of SAP systems integrators on how to customize mobile CRM by using SUP.  Our immediate focus is on training internal SAP folks on our solutions.  We have been very busy for the past 90 days and have had great reception and results.  This same training will soon be available to our systems integrators. We have a lot of plans underway for training.

Kevin:  A few weeks ago I asked Vishal (SAP Board Member) what his advice was to companies and systems integrators that need a mobile strategy today.  He said the "clean" answer is to get trained on SUP and use that as the platform for all mobile applications.  My question to you is if that was the "clean" answer, what is the "dirty" answer?

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 1

Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase, was gracious enough to let me interview him about the latest developments in enterprise mobility at Sybase, an SAP company.

Note:  The words in this interview are not always Willie Jow's exact words.  I have condensed many of my questions and his responses to make them more concise for the reader.

Kevin:  Willie, how does Sybase, which is known for its databases and mobile middleware solutions, become a mobile applications company?

Willie:  It is true we are best known for our mobile middleware, and that our history has been focused on supporting channels like ISV, OEM and other kinds of partnerships that delivered the mobile applications.  However, a couple of years ago SAP approached us about working on the mobile CRM application.  We accepted this opportunit,y and when we completed the mobile application it was very well received by SAP and customers.  We now have a great deal of experience developing mobile applications for SAP.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Willie Jow, Part 2

This is Part 2 of my interview with Sybase's Willie Jow, vice president of mobility product marketing with Sybase.

Kevin:  Tell me about the announced mobile SDK.  Where will the SAP/Sybase SDK stop and the native development environments start?

Willie:  That is still being finalized even as we speak. The target date for release is Sapphire 2011.

It is important to note that there are two different kinds of applications, 1) native applications like the CRM and field service apps, and 2) the container approach. The container is on the device, and we populate it with data. Our workflow app is a container application.  However, our mobile CRM is a native app. Both will exist and be supported in the SDK.

Kevin: What do you mean by “container?”

Willie: Think of it like an application sitting on your mobile device using native features and code.  However, it has no business logic, or data elements.  We push data to the container.  It is for simple queries and data collection. Our SAP workflow apps fit this model, like travel approvals or discount approval.  We push the data to the mobile container application.  We see HTML 5 also in this area and are evaluating.

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - November 11, 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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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive, said 200 million people now access Facebook through its mobile application, a threefold increase since last year.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/facebook-opens-up-about-mobile-strategy-unveils-new-deals-program.html

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Kicking a boot into RIM's side, Dell announced all 25,000 employees will be given Dell Venue Pros running WP7 in exchange for their BlackBerrys, but they're also offering a new service to their clients for help switching from BlackBerry.

http://m.gizmodo.com/5682309/dell-were-kicking-[blackberry]-out

Update on Sybase Reorganization, Revised Edition

I have been corrected by SAP on several points since I published this article earlier today.  This is the revised and corrected edition.

This is my understanding of how the SAP/Sybase mobility business unit is now organized.  The Mobile Business unit will be under John Chen and it has three main groups:

1. Mobile Platform – led by Billy Ho
2. Mobile Apps – led by Bob Stutz
3. Mobile Services – led by Marty Beard

Terry Stepien, will also report to John Chen and lead the Mobile Business unit's managed mobility efforts through the various MNOs (mobile network operators) and ODMs.  Willie Jow will be responsible for supporting sales.

I understand that eventually Kevin Nix's team will also move to Bob Stutz's group.

If I have any of this wrong, please correct me.

Thanks,
***************************************************
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 M2M News Weekly - November 10, 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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M2M represents both a new set of uses for mobile technology and a new source of revenue for mobile operators, and Sprint is aggressively investing in this area.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/208875/sprint_pursues_mobile_m2m_craze.html

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The emergence of mobile health - or mHealth - presents a new opportunity to enhance disease prevention and management by allowing health related data collection beyond the traditional bounds of the clinic or hospital.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/46273.php

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - November 9, 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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Amazon.com just made an interesting upgrade to its iPhone mobile shopping app. Users of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3Gs running iOS 4 can now scan a barcode on a product and instantly get matching product and pricing information from Amazon's catalog.

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/amazon_adds_barcode_scanning_to_iphone_shopping_app.html

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Savvy apparel retailers are having no trouble wrapping their heads (and dollars) around mobile friendly sites and apps as a way to boost revenue and connect with consumers.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/publishing-style/how-fashion-brands-can-make-the-most-of-m-commerce/937

Report from Last Week's ClickConnect North America 2010 on Enterprise Mobility

I had the opportunity to attend ClickSoftware's user conference for a couple of days last week in Scottsdale, Arizona.  It was at the Royal Palm, a beautiful resort located in an orange grove.  I was able to meet with many large utility customers and large field services organizations and spend some quality time with Shawn McEwan from Sybase and interview many of the executives from ClickSoftware.

Sybase an SAP company, was attending in support of their recently announced partnership with ClickSoftware who is utilizing the Sybase Mobility Platform in their solutions.  Terry Stepien, president, Sybase iAnywhere attended and spoke at the conference.  Here are some of his comments on the partnership, “By implementing ClickSoftware’s mobile applications on components of the Sybase mobility platform, the service industry benefits from an integrated offering from two industry leaders; proven mobility infrastructure from Sybase and proven mobile applications from ClickSoftware.  This partnership will transform ClickSoftware’s customers through highly productive enterprise mobility solutions. We look forward to growing this partnership into 2011 and beyond.”