Mobile Expert Interview Series: SAP's Nick Brown

SAP's Nick Brown on the right

I had the opportunity to catch up with SAP's Nick Brown with the Mobile Business Unit on the phone this morning.  He was calling from dark and snowy Waldorf, Germany.  This call was scheduled to help cover some of the questions that did not get answered at last week's SAP Infuencer Summit (see my full report from this event here).

Here are the questions that were asked by you the readers of this blog that were not answered in full at the event.

*Important Note:  These are not the exact words of Nick Brown.  I have often shortened the answers and revised them to be more concise for the purpose of this article.  I have tried my best to keep the original meaning.  Blame me for any misinterpretations.

Kevin:  Will there be Android support in SUP (SAP unwired platform)? 
Nick:  Yes, full support will be released in the second half of 2011.  However, partial support for lightweight applications will be sooner.

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – December 15, 2010

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

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Bango forecasts that in-application charging in 2011 will grow more than 600 percent to account for close to 30 percent of all mobile application payments.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/in-app-billing-revenue-to-grow-600pc-in-2011-bango/

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ABI research has announced that about 50 percent of smartphone users are planning to use their devices for mobile banking, including mobile shopping. A parallel announcement this week highlighted the ABI survey findings when Wells Fargo began rolling out its mobile banking pilot.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/client/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228701963&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

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Mobile banking impacts consumers' bank selection, according to the Mobile Banking Perception Study by global market research company Synovate. Perceptions change about a bank if it does not offer mobile banking services and the study shows that about 50 percent of consumers of this service use it for stock trading.

HTML5 and Workforce Management and Service Optimization Solutions

I have been following the developments around HTML5 with interest so was intrigued by the following announcement.

This week ClickSoftware announced the availability of ClickMobile Professional, a major release built with the cutting-edge abilities of HTML5.

The flexibility of HTML5 technology allows for a “hybrid” deployment of the application:  as a web-based application, it requires no download or installation.  In “no-connectivity” situations, technicians can still use the application offline and when connectivity is back, store and forward messages.

With ClickMobile Professional the entire service ecosystem – in the field, in dispatch and call center, in HR and in the warehouse – gains real-world, real-time visibility and flexibility for the unpredictable service world where surprises are the norm and real time updates are a must.

B2M mProdigy and Mobile Application Analytics

mProdigy from B2M

I had an interesting discussion last week with Padraig Regan the CTO of B2M Solutions.  B2M focuses on two key areas:

1. Mobile Device Management
2. Mobile Intelligence

The area of particular interest to me was mobile intelligence.  B2M has a solution called mProdigy that can be embedded in mobile applications to report on all device and application related information.  Specifically, it can monitor all activities in the mobile application and business process, so it can be used to analyze mobile device, application processes and human performance.

One simple example is battery life analysis.  You can view when a mobile device is charged and how much it is charged when it is removed from the charger. You can monitor the average battery charge your team starts with each morning and each time a critical battery level occurs?  You can evaluate which devices have the best battery life and which have the worst?  You can see when batteries are bad and which groups are simply not following correct battery charging processes? 

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing Newsletter Weekly - December 14, 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 and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

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While 57 percent of consumers would be interested in opting in to a brand's loyalty club via a mobile social networking application such as Facebook, 80 percent still have not been marketed to by their favorite brands via their mobile device.

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2047982&spid=24698

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Fresh off a partnership with Target, Shopkick is bringing its geo-coupon system to Android phones with a free app. Android users can now access in store coupons from Best Buy, Macy’s, Target, American Eagle, Sports Authority and more.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/18/shopkick-brings-in-store-mobile-coupons-to-android-phones/

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This holiday season Toys ‘R” Us is equipping its retail outlets with scanners that can read coupon bar codes on mobile phones and is launching a text messaging program alerting shoppers to deals.

SAP Influencer Summit 2010 Report on Enterprise Mobility

SAP Mentors John Appleby
and Jon Reed

Last week I attended the SAP Influencer Summit in Santa Clara, California.  About 220 people were in attendance at the Santa Clara Marriott on Mission College Blvd.  The purpose of the summit was for SAP to provide an update to industry analysts, bloggers and other people with loud voices in the market place, on the progress they have made on the goals that were shared earlier in the year.  A consolidated view of my real time tweets from the event last week can be found in a blog article here.

This is a long article, so if you have limited time here is the executive overview.  At TechEd in October 2010 SAP was not prepared to talk about any roadmaps or details on the integration of SAP and Sybase.  However, at the SAP Influencer Summit 2010, they brought the right people that were prepared to answer detailed questions.  I was impressed that smart people are in charge and taking SAP enterprise mobility in the right direction.  That direction should result in product releases by Sapphire 2011 (May 2011).

Mobile Retail Applications a Transformational Trend

 I read an interesting article today in Bloomberg about mobile shopping and mobile retailing applications.  Here are a few excerpts.

• Almost 60 percent of mobile consumers expect to use their phones to help with shopping plans and holiday celebrations this season, according to the Mobile Marketing Association.
• Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm recently stated, “The phone is going to be the payment mechanism of the future.  You’ll probably just scan whatever thing it was that you’re buying. It will cause the checkout to happen. It will cause the security to happen, so that when you walk out of the door it won’t ring the bell.” 
• About eight percent of consumers in the U.S. have bought something with a phone. That compares with 32 percent in Taiwan, which tops the list of major industrialized countries, according to IE Market Research Corp.  Finland was No. 1 in Europe, at 13 percent.

The article highlights the fact that Best Buy, Home Depot and Amazon.com all have mobile retailing applications now.  I have had many discussions with the mobile retailing experts at Smartsoft Mobile Solutions, and I find this market very interesting.  It combines the following:

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - December 9, 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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SAP AG has unveiled new innovations for the SAP StreamWork application that provide business and IT with valuable new choices.

http://www.sap.com/about/newsroom/press.epx?pressid=14474

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Best Buy, Home Depot and Amazon are among the retailers ramping up efforts to let shoppers scan bar codes, get discounts and find product information on their phones.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/best-buy-amazon-com-use-phones-to-reach-shoppers-swipe-sales-from-rivals.html

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Research firms have ramped up forecasts for 2010 smartphone sales and now expect the market to double from a year ago. The fast sales growth is causing shortages of components, with manufacturers scrambling for parts such as phone screens.

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – December 8, 2010

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

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EBay sees growth in mobile payments, pushing its PayPal service toward the offline world.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10941154/1/ebay-sees-mobile-payment-growth-offline.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN

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Mobile shopping grew a massive 310 percent from last year as shoppers choose to dial up deals rather than deal with the crowds and traffic.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/12/paypal-black-friday-mobile-shopping-grew-310.html

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Dueling mobile money deployments have already racked up some impressive numbers in the Fiji Islands, a country of 800,000 people and over 300 islands. After only four months of service, nearly a quarter of all Fijians now have mobile wallets allowing them not only to transfer money to each other, but also to pay utility bills as well as top up their mobile phone airtime.

What I Learned about Mobility at the SAP Influencer Summit 2010

I have compiled my tweets (join me on Twitter @krbenedict) that I published over the past few days here at the SAP Influencer Summit in Santa Clara, CA. I focus on enterprise mobility so this is the topic of most of these tweets.

1. Prashant Chatterjee said 100% of customers add customized features to their mobile apps today.

2. We got solid mobile roadmap answers at the SAP Influencer summit.

3. The 365, Mobiliser Service Platform and SUP will start to converge around the tools in the mobile SDK.

4. Sybase Mobiliser Service Platform consists of communications, apps and commerce functions (365).

5. Mobile developers may have a revenue opportunity developing add-ons to the mobile SDK and selling on SAP EcoHub.