Mobile Expert Interview Series: Pyxis Mobile's T.L. Neff

TL Neff

T.L. Neff, is an EVP at Pyxis Mobile in charge of customer services.  We met last year when we both spoke at the same conference.  T.L. lives in the Boston area and is an expert in mobility.  Last week we were able to schedule some time together for an interview.

Note:  These are not T.L.'s exact words, rather my notes from our interview.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you use and carry?

TL: BlackBerry Torch, iPhone 4, iPad and laptop.

Kevin: What are your favorite mobile applications?
TL: Mobile CRM from Pyxis, Movela Netflix Queue Manager (a Pyxis app), TagIn (GPS tracking - our kids use it a lot to tell us where they are  located), FaceBook (I use it for both family and business.  Some customers respond faster on FaceBook than on email) and Skype Mobile.

Kevin: What industries do you see adopting mobility today?
TL: Everybody is implementing now.  Even personal friends tell me their companies are looking at mobility. 

Kevin: Where are you seeing sales opportunities?
TL:  A lot of our big sales opportunities come from analyst referrals.  Oracle World was also great for us.  We also did well at the BlackBerry Developer conference.  Both Oracle World and the BlackBerry Developer conference used our solutions for their mobile conference app which gave us a lot of exposure. 

B2C Mobile App


Kevin: What business processes are you seeing companies mobilize?
TL: We deployed our first mobile applications in 2002.  Back then they were sales force automation.  Now, customers are coming to us with needs in their marketing departments.  Some start with internal projects, and now have advanced to consumer facing apps.  Interactive marketing teams are calling us today. Customers have asked for mobile HR apps.  People buy from Pyxis because they need multiple apps and want to use our development platform.  They buy servers from us, but we don't have a per user fee.  When companies want a lot of mobile users, our model is perfect for them.  We are getting a lot of interest from medical and pharmaceutical firms.  There is a lot of interest in tablets today.  However, developers must realize that iPads are shared devices and security is an issue.  By shared I mean they are often used by many people so security across users is an issue.

Kevin: What are some of the most surprising developments for you in enterprise mobility over the past year?
TL: How quickly enterprises adopted iPads.  I thought companies would like them, but I thought it would take years for them to be adopted in significant numbers.  Also, we sold a lot of solutions to SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises).  SME start-ups can't imagine having solutions without mobile apps.  Many of these SMEs start a website at the same time as a mobile app.

Kevin: What advice do you have for companies just starting down a path to enterprise mobility?
TL:  Think bigger.  Mobility is not a nice to have, or a fad.  It is here to stay.  It will be here for the rest of your career.  It is now a core component of your IT environment.

Kevin:  How important is MDM (mobile device management) and security?
TL: It is critical.  When personal and business mobile devices are mixed, they must be managed.  Pyxis chooses to secure the mobile applications, not the device.

Kevin: Where does your company fit in the mobile enterprise solutions mix?
TL: We have a mobile development and production platform.  Customers buy servers from Pyxis when they want to deploy more than one mobile application.  We have companies that want to deploy dozens of different mobile applications on our platform.  We provide our customers with a mobile SDK.  It is a visual application development environment called Application Studio. 

Mobility requires flexibility, fast change, rapid evolution of devices and apps.  We enable you to rapidly develop, edit, and grow apps.  Some of our customers release new versions of mobile apps monthly.  We allow for these rapid changes.  Most of our competitors require huge development projects to change apps.  We take pride in developing mobile applications in eight hours.

Kevin: What industries are you focusing on in 2011?
TL: That is a hard question since we have customers in all kinds of different industries.  Probably the best way to describe it is we target Fortune 2,500 and OEM partners.  Our partners purchase a development license and build mobile applications for their customers.

Kevin: Where do you see mobility going in 2011?
TL: Mobility is growing so broad.  Companies will be looking not for one mobile application, but for platforms that can support ten different ones.  Companies are looking to mobilize everything.

Kevin: Tell me about your business model.
TL:  We are a mobile platform company with servers and a mobile SDK.  We don't sell by the number of mobile users.  We sell by the number of servers a customer needs.  The number of servers is dependent on the kind of mobile applications they want.

I want to thank T.L. for sharing his thoughts and experiences with us.

To read more in the Mobile Expert Interview Series click here.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, 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.


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Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Bryan Whitmarsh

Boise, Idaho

This morning I was able to catch up with SAP Mentor Bryan Whitmarsh for an interview.  I conducted a video interview with Bryan last year at Sapphire which you can watch here.  Bryan works for Sybase's product management team and reports to Tony Kueh, who I interviewed last week.  Bryan lives in Boise, Idaho (also my fair city), which he has called home since 1992, when he moved here from the Seattle area.

Note:  These are not Bryan's exact words, rather my notes from our interview.

Kevin: What is your role and area of responsibility at Sybase?
Bryan: My title is Mobility Product Management.  Last year I was focused on mobile email, but this year I am working with the platform team on SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform).  It is my job to interpret the market, meet with customers, communicate the road map, both internally and externally, define product requirements and help marketing communicate information about the products.



Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Tony Kueh

Sybase's Tony Kueh

I met Tony Kueh (pronounced Koo-ay) from Sybase's product management team at TechEd in Las Vegas this year.  He is a long time Seattle native, now residing in California.  This week he accepted my invitation to be interviewed.

Note:  These are not Tony's exact words, rather my notes from the interview.

Kevin: Tony, what is your role and areas of responsibilities at Sybase?
Tony: I am the product manager for enterprise mobility which includes SUP and Afaria.  I report to Raj Nathan, who is the interim head of the mobile applications group and EVP and CMO at Sybase.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you have and carry?
Tony: An iPhone, an iPad, a Droid and a MacBook Pro.

Kevin:  A Droid?
Tony:  Yes, for those occasions when I really don't want to be disconnected.

Kevin: Is that all?

Mobile Banking is Here!

Mobile Banking Apps

In the past couple of years, mobile banking has grown rapidly among smartphone users, and 2011 promises even faster growth.  During 2010, roughly 10 percent of households in the United States used mobile banking features on their smartphones.  Expect to see significant increases in those numbers in 2011.

During 2007 there were 10 million global users of smartphone banking.  By next year 150 million people will be checking their bank accounts on mobile devices, and by 2013 that number will increase to nearly 400 million. These figures are truly impressive.

With the rapid increase of mobile banking, financial institutions are realizing that customer satisfaction lies in mobile apps.  Approximately 1,000 U.S. banks now offer some type of mobile app for account management, but 29,000 more banks are expected to develop mobile banking applications within the next year.

Sybase's Strategy with John Chen - Version 2

John Chen
CEO Sybase, an SAP company

John Chen, CEO of Sybase Inc., an SAP company, wrote an interesting article that I read last week.  Here are three excerpts:

1. Until recently application platforms dominated the enterprise mobility story. Vendors like Sybase sold them and corporations bought them — to build mobile apps in-house.
2. Packaged mobile apps will soon replace custom-built ones as the predominant deployment model inside the enterprise. This will not only slash the cost and time needed for organizations to roll out mobile apps, but will also kick-start a new phase of rapid growth for enterprise mobility.
3. Sybase is out in front of this trend as it revolutionizes the mobile space.

I understand that John was making general comments, but as a veteran of the mobile industry I started pondering the challenges he will face.  I wondered how packaged mobile apps would be configured to work with customized SAP environments.  If I remember right, about 70 percent of SAP customers customize their systems.  Packaged mobile applications would need to be able to be customized quickly to "slash" the costs and time needed for organizations to roll out mobile apps. This means someone must be trained to customize mobile apps.  Who is that someone?  What do they need to know?  What SDK will they use?  Who should I call?
 
I also wondered, since Sybase has not traditionally been a mobile application company, how they could be "out in front" on this trend.  Many of us have been developing and deploying mobile applications for the past decade and have never recognized Sybase as a major player in that space.  Yet, a reader pointed out that most companies are barely starting their mobility projects, so packaged mobile apps would be a great start.
 
It also occured to me that many "outside-the-four-walls" business processes are not commonly supported by SAP today.  There are many field services, project management, inspections, asset tracking and other kinds of business processes that fall outside of SAP's umbrella. Will Sybase try to support these, or just those processes supported by SAP? 

SAP resells ClickSoftware's Workforce Scheduling and Optimization solution.  ClickSoftware has already developed mobile applications for the SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization solution.  This solution supports "intra-day dynamic mobile workforce scheduling."  This is not an area that SAP supports themselves.  Will Sybase develop mobile apps for SAP's partner solutions, or leave this up to the partner?
 
Syclo is SAP's co-innovation mobility partner for EAM (enterprise asset management).  Enterprise asset management is a big and high priority market for mobile applications.  In many cases Syclo's mobile clients may need to connect to both SAP and non-SAP EAM systems.  Will SAP simply excuse themselves from the EAM category in favor of their partner, or compete against them?
 
Many other mobile markets, such as retail, require support for features and processes not always covered by SAP's systems.  For example, large retailers looking to provide consumer focused mobile applications may work with retail experts like Smartsoft Mobile (an SAP services partner) to provide branded mobile applications that incorporate loyalty programs, location-based services, coupons, deals, catalogs, etc. 
 
Even SAP partners that focus on "inside the four walls" solutions like Open Text (an enterprise content management vendor) already have mobile solutions for SAP customers.  Open Text is the developer of SAP's Vendor Invoice Management systems, among other solutions.  They have developed a mobile solution called Open Text Everywhere that I wrote about here. 

Open Text is an example of a vendor developing their own mobile applications for their own enterprise solutions.  However, in Open Text's case, some of their ECM (enterprise content management) solutions are embedded in SAP.  As a result, the user must decide if they will use Open Text's packaged mobile application, build their own, or wait for Sybase to develop a mobile packaged application.

I don't think Sybase would try to mobilize SAP solutions and business processes that are provided by partners that have their own packaged mobile apps like Open Text or ClickSoftware.  At least they wouldn't seem like high priorities.

It appears that Sybase will focus first on extending simple SAP business processes and workflows out to mobile devices.  Second, develop mobile applications for the high priority business processes and include mobile SDK support for customizing these apps. Third, provide the mobility platform (not the mobile apps) for rich and complex mobile applications, that require deep industry knowledge, customization, support for field specific business processes, and integration with non-SAP backends, non-SAP business processes or multiple backend systems. This third area of applications will likely remain the competitive playground of the SAP enterprise mobility ecosystem vendors, not Sybase.

Do you agree or disagree?  Let me know what you think!

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, 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 – Week of January 3, 2011

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 data and trends.

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s M2M News Weekly

Apple expects to ship 20 to 21 million iPhones around the world next quarter, with nearly 25 percent of them CDMA phones.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20026643-37.html

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Americans are connected at unprecedented levels — 93 percent now use cell phones or wireless devices; one-third of those are "smartphones."

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/parenting-family/2010-12-30-1AYEAR30_CV_N.htm

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Robert Hamilton of Google predicts that, "By next year, five billion mobile phones will be in service, out of a total world population of about seven billion. By 2014, there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2011/jan/03/google-robert-hamilton?CMP=twt_fd

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November data indicates that Apple’s iOS has captured 28.6 percent of the smartphone operating system market share. RIM’s BlackBerry operating system is second with 26.1 percent of the market share, and Google’s Android finished third with 25.8 percent of the market.

Enterprise Mobility in Australia

Mastering SAP Technologies
March 21-23, 2011

I will be in Australia speaking on enterprise mobility at the Mastering SAP Technologies March 21-23, 2011.  I will be the keynote speaker on Monday, March 21st at 10 AM, and will lead a session on Tuesday, March 22nd at 2:10 PM.  I would love to meet up with any folks interested in discussing enterprise mobility while I am there.  Also, if you would like to schedule time with me either before or after the event let me know by contacting me here.


***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, 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 Money News Weekly – Week of January 3, 2011

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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PayPal saw a 300 percent increase in mobile payments from the official start of the shopping season on November 15 through December 15 compared to the year ago period. PayPal is expecting to close the year with more than $700 million in total payment volume via the mobile medium.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/paypal-reports-300pc-growth-in-mobile-payments-over-last-holiday-season/

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A recent poll by Scanbuy on Twitter and Facebook proves the influence that mobile bar codes are having for retail outlets trying to improve the customer shopping experience.  The poll revealed that there is significant interest in using mobile bar codes while shopping, with more than half of those surveyed having scanned a bar code.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/mobile-bar-code-scanning-became-mainstream-this-holiday-season-scanbuy/

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Google is considering building a payment and advertising service that would let users buy milk and bread by tapping or waving their mobile phones against a register at checkout. It is based on near field communication technology, which can beam and receive information wirelessly from four inches away.

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of January 3, 2011

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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CKE Restaurants Inc.’s Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants are driving consumers in store via Happy Star Rewards, a GPS enabled loyalty program that rewards users for checking in at the fast food chains’ locations across the United States.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/carls-jr-and-hardees-mobile-loyalty-program-to-drive-in-store-traffic/

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Online retailer Buy.com has launched its new app for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Using barcode technology and an advanced voice recognition platform from MeMeMe Inc., the Buy.com app makes mobile shopping easier and faster than ever before.

http://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/article/178376/New-Buy-com-mobile-app-features-barcode-scanning-voice-recognition

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A KPMG survey shows mobile devices are slowly gaining ground as the preferred media for e-commerce. Compared with only 18 months ago, the global percentage of respondents who have used their mobile device for banking has more than doubled from 19 percent to 46 percent, while the percentage that have used it to buy goods and services has gone from 10 percent to 28 percent.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Aberdeen Group's Andrew Borg

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity last week to interview Andrew Borg, senior research analyst for Wireless & Mobility at the Aberdeen Group (Twitter @mobileaberdeen). We discussed research they had recently conducted on the subject of enterprise mobility. 

Andrew Borg



Here are some of the findings from their research:

1) Mobility is a core strategic imperative for the enterprise. It is well past the point of early adopters. Less than 2% of Aberdeen’s survey respondents say they have NO intention of adopting mobility. It is now a given. There are new and increasing pressures on the corporation to accommodate mobility.

2) In 2011 enterprise mobility is not a nice to have, but a business requirement.

3) Security for mobile devices, mobile applications and mobile content is a big concern for the enterprise. As important as having secure mobile devices and apps are, it is even more important to have secure data. For this reason, Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions will be increasingly important for all enterprises. Managing the entire data lifecycle on the mobile device becomes critical. Enterprises cannot effectively manage data security until they have an EMM in place that they can use to build and enforce an enterprise security policy. Some of the EMM vendors Aberdeen is following are; Sybase’s Afaria, BoxTone, Zenprise, Good Technology and MobileIron.

Aberdeen studies the behaviors of the best-in-class as well as the industry average and laggards. Aberdeen found that best-in-class companies are 1.6 times more likely to have implemented EMM solutions than all other repondents. 2011 is expected to be the year of EMM, with the management of mobility becoming a core IT function in 2011.

4) The costs of a single mobile data compliance lapse, according to a recent Aberdeen survey, at the low end is estimated at $140,000, and at the high end over $1 million.

5) Today, when properly configured Apple iOS 4.2 is virtually equivalent in security to the BlackBerry system. Android remains behind, but Aberdeen believes they will catch up.

6) Aberdeen believes that SAP/Sybase’s Afaria product is a very powerful and complete EMM, but they cannot sit on their hands as there are many competitors rising up to challenge them on pricing, business models and functionality.

7) IT organizations are much more open to having third parties manage IT systems today than in the past. Systems integrators will play an increasingly important role in implementing, supporting and maintaining enterprise mobility solutions in the future.

8) Andrew believes the acquisition of Sybase by SAP was brilliant. If SAP executes it will be a market changer.

9) 62% of best in class (top performers) are deploying tablets. This is the fastest adoption of new technologies Aberdeen has seen. 2011 will be a banner year for tablets. iPads are ahead of the pack, but competition is coming on quickly and strong.

10) The secret to the iPad’s success is the large number of applications. This will help the iPad maintain its current momentum in the tablet market.

11) There is a huge security need for tablets. 76% of best-in-class companies using iPads are not securing them today. Unsecured tablets will become a big issue in 2011, as they are too oftenbeing used for business purposes without being properly secured.

Aberdeen Group conducts their research in a methodical and scientific manner. They get their information by surveying end-users directly, and focus on the business value of technology adoption. They document the best practices of best-in-class companies, as well as the processes, technologies, and services needed by the industry average and laggards. Companies are ranked based upon their overall business performance.

I want to thank Andrew for taking the time to share Aberdeen Group’s insights with us.

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, 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.