Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of January 24, 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.

IMPORTANT! In the January 27 webinar, Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned, Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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When Google releases year-end and fourth quarter earnings this week, it will report a 20.2 percent lift in search ad revenue to $25.4 billion compared with the prior year. Revenue from display advertising will rise by an estimated 61 percent for the year.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=143255

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The number of mobile phone ad impressions in the United Arab Emirates has surged by more than 50 percent, as the devices become the medium of choice for consumers accessing the Internet. The Nielsen Global Online Survey has found that 43 percent of Middle East consumers plan to use a mobile phone to access the Internet over the coming year.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/mideast-mobile-phone-advertising-surges-by-more-than-50--375308.html

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Facebook is on track to generate more than $2 billion in ad revenues in 2010, far surpassing earlier estimates of $1 billion, and will likely skyrocket past that figure in 2011, as more marketers shift budgets from TV, radio, and print to the social realm.

M2M Industry Segments

Analysts project significant growth numbers for the M2M market. M2M or machine-to-machine is the market for wireless embedded chips that can send data to a central server. By the year 2020 there are projected to be billions of connected devices. At the end of 2010 roughly 80 million subscribers were using of M2M technology. That number is set to rise to 300 million subscribers by 2015 according to research done by Berg Insight. Europe and North America currently dominate the number of connected M2M devices and are expected to continue through 2020.

Looking even further ahead the projected growth of M2M will hit 2.1 billion by 2020, and about 1 billion will come from utility companies, says Tracy Ford with RCR Wireless News. Utility companies are jumping on the concept of M2M technology to efficiently monitor and regulate services to clients.

“With many leading wireless service providers and utility companies looking to profit from the M2M opportunity and the growing support from US federal and state governments, M2M applications in smart grids have tremendous potential for growth. The smart grid is expected to provide a major boost to the M2M industry in the next few years.” GlobalData

Kevin Benedict's Perspective
on Enterprise Mobility 2011

I have been in enterprise mobility for over a decade now, and am beginning to feel like an elder statesman. It's cold outside here in Boise, Idaho. I've got a hot Starbucks mocha next to me, my warm slippers are on and my dogs are asleep at my feet. It feels like a good time to exchange stories about deploying mobile solutions in distant lands, and sharing adventurous and humorous stories, but let's hold that to another time when we are face to face. Today, let me share where I see enterprise mobility as of January 2011.

1) The mobility platform conversation is right. The right topics are being discussed in the community. The right problems are being solved. The right kinds of technologies are being debated. I have faith that the free market, competition and funding is available to deliver mobile platform improvements going forward. I saw that Insight Ventures just put $19.1 million into mobile platform start-up Kony Solutions last week (read more). The market finally appreciates the need for mobile platforms. This is good for all of us.

2) Mobile application design, development and deployment systems are adequate for massive and disruptive adoption. Apple's App Store celebrated their 10 billionth download last week. Here is an excerpt from InformationWeek - The statistics for Apple's App Store are staggering. Apple claims that there are 160 million users of iOS devices. That means the average customer has downloaded about 62 applications. At the current rate, iOS users are downloading 206 apps every second, 12,360 per minute, 741,600 per hour, and 17.8 million apps per day. We have great success models that are proven for marketing, selling and delivering mobile solutions. These processes and solutions remove some of the biggest inefficiencies the enterprise mobility market has suffered from over the past decade.

3) Funding sources are interested and eager to invest in mobility and social media. I have been reading a lot lately about the large amount of investments VCs and others are making in social media, and we all know that social media is benefiting from and growing in parallel to mobility. These investments foretell many new innovations and new resources for us all.

4) Mobility experts and enterprises have accepted that companies must support all the major mobile devices and operating systems, and even their employees' personal smartphones and tablets. This means having a good mobility platform and an MDM (mobile device management) solution in place are critical. I remember a few years back when Sybase could barely sell Afaria because companies did not feel they needed MDM, but today it is mission critical. This trend also makes Terry Stepien (president of Sybase/iAnywhere) and John Chen, president of Sybase look like geniuses for recognizing the value of mobile platforms and MDM early on.

5) Once a good mobile platform and an MDM are in place in the enterprise, the focus for mobility will change to the individual. The individual position or role will need specific tools, mobile apps, access to backoffice systems and data to fulfill their specific roles and responsibilities. The user becomes the center of the mobility universe and the ROI becomes role based. How can this position or role best optimize their performance using mobile solutions? What do they need? IMPORTANT! This is the area where third party mobility vendors can really add value to the SAP or other ERP ecosystems.

6) Integrating location-based services (LBS) with everything. In addition to marketing and retailing, any work that is performed in remote locations, on routes, involves delivering products or services to customers, or in mobile environments will benefit from LBS. LBS is an area that will become more and more important to companies. Geospatial information systems (GIS) and LBS provide valuable views and perspectives that are very difficult to achieve without.

7) There is a deserved emphasis by SAP and others on mobile business intelligence (BI). The use of in memory computing for near real time business intelligence that can be shared with mobile devices in mobile environments can be revolutionary. Combine a user centric mobile application approach with mobile BI and LBS, and I can image amazing productivity gains. I am very excited to see the innovations that will be forthcoming from this area.

8) Context aware mobile solutions are only starting to be thought through but promise incredible productivity gains. Imagine that your mobile application recognizes, based on your calendar and location, that you will be visiting a customer. As a result of this recognition, the mobile application queries back office BI, CRM and other systems to provide you with a complete and updated profile of the customer. All of this is done automatically because your mobile application understands the "context" of your actions and movements.

9) Mobile money, mobile payments, mobile banking and more. I have already stopped carrying family photos in my wallet. Why would I carry them when I have 1,400 family photos on my iPhone? Why would I carry a Starbuck's card, when I can pay for my Mocha at Starbucks with my iPhone? The same holds true for nearly all other purchases. Yes, there are many security issues and privacy concerns that need to be resolved, but that is why we surround ourselves with smart people. I have faith that these issues will be worked out. Once they are worked out satisfactorily, I can imagine all kinds of mobile applications will benefit from the ability to manage business transactions on them.

10) One of the hardest tasks of business owners, supervisors and managers is to remotely manage work and workers. Holding staff accountable and compliant to safety regulations, government regulations, legal requirements, customer SLAs (service level agreements), quality work, best practices and company policies is a huge challenge. I believe there is an entire new category of mobile applications, workflows and media that can contribute to solving this challenge.

Notice of Whitepapers:

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group 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 Benedict's Holy Grail
of Enterprise Mobility, or Not

I am presenting a report on the advice 17 mobile experts have given me in a webinar on Tuesday, January 25 at 2:00 pm EST, and on Thursday, January 27 at 11:00 am EST. Although, perhaps not thee holy grail of enterprise mobility, I hope it will be useful. I will be presenting the report and then handing it over to the Smartsoft Mobile team to share Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies - 10 Lessons Learned. You are invited to join the webinar by registering here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst

Phone +1 208-991-4410

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group 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 Field Mobility News Weekly – Week of January 17, 2011

Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to field 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 Mobility News Weekly

IMPORTANT! In the upcoming webinar, Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned (January 25 and 27), Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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A unique battery-operated, submersible device for automatic meter reading is now being used in the UK. The device simply clips on to the existing water meter in seconds and requires no modifications or costly re-engineering of the water meter.

http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/Novel-Clip-on-Submersible-Device-Enables-Low-Cost-Automatic-Meter-Reading-841180

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The Nevada Highway Patrol, a division of the Nevada Department of Public Safety, has chosen Janam's XM66 for use by all officers in the Patrol's thirty-seven statewide duty locations.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nevada-highway-patrol-selects-janam-114119564.html

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Jason Urso, CTO at Honeywell Process Solutions has identified four interrelated themes of innovation over the past few years. First, is mobility of devices and sensors. Second, is wireless technology as an enabler. Third, is the challenge for operators and personnel to convert data to useful knowledge. The fourth is the integration of various control layers—closing the gaps from distributed control systems to advanced control to safety to fire and gas systems.

What Would a Mobile Expert Do?

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I routinely publish interviews with enterprise mobility experts. You also know that I often ask them about the mobile device(s) they carry. In this report, I have gone back over 17 recent interviews and collected the data on my interviewees' mobile device ownership and use.

Mobile Device Ownership Data:

82% own iPhones
53% own BlackBerrys
24% own Androids
8% own Windows 7
82% own iPads

Primary Work Phone:

59% use iPhones for work
35% use BlackBerrys for work
0% use Androids for primary work phone
8% use Windows 7 for primary work phone

Primary Personal Use:

71% use iPhones as a personal or dual purpose phone
24% use BlackBerrys as a personal or dual purpose phone
0% use Androids as a personal or dual purpose phone
8% use Windows 7 as a personal or dual purpose phone

Interesting Statistics:

100% of Mobile Experts that use BlackBerrys at work own iPads
80% of Mobile Experts that use iPhones at work own iPads
50% of Mobile Experts that use BlackBerrys at work, use an iPhone for personal use
90% of Mobile Experts that use iPhones at work, use an iPhone for personal use
24% of Mobile Experts own Android devices, but nobody (0%) use them as their primary work or personal phone - they are demo phones or back-up phones only.

I realize this report consists of data gathered from only 17 mobility experts, but it is interesting data nonetheless.

Notice of Whitepapers:

***************************************************

Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst

Phone +1 208-991-4410

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group 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 17, 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

IMPORTANT! In the upcoming webinar, Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned (January 25 and 27), Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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According to global telecom equipment provider Ericsson, the number of mobile broadband subscribers reached a remarkable 500 million in 2010, and that number is about to double in 2011, bringing the total to an even billion.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_broadband_users_hit_1_billion_in_2011.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29

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Over 40 percent of all Twitter posts are made via a mobile phone. This figure is up from 25 percent 12 months ago.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/3022093.article

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Eric Lai

I have read many articles related to enterprise mobility over the past few months from Sybase's Eric Lai. This is interesting for a number of reasons, 1) Sybase traditionally has not chosen to participate in the social media space, 2) Sybase has not traditionally had full time writers helping educate the public, 3) Sybase has rarely let employees share thoughts and insights publicly as Eric does, and 4) Eric Lai was a writer at Computer World for over five years and is a very good writer.

Sybase's Senior Writer
Eric Lai

For the above reasons, I thought it would be interesting to interview Eric.

Note: These are not Eric's exact words, but rather my notes from our discussion.

Kevin: Eric tell me about yourself.

Eric: I lived in Washington state (Everett area) for many years. Worked for Computer World for five years. We have two young boys. Moved to California nine months ago, where I am now Senior Writer for Sybase.

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

Eric: iPhone 4 (he left his iPhone 3 on the roof of his car in San Francisco), old company issued Dell laptop and a NetBook. I was a BlackBerry user for many years, but love the iPhone now. I want an iPad.

Announcing Field Mobility News Weekly

I have been writing several weekly newsletters over the past year and have come to realize that many of the articles and reports I read are of interest, but do not fit into my existing newsletter categories which are:

Mobility News Weekly (general interest enterprise mobility numbers and news)
Mobile Retailing News Weekly (mobile retail applications, mobile marketing, location-based services, etc.)
Mobile Money News Weekly (mobile money, e-wallets, mobile payments, mobile security, mobile banking, etc.)
M2M News Monthly (machine-to-machine, smart machines, smart grid and embedded wireless solutions news)

Many news stories and articles related to geo-tagging assets, geo-spatially aware mobile applications, RFID, rugged devices, CMMS (computer managed maintenance systems), FM (facility management), rugged tablets, field service automation, barcode scanners, utility applications, GPS vehicle, asset and fleet tracking, etc., are not adequately covered in my existing newsletters. As a result, beginning this week I will be publishing a new weekly newsletter called Field Mobility News Weekly.

If you have news, stories, case studies, research, analysis, etc., relevant to this newsletter, please feel free to email it to me.

Download Whitepaper Here

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – Week of January 17, 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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IMPORTANT! In the upcoming webinar, Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned (January 25 and 27), Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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Mobile banking and mobile payments were pegged as two of Bank Systems & Technology's ten game changing tech trends for 2011. Consumers everywhere are flocking to banking services on smartphones, over text messages or through mobile browsers.

http://www.banktech.com/blog/229000115

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Mobile banking use is expected to soar by nearly 55 percent un 2011. While 17.8 million consumers used mobile banking last year, 27.4 million are expected to use it in 2011, and 53.1 million consumers are forecast to adopt it by 2013.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/12/pf/saving/smartphone_dangers/

Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of January 24, 2011

Wireless M2M Growth Projections

Enterprise Mobility 2011: An Analysis

Webinar - Advice from Mobile Experts - Tuesday January 25th

Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly – Week of January 17, 2011

Special Report: The Mobile Devices that Mobile Experts Use

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – Week of January 17, 2011

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Sybase's Eric Lai

Announcing Field Mobility News Weekly

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – Week of January 17, 2011

Interviews with Kevin Benedict

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