The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions

Mobility can be a Challenge
I will be participating in a two part webinar next week on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST that I invite all of you to attend.  I will be presenting my research results in the first part called Challenges in Enterprise Mobility from the Experts, and the second part, The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems will be presented by Steve Levy, mobile industry expert and CEO of Pyxis Mobile.

Enterprise-grade mobility is quickly becoming a core component of every company’s IT environment. However, it brings with it some big and often hidden challenges that companies need to plan for, including:


  1. Multi-device proliferation: support for a growing number of smartphones
  2. Data integration: the freedom to connect to any data in the enterprise
  3. Security: more than just authentication
  4. Agility: the need to iteratively update applications with new content and functionality in a quick and easy way

 Please join us!  Register 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 Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of February 7, 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.


I will be participating in a two part webinar next week on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST that I invite all of you to attend.  I will be presenting my research results in the first part called Challenges in Enterprise Mobility from the Experts, and the second part, The Latest Thinking and Strategies for Deploying Flexible Mobile Solutions - The Four Big Issues for Mobilizing SAP and Other Enterprise Systems will be presented by Steve Levy, mobile industry expert and CEO of Pyxis Mobile.

Google Inc.'s AdMob is on a tear.  The mobile ad network receives more than two billion ad requests daily, marking a fourfold increase from a year ago.


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Facebook has acquired mobile ad start-up Rel8tion to improve hyper local ad targeting to its 200 million plus mobile subscribers.  Rel8tion is a nine month old Seattle based start up that connects people to ads based on their location and demographic.


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According to a new survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association, a whopping 88 percent of advertisers plan to be active in mobile in 2011—up from 62 percent last year.

Kevin’s Field Mobility News Weekly – Week of February 7, 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.


Construction productivity tools are going mobile, and the combination of advancing cellphone technology and a flurry of activity by app developers has led to an array of easy to adopt solutions for residential builders.


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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first diagnostic radiology app for use in viewing medical images to make diagnoses using Apple's iPad and iPhone, a title that won the Apple Design Award for "Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application" in 2008.


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Providing solutions for fleet sustainability efforts, the “green” telematics market is expected to expand nine fold by 2015.  Most valuable to fleets is the wireless communication of fuel consumption and emissions data.


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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reversed course on one of the first radiology apps ever pulled from the Apple Store.  Now, U.S. radiologists who can't make it to a workstation but need to review medical images can make a diagnosis off their iPhone or iPad.

Weird, Odd and Strange Mobility Series: iPhones Pointing to Ladies, Creative Hand Gestures and Robot Students


WWI Motorcycle with Mobile
Radio Included
Student Sends Remote Controlled Robot to School

High school student Lyndon Baty has a weakened immune system that prevents him from actually attending school, so he's using a remotely-controlled "robot" that allows him to move from class to class and interact with teachers and other students using nothing more than his laptop and webcam at home.  This is an interesting adaption of M2M (machine-to-machine) and mobile communications.  Soon we will be able to send robots to represent us at speed dating events, class reunions and office parties.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/03/texas-student-sends-robot-to-school-in-his-place-cant-get-it-t/

Using Hand Gestures on Your Computer?

Israeli based eyeSight Mobile Technologies has released its hand gesture interface solution for computers using the Android and Windows platforms.  Users can control their music and video players, browse through eBooks, manage presentations, play games, control PC apps and carry out many other tasks by simply gesturing.  I can image all kinds of strange and interesting gestures that could be implemented.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/03/eyesight-brings-its-gesture-controls-to-android-tablets-windows/

RoboEarth Teaches Robots to Learn from Peers and Pour Creamy European Fruit Beverages

I read about RoboEarth this week and it is both interesting and scary.  The purpose of this European Commission project is to create robots that can teach each other how to do things without human involvement or programming.  I just exposed my teenage daughter to the Terminator series this year, and this sounds a lot like the beginning of SkyNet.  RoboEarth has already taught one robot, the TechUnited AMIGO, to deliver a box of creamy fruit juice to a bedridden scientist.  The next thing you know it will deliver (via a time machine) a nearly indestructible robot determined to stop us from producing future rebels.

http://www.roboearth.org/project-scope

Do You Need to Find Ladies?  There is an App for That.

Geo-location solutions have already degenerated to Wheretheladies.at, a web app that aggregates Foursquare checkins by the female gender.  It has now, disappointingly, been approved by Apple and is available on the iPhone. The iPhone application has a big compass that points you in the direction of ladies. Not just any ladies, mind you, but ladies using mobile devices and Foursquare to checkin.  In addition, it helps you increase your odds of finding a lady by directing you to the location where there is the largest concentration of female checkins.

Alexia Tsotsis at TechCrunch writes, "We previously called this service “evolutionary advantage,” as it is essentially nerds using technology to circumvent Darwinism. The fittest now includes those who have smarts, or at least smartphones."


Whitepapers of Note:

***************************************************
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 M2M News Monthly - February 2011


Welcome to Kevin's M2M News Monthly, 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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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.
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According to recent research carried out by InfoCom the M2M market shows significant growth potential worldwide.  M2M has become a fast growing and strategically important market for many companies and network operators as it provides new possibilities for services and solutions.
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Sprint Nextel plans make a significant investment in its M2M technology to wirelessly connect devices like in car safety systems.  This new system will bring significant environmental, safety, efficiency and operational benefits.

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly - Week of January 31, 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.
During the third quarter of 2010 — the first complete quarter with Apple's iPad on sale the entire time — manufacturers shipped 4.8 million tablets worldwide, up 45 percent from 3.3 million in the same period last year.
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According to IT provider Softchoice’s recent survey of more than 1,400 people from over 1,200 companies, mobile is quickly becoming a preferred method for researching IT purchases.  The survey found that 60 percent of respondents that carried smartphones used them to research IT.
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According to its annual report, Forrester Research indicates that Technologies like 4G and LTE, Near Field Communication, barcodes and augmented reality will see increasing amounts of hype in 2011, and the use of mobile/social/location combinations will soar.

Chetan Sharma's The Promise of Mobile Advertising

Chetan Sharma
I have been following with interest analyst Chetan Sharma and his work in the mobile and voice communication industry sectors for some time now.  He produces very good industry reports, and he participates in many industry conferences.  His website is http://chetansharma.com/.

Mr. Sharma has just completed a new report, The Promise of Mobile Advertising.  Here is an excerpt that I found of particular interest, "Mobile is having a significant impact on local advertising. The attributes of immediacy, location, always-on connectivity, user profile and segmentation, and the viral nature of the medium make mobile the best channel for local advertisers to engage potential customers."

Executive Summary

The world of advertising is changing at a dizzying pace.  New media are transforming advertising, and consumer expectations have changed accordingly.  In this dynamic environment, no communications platform holds more promise than the mobile device.

Kevin's Mobile Money News Weekly - Week of January 31, 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.
Ericsson will launch mobile phone banking services, hoping to capture a big chunk of a market it estimates will be worth an annual $27.7 billion by 2015.
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Driven by wider smartphone adoption and regular mobile Web use, the number of Americans banking by mobile phone will jump from 10 million today to more than 50 million by 2015.

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Facebook, flush with cash, is making mobile a priority and planning to snap up mobile start-ups to beef up its arsenal to compete with rival Google.
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Visa Europe has launched the first commercial deployment of its own iPhone payments App. Visa introduced an NFC certification program in December.  In the UK, Visa continues to test NFC based payment systems at its London offices.

Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly – Week of January 31, 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.

In 2010 small businesses adopted a number of new technologies such as mobile, group purchasing and location-based marketing as part of their business advertising strategies.  However, social media has quickly risen to the top.  According to the recent Ad-ology 2011 Small Business Marketing Forecast, 46 percent of small businesses plan to increase their marketing spend in 2011, up from 29 percent last year.
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In a new report market research firm Gartner forecasts that global mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014.
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Groupon recently acquired a small online coupon startup in India called SoSasta (which means “very cheap”).  However, the real leader in India’s digital coupon space is actually SnapDeal, which currently boasts over 1 million subscribers, holding roughly 70 percent of the market share.

Weird, Odd and Strange Mobility Series: Suicide Bomber Receives Wrong Text

Early WWI Drones
Killer Text: A Russian suicide bomber blows up by accident. 

In an article by Daniel Kennedy for ZDNet he writes about a suicide bomber that was set to detonate a belt of explosives in Russia's Red Square on New Years, when instead the explosives went off early inside the safe house.  It seems the explosives were set to be triggered by a mobile phone call.  However, an automated "Happy News Years!" text message sent by the mobile network operator detonated the bomb early to the good fortune of New Years revelers. 

The rapid pace of the mobility revolution is having impacts on society in ways we could not have imaged a few years ago.  Mobile technology is helping replace governments, turning industries upside down (book stores, video stores, newspapers, TV and films, music, etc.) and changing the way we all communicate with each other.  How very strange indeed.

Silicon Valley's Google and Twitter Enable Egyptians to Tweet via Voice

Using Google's speech-to-text recognition technology, Twitter's hashtagging and massive distribution list, Egyptian citizens can still report their experiences to the world despite an Internet blackout.  Callers dial special numbers and their words are transcribed into a Tweet that is auto-tagged with #egypt.

Perhaps we can all learn to use hands free texting...or isn't that the same thing as calling?  How strange.

Whitepapers of Note:


***************************************************
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:

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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