Mobile Retailing News Weekly - Week of March 28, 2011

The 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.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile NFC News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

While Apple's iPhone has traditionally been the target for brands running mobile marketing campaigns, more and more research is suggesting that Android's share of the market is set to increase substantially.

http://www.dma.org.uk/news/nws-dmitem.asp?id=6512&t=Mobile+marketing%3A+Android+to+boost+smartphone+market

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Professional sporting events and concert promoters are pushing mobile marketing to new levels with iVisionMobile.com’s real time text to screen at live events.  Sports teams are now embracing mobile advertising when reaching out to fans through this new technology.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mobile-marketing-drives-participation-and-revenues-with-text-to-screen-118494609.html

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Research shows 2010 was a year of phenomenal growth for mobile advertising with the U.K. market growing 116 percent to £83 million in 2010.

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=20726&Title=Why_mobile_advertising_is_finally_coming_of_age

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The U.S. and India-based Vdopia Inc, which runs online and mobile video advertising network iVdopia, claims to be delivering $500,000 in profits every quarter. The Asian mobile video advertising market is expected to reach $1.5 billion this year compared to $1.2 billion in the U.S. and $200 million in Europe.

Field Mobility News Weekly - Week of March 28, 2011

The 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 Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile NFC News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

As companies continue to make businesses more fuel-efficient, European and North American markets for fleet telematics could jump to $700 million in 2015 from $80 million in 2008.

http://sdbj.com/news/2011/mar/21/rising-fuel-prices-pump-fleet-management-businesse/

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A Norwegian organization that manages nationwide pallet leasing for retailers and manufacturers, is trying out RFID technology in a pilot project to see how effective the tags are for tracking plastic pallets.

http://www.rfidworld.ca/pilot-project-rfid-pallet-tracking-for-food-industry/301

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Stockholm is becoming an m-health hotspot as smartphones and mobile applications are poised to play a greater role in healthcare as doctors and patients embrace the mobile Internet to treat chronic illnesses and improve quality of life.

http://www.swedishwire.com/business/9098-stockholm-a-frontrunner-in-m-health

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The RFID market is expected to grow around 17 percent during 2011-2013.  The reason for this phenomenal growth is that various applications across different verticals have emerged around this technology.

SAP Enterprise Mobility is All About Reducing Options


Reducing Options
One of my criticisms of Sybase in the past was that they gave customers too many options for designing, developing and deploying enterprise mobility solutions.  What is wrong with a plethora of options?  It can lead to indecision and paralysis.  That does not benefit Sybase or the customer.

In my opinion, much of Apple's success can be attributed to their lack of options.  They tell developers how they should develop mobile applications, what devices they can use, they then review them for compliance to their standards, and tell them how they can be uploaded and sold on the one Apple App Store.  Limiting options may frustrate some, but it provides a very well defined path for their customers and development partners. 

Over the past 9 years I have spoken often to Sybase and iAnywhere staff about mobile development projects, and nearly always left these conversations with more questions than answers.  That was rarely useful.  I think that the faster customers and development partners can be directed to the appropriate path and have their options reduced, the better.  This reduction in options will enable decisions to be made and actions to occur.

Since there are literally thousands of different ways mobile solutions can be designed, developed and deployed, the best thing we can do is to learn from mobile experts who have tried many different models and methodologies and can help direct us down the right path or paths.

What do you think?  Is it better to be provided with a limited number of options based upon a quick decision tree, or to provide you with an unlimited number of options?  I would love to read your comments!

In an upcoming webinar on April 7th at 12:00 PM EDST, myself, mobile solutions guru Steffen Schwark and Sybase mobility consultant Sam Lakkundi will be sharing our experiences and advice to help you reduce your options :-).  The panel will explore current trends in enterprise mobility through analysis of the business processes and strategies used by successful companies to mobilize their workforce, with an emphasis on SAP environments and ecosystem. Kevin and Steffen will share their research on the future of enterprise mobility and outline customer best practices; Sam will elaborate on the specific role that SAP/Sybase plays in supporting mobility for the enterprise. The presentation will be followed by a real-time Q & A session.

Register Here!

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Retailing News Weekly - Week of March 21, 2011

The 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.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile NFC News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

The mobile retail market will exceed $12 billion by 2014 due to one-to-one marketing and smartphone adoption, Juniper Research reports.

http://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/the-diversification-of-mobile-media-into-product-media-019270

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Brands significantly increased their UK mobile marketing spend last year, as part of their efforts to capitalize on the growth of smartphone use.

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1061104/Brands-ramp-spend-mobile-ad-platforms/

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Mobile penetration in the Czech Republic is among the highest in Central European nations and is high even by western European levels.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110316005789/en/Research-Markets-Czech-Republic---Mobile-Market

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Advances in smart phone technology and accelerating consumer adoption of tablets and other mobile devices have spurred an opportunity for marketers looking to make good on the long sought promise of mobile marketing.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Australian Post's John Moy

John Moy works for the Australian Post, an SAP customer, and he is an enthusiastic student of mobility.  He was kind enough to grant me a video interview this week in Sydney.  The Australian Post currently has a handful of customer facing mobile applications, and they are looking to expand.  Here is a current list of what they have available on mobile applications:
  • calculate postage costs via the postage assessment calculator tool
  • search for a postcode
  • view and track parcel items
  • locate any Australia Post retail outlet
  • find a nearby street posting box
  • pay a variety of bills online.
I spoke to one of the mobility guys at SAP recently, and he shared that there are potentially thousands of valuable mobile applications that can and should be integrated with SAP systems.  I believe there are many uses for mobile applications, but I may want to argue about whether they all deserve stand alone mobile applications.  It seems to me that many of these mobile "apps" could really be one application with capabilities to support many business processes from the same mobile application or client.   

Here is my interview with John that I recorded in Sydney, Australia at the Mastering SAP Technologies conference.



I want to thank John for sharing both in person and on his tweets. You can follow his tweets on Twitter @jhmoy.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Network Centric Operations, Syclo and ESRI

This week in Sydney, Australia I taught a class on Network Centric Operations.  I covered the convergence of enterprise mobility, GIS (global information systems), business intelligence and M2M (machine to machine) technologies in ways that helps field service managers have real-time visibility into their field service operations.  This convergence requires news ways of thinking, managing, process re-engineering and news ways of integrating these solutions into a unified view.

The recent announcement by Syclo about their integration and partnership with GIS software ESRI fits right into vision.



***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Unwiring Your Enterprise with SAP Enterprise Mobility

Learn about the latest
in mobile innovations!
SAP has put together an enterprise mobility webinar series that I look forward to watching.  For the first webinar they have lined up an interesting line up consisting of SAP, Sybase, Aberdeen and SAP customer Tellabs:

  • Praveen Gautam, Director, Enterprise Technical Services, Tellabs
  • Kathy Murino, Director Information Technology SAP Applications, Tellabs
  • Andrew Borg, Sr. Research Analyst, Wireless & Mobility, Aberdeen Group
  • Dan Ortega, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Sybase, an SAP Company

This is a joint effort by both SCN (SAP Community Network) and the SAP EcoHub.  I am anxious to learn about actual customer implementations, so am excited about the role Tellabs will play in this webinar.  I spent some time with the folks from Tellabs in Santa Clara, California at the SAP Influencer Summit in December.  Here are some of the notes I took at that time:

  • Tellabs CIO thinks soon all apps will first be developed mobile, and then a subset converted to desktop.
  • Tellabs says mobile apps will have a short lifecycle. Don't plan for longterm mobile apps, they change too fast.
  • Tellabs has an ethics policy that mobile app users sign before they use personal devices for work. 
  • Tellabs says the IT department was the biggest obstacle. They didn't want to give up command and control and give mobile access early on. 
  • Tellabs promotes bring your own mobile device to work. Security is installed, a contract signed - personal devices are used.

In this upcoming webinar the topics will be:

  • How best-in-class companies deal with the challenges of enterprise mobility management, including the tablet invasion, employee-liable devices, multiple platforms, and security and compliance issues.
  • How SAP’s offerings can help you "unwire your enterprise" and accelerate your business.
  • How Tellabs, an SAP customer, is using the Sybase Unwired Platform and SAP Mobile Workflow to deploy innovative enterprise applications on mobile devices, such as the iPad, to improve the productivity of its employees.

Join us for the first one-hour interactive webcast in the series on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. EDT/6:00 p.m. CET. Register Here!

 
***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly
Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobility News Weekly - Week of March 21, 2011

The 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 Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Money News Weekly
Also read Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Mobile NFC News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

Screens 4-inches and larger sell better that those 3.5-inches and smaller, according to research firm NPD Group, as consumers seek a richer media experience from their smartphones.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/84782.html

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Amazon.com has opened its Amazon Appstore for Android, offering free and paid applications based on the open-source operating system, albeit with some features that differentiate it from Google's competing Android Market.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Amazon-Appstore-Opens-to-Challenge-Googles-Android-Market-176567/

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Nokia, whose presence in the U.S. smartphone market is already small, has announced it plans to move away from its Symbian operating system in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.  The company has high hopes of boosting its presence in the U.S., but its first Windows Phone devices won’t be ready until late this year, at the earliest.

http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110321/nokia-aims-to-reach-u-s-smartphone-market-ahead-of-windows-phone-7/

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A research report entitled, The Mobile Handset and Smartphone Market in India conducted by Frost and Sullivan puts forth that the mobile handset market's revenues is likely to soar from INR 255.91 billion in 2010 to INR 350.05 billion in 2016.

Mobile Money News Weekly - Week of March 21, 2011

The 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.

Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly
Also read Mobility NFC News Weekly

The global value of mobile payments reached an estimated $170 billion last year and could grow to $630 billion by 2014 as new phones are designed to bypass the Internet to directly charge or debit an account.

http://money.canoe.ca/money/business/canada/archives/2011/03/20110322-174208.html

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Consumers are quickly turning to their mobile devices to comparison shop, seek product ratings, and search for coupons.  Forty-eight percent of consumers use their mobile devices to research or browse products and services.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/New-Report-Demonstrates-Mobiles-Growing-Influence-on-Consumer-Retail-Activity-NASDAQ-ORCL-1415259.htm

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Analysts estimate that as many as 70 million phones sold this year will have NFC capabilities baked into the hardware and software.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/near-field-communication-beyond-mobile-transactions/

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Mobile contactless payments, in which you pay by holding your phone near the payment reader at the register, are expected to increase by 1,077 percent by 2015.

Mobile Expert Video Series: ETSA Utilities' Jason Lante

Jason Lante is a hands on IT guy that has a great deal of experiences rolling out successful enterprise mobility projects that included implementing software from SAP mobility partner, ClickSoftware and integrating it with SAP in the outback of Australia.  This is a video interview that I recorded at the Mastering SAP Technologies conference with Jason.





***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict