Brussels Eggs with Benedict Mobility Breakfast Series, June 30th

Eggs with Benedict Brussels

Another day and another city eating breakfasts (still without the promised eggs) and speaking on enterprise mobility and strategies.  We had a good group today in Brussels and we learned a lot from each other.  One of the companies in attendance has over 10,000 SAP users in EMEA alone.  Wow!  They were attending to learn more about putting together a global mobility strategy.

Two members of the audience traveled from different countries just to attend our breakfast series on enterprise mobility.

I learned from one of the attendees about a digital pen that they use in South Africa for "proof-of-delivery" applications.  It is called Anoto and enables the user to write on pre-formatted forms and the embedded scanner in the pen digitizes the data and the location it was written on the form.  This data is uploaded to the integrated enterprise system and is extremely accurate.  They have been using it in production for some time now with great results.

One of the attendees shared that the executives in their company had approved buying expensive smartphones, but not mobile applications to go with them.  As a result, the smartphones are only used for voice, text and email, although recently the pressure has been increasing for mobile applications.

Another attendee reported that their CEO was insisting that he use only an iPad to manage the entire global company, but this is still just a dream as no budget has been approved to deliver the require mobile solutions.  The will is there by all parties, just not the resources yet.

More feedback was that the highest demand internally at one company in attendance was for mobile CRM for their field sales organization.  They want to use iPads because of the technical nature and complexity of their products.

Also in attendance was an experienced investor, consultant and former telecom CEO there to learn more about the latest developments in enterprise mobility.  We had some very interesting discussions following the meeting.  He is looking for investment opportunities within enterprise mobility.

At each of these meetings held across Europe this week I have asked the same question, "Where is your company on the mobility maturity curve?"  So far all of the attendees have answered that they are a 1 or 2 on a 4 point maturity scale.  There is a huge amount of pent up demand for mobile solutions reported, but resources, time and budget have not yet been fully dedicated.

Today I also spoke to an SAP customer with over 80,000 employees.  The attendees from this company were not aware that SAP acquired Sybase and that SAP/Sybase had mobility offerings.  They had been trying to figure out how to develop or find existing mobile SAP Workflow apps.  They were not aware that SAP already has this.  SAP, you owe me.

Tomorrow I wrap up a very busy week of meetings, breakfasts and travel by presenting the last Eggs with Benedict meeting in London.  My tour sponsors at K2 Partnering have promised me that they will provide Eggs Benedict for breakfast tomorrow.  I will hold them to it.

Upcoming Events

Eggs with Benedict - European Tour - Mobility Strategies and More, June 27 – July 1, 2011
ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise:  The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform


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

Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group

Read The Mobility 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.

Small Mobile Apps Prove Big on ROI - Guest Blogger

Today we have an article contributed by my friend and guest blogger Andre Guillemin.  Andre has over ten years of experience working in health care, financial services and mobility.  He has spent the past three years focused on cross-industry solutions for mobile enterprise application development including line of business users in manufacturing, life sciences and wealth management.  Andre frequently contributes to industry publications, panels and other events.  He is available for consultation on both strategic and tactical use of mobile technologies in the enterprise.

******

We all know that mobile apps don’t need to do everything your desktop systems do – in fact, mobilizing everything on the desktop usually results in bulky, confusing apps that are difficult to use. Less is always more, and I bet you’ll be surprised at how much value you can get out of an app that’s simple, focused, and highly targeted to the needs of the user.

While working on a project last year, one of our target end users said to me “I don’t care about all the other stuff - I just want to be able to log my expenses.” So I asked a few of his colleagues and they all said the same thing, “just help us with expenses.” Those simple conversations revealed an acute pain that they dealt with day in and day out, which was the result of a clunky expense management system. If we could solve that problem for them, we’d be heroes. It was humbling to see my best ideas for that app summarily rejected – but hey, tossing the stuff that I thought they wanted in lieu of the functionality that they actually wanted cut the scope of the project by about 75%, saved a ton of work, and gave the team exactly what they needed. Nothing more, nothing less.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to work with a team that built an app for safety inspectors. Sticking to the concept of simple, user-centric design, the app contained very focused, high impact functionality. It was built and deployed in less than a month and immediately made the lives of plant inspectors a lot easier by eliminating the process of manually entering inspection reports into the computer when they returned to the office.

The best part about building small is that your development cycle is a lot more manageable. And when it comes time to upgrade or modify an app, there are less components to deal with, so your release cycles are shorter and updates have more impact. So when you’re designing your next app, don’t forget what’s important to your end user and remember that most of the time, less app is more ROI.

Thanks for sharing your insights Andre!!!

Upcoming Events

Eggs with Benedict - European Tour - Mobility Strategies and More, June 27 – July 1, 2011
ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise:  The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group

Read The Mobility 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 June 27, 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 Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

The International Data Corporation recently came out with a smartphone market forecast report, which indicates that Apple's share in the global smartphone market could decline from 18.2 percent in 2011 to 16.9 percent in 2015.  Read Original Content

Apple holds 40 percent of the smartphone market in Australia with Android in the second place with 30 percent of the market and Symbian coming in a distant third with only 22 percent of the market.  Read Original Content

Have you been waiting for Google to come up with a social network that takes advantage of the opportunities a smartphone provides? Google has now unveiled Google+ beta, a social networking backend that can be reached through most web-connected devices and computers. It's in invite-only beta testing, so expect to wait a few months until it becomes available to the public.  Read Original Content

According to a report from Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm took first place in fourth quarter 2010 in the smartphone CPU market, and has retained its lead over Texas Instruments through first quarter 2011.  As of 2007, Qualcomm had only 3 percent of the smartphone CPU market; but, in first quarter 2011, Qualcomm held 30 percent of the market.  Read Original Content

IDC predicts that the number of mobile application downloads worldwide will grow from 10.9 billion in 2010 to 76.9 billion in 2014 and mobile app revenues will surpass $35 billion in the same year.  Read Original Content

Frankfurt Eggs with Benedict Mobility Breakfast Series, June 29th

Today, the folks from K2 Partnering and I had another very interesting breakfast meeting, this time in Frankfurt, Germany. The audience included representatives from SAP and SAP CPG customers.

The folks from the CPG company had over 10 years worth of production mobility experience.  They shared information about their custom built mobility app that had retail, SFA and merchandizing features. It ran on the Windows Mobile OS, and has been in production for many years.  This mobile application was developed in the rich/thick client model and includes a mobile database, and is customized for every region based upon the products sold there.  Administrators custom configure each region's mobility applications using a purpose built configuration tool.

The big problem with the CPG customer’s existing mobile application is that it requires Windows Mobile  6.5 and devices that use it OS.  Today, smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.5 are nearly impossible to find and the company must scour the internet for replacement devices.  Their replacement needs are substantial as they have many thousands of users.

They are now developing a replacement custom mobile application that will run on the Android OS. Why Android? One reason is because Microsoft would not help them figure out a way to support a database on Windows Phone 7. Another reason seemed to be that the CPG company had already gone down a dead end street with a Microsoft mobile OS. They did not want to be in the same situation again.

Another interesting note, Sybase had talked to them earlier this year and had not helped them understand how SUP would be useful for this project. This is unfortunate as it seems to me to be a good fit.  I think they may not have had the right mobility expert involved in these discussions.  They did recognize big value in Afaria, but that also seemed to lose focus over time.

During my presentations I emphasized that enterprise mobility is NOT about just supporting today’s available mobile devices, but about supporting mobile capabilities for today and tomorrow. In other words enterprises must take a long term platform view of mobility and prepare to support all the major mobile OS platforms today and tomorrow, rather than specific brands and device models.  The IT audience in attendance agreed, but said their executives were focused on specific devices such as supporting iPads and iPhones. It is indeed a challenge.

Today’s mobile devices create enthusiasm and passion amongst senior management which open up budgets and encourage projects, but the IT team must temper this enthusiasm long enough to implement a solid infrastructure and platform to support future mobility solutions as well.

Even in Germany, there were no eggs served for breakfast.  Tomorrow I am speaking in Brussels and will see if there are eggs there.

Upcoming Events

Eggs with Benedict - European Tour - Mobility Strategies and More, June 27 – July 1, 2011
ClickConnect APAC 2011, July 11 – 13, 2011
Syclo Mobile Conference 2011, July 13 – 15, 2011

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Mobile Adoption Among Gas and Electric Utilities
Mobile Adoption in Life Sciences
Mobile Adoption in Oil and Gas
Networked Field Services

Recorded Webinars of Note

3 Critical Considerations for Embracing Mobile CRM
The Future of Enterprise Mobility
The Latest m-Business Trends and How the Onslaught of Mobile Devices Affects Development Strategies
The Real-Time Mobile Enterprise:  The Benefits of Rapid, Easy Access
Syclo and SAP Deliver Mobile Apps on Sybase Unwired Platform

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

Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group

Read The Mobility 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 Marketing News Weekly - Week of June 27, 2011

The Mobile Marketing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile marketing 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 Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Monthly

A new report from research firm Gartner predicts that driven by expanding consumer adoption of smartphones and tablet computers, global mobile ad revenue will reach $3.3 billion this year, up from $1.6 billion in 2010.  Read Original Content

Digital coupon usage is on the rise and 88.2 million U.S. adults are expected to participate in coupon discounts this year.  By 2013 eMarketer expects 96.8 million Americans to participate.  Read Original Content

The money spent on mobile advertising is expected to nearly quadruple to $7 billion in 2012 from less than $2 billion in 2010, according to ABI Research.  Read Original Content

According to data from BIA/Kelsey, local mobile advertising revenues in the United States will increase from $404 million in 2010 to more than $2 billion by 2015.  Read Original Content

The U.K. is one of the world’s largest mobile advertising markets. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau it grew 116 percent between 2009 and 2010 to £83 million and the market is expected to double between 2010 and 2011.  Read Original Content

According to research firm Canaccord Genuity, Google could make $14 billion in mobile ad sales by 2015.  Read Original Content