Mobility News Weekly - Week of January 2, 2012

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 M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

The smartphone and tablet buying rush over the holidays spilled over into a corresponding deluge of app downloads, with the total weekly number exceeding one billion for the first time.  Read Original Content

RIM’s share of U.S. mobile phone subscribers in the three months through November dropped to 6.5 percent from 7.1 percent in the previous quarter, according to research firm ComScore Inc.  Read Original Content

According to market research firm NPD Group, the demand for tablets is expected to grow in the small and medium business market, companies with less than 1,000 employees, over the next year with Apple’s iPad taking the lead.  Read Original Content

ClickSoftware is an SAP mobility partner and the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimization solutions for every size of service business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by ClickSoftware - http://www.clicksoftware.com/.

Gartner is forecasting that some 50 percent of traveling workers this year will ditch their laptops in favor of handier devices.  Read Original Content

Mobility Charts Weekly - Week of January 2, 2012


The Mobility Charts Weekly is a weekly publication of charts depicting the current and future status of the enterprise mobility market.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.



comScore recently released new numbers on U.S. online holiday spending for the season-to-date, and found that consumers continued to shop online in record numbers. For the first 56 days of the November to December 2011 holiday season, $35.3 billion was spent online – an increase of 15 percent over the corresponding days last year, and a new record. Read Original Content



Pew Research has recently studied the relationship between per capita income and technology.  In a recent study they found that as a country’s per capita income increased, so did the number of mobile devices and overall usage of social networking. Read Original Content



According to comScore’s latest mobile subscriber data for November, the percentage of users who use apps has finally surpassed the percent of subscribers who turn to a mobile browser. Read Original Content

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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 Commerce News Weekly - Week of January 2, 2011

The Mobile Commerce 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 M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

New York Waterway, which carries passengers across the Hudson and East rivers, will launch the first smartphone-based ticketing system for mass transit riders this week. The free app, developed by New York-based Bytemark, allows riders to purchase tickets in advance with an Apple or Android compatible smart device. Read Original Content

Recent predictions suggest that during 2012 there will be 30 to 40 million purchased smartphones enabled with NFC chips. Read Original Content

Juniper Research reports that nearly $55 billion in international remittances will be enabled via mobile devices by 2016. For 2011, it is estimated to be under $12 billion. Read Original Content

Tech Endeavour structures a mobile application as a multi-layered application consisting of user experience, business, and data layers. The mobile application development process starts with definition of the mobile application, understanding key components, learning scenarios where it will be used, learning key patterns and technology considerations as well as identifying specific scenarios such as deployment, power usage and synchronization.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Tech Endeavour, http://www.techendeavour.com/.

KPMG's fifth annual Consumers and Convergence survey has found that 23 percent of U.S. consumers are now "very willing" to use their mobile phones as a wallet and the number rises to 30 percent for younger adults aged between 16 and 34. Read Original Content

The Value in a Mobile Enterprise Solution


Have you ever pondered where the primary value in an enterprise mobility solution resides?  Is it in a smartphone with apps in your pocket or a tablet in your hand?  Is it the wireless connection to the Internet?   Is it the mobile middleware or integration to your back end systems, or is it the back end system?  

I proposed that the core value in an enterprise mobility solution is in the back end systems.  The back end systems are where the business logic, business processes, big data and business analytics are primarily located.  Most enterprise mobility solutions are extending back end systems.  This may seem like an obvious thing, but for many it is not.  Many people feel there is something magical about mobility and that mobile solutions, on their own, offer big value.

Let's think back a few years to when many of us were carrying mobile PDAs (personal digital assistants).  They were mobile and offered some value to us as individuals, but it would be hard to say they revolutionized the enterprise.  At that time, the enterprise's business solutions were rarely extended out to PDAs.  The PDA apps that did connect to back end systems, were mostly limited to synchronizing to a desktop via a docking stations or USB connections.  Back end systems and their value were not being efficiently exposed to mobile workers at that time.  


Today, however, back end systems can be efficiently exposed and made available to the mobile workforce.  It is this capability that can revolutionize a business.  The ability to make the back end system value, available to many more users.

As an increasing number of  enterprise mobility vendors enter the market, the ability to design, develop, deploy and maintain a mobile solution rapidly becomes a commodity.  The core value of a mobile solution moves from the the mobile app into the back end system again.  What does this mean?  It means the aggregation of data, business logic, business processes and analytics in a back end system designed to support the mobile workforce is where the biggest value is located.

Once the ability to implement mobile solutions is achieved, enterprises moving up the mobility maturity curve will turn their focus to providing more back end system functionality to support mobile solutions.  Mobility vendors that want to have longevity in the mobility market will recognize this trend and devote much of their R&D to building solutions that integrate and aggregate business logic, data sources, business processes and analytics into unique and usable services that support mobile workers and their different roles.

Enterprise mobility solutions provide the means to deliver back end system value to mobile workers. Do you agree or disagree?



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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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.

Field Mobility News Weekly - Week of January 2, 2012

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 M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

General contractors and builders at more than 30 construction sites within the United States are employing an RFID-enabled solution to track the number of workers on those sites, as well as their identities. Read Original Content

Global enterprises are shifting to mobile-only communications faster than expected, according to the BroadSoft 2011 Mobile Enterprise of the Future Survey. Read Original Content

TomTom vehicle management solutions have grown 30 percent yearly and now represent the largest fleet telematics provider in the Europe region. Read Original Content

Since 1995, Syclo has enabled hundreds of companies in 37 countries and industries supercharge their businesses with mobility.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Syclo. http://www.syclo.com/.

GAO RFID has recently released a rugged RFID scanner that allows livestock owners to more easily track and manage animals throughout farmland. Read Original Content

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