Mobility Charts Weekly - Week of February 6, 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.



As consumers migrate to smartphones, more retailers are rolling out new strategies that leverage customer engagement via mobile devices. One of these is check-in services, where the market opportunity is substantial. Read Original Content



ClickSoftware released a detailed infographic highlighting recent mobility trends in the world of business. The report indicates 70 percent of employees with smartphones regularly check their work emails outside normal business hours. Read Original Content



Based on their customers, ClickSoftware featured a pie chart that illustrated the most popular operating systems for enterprise mobility clients. During the time period between 2007 to 2009 Windows controlled the largest share of mobile devices. Since then Apple’s iOS system has grown to dominate the market with 45 percent. 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.

The Best of Benedict's Mobile Enterprise Strategies 2011

Watch Mobile Expert Video Series
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I have spent the last week reviewing articles that I wrote on mobile strategies in 2011, and compiling a Best of 2011 list.  Some of my articles, upon further review, are not worth reading at all, but some are even worth reading again!  So just in case you successfully avoided reading them the first time, here they are again for your review and comment.  Before you get started, remember to follow me on Twitter @krbenedict.

The Best of Mobile Enterprise Strategies 2011:

Enterprise Mobility Application Predictions



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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.

Enterprise Mobility and Transformative Healthcare

It is my opinion that enterprise mobility, M2M and mobile strategies will transform the healthcare industry more than just about any market outside of media.

Dave Chase describes, in this article, how the healthcare industry parallels the printed newspaper industry in their slow adoption of digital solutions and transformative technologies.  The image on the right demonstrates many of the mobile and M2M technologies that can revolutionize healthcare.

Click to Enlarge
Traditional healthcare institutions will rapidly become dinosaurs if they don't embrace the use of mobile solutions and M2M technologies that provide better quality of services, often remotely, for less costs.

The balance of power is changing.  Nimble start-ups will link best of breed and highly efficient caregivers, medical equipment operators and labs into new digital healthcare networks that are not dependent on massive hospital campuses filled with paper file cabinets, and expensive specialized equipment.  Healthcare will not be determined by buildings, but by systems connected to digital M2M and mobile networks.  Chase points out that instead of providing "sick care" these digital networks will be rewarded for providing profitable "health care."

Electronic patient records will be able to travel across the digital network with the patient.  More and more services will be able to be performed in remote home environments and in locations that specialize in providing efficient and cost effective services.

These new healthcare start-ups with digital, M2M and mobile networks, don't have the facilities and physical baggage of traditional institutions.  They will cause pain to the traditional healthcare institutions that don't transform with this new reality.  I for one would like to see a free market environment transform this industry into a competitive, transparent and innovative field that serves the community and economy better.

In too many regions of the world today, monopolies rule healthcare services.  These monopolies often serve themselves more than their communities.  They follow a path and business plan that does not have to be followed.  When there is no pressure to change, little does.  I would like to see more innovation and change in healthcare so it better serves the needs of our communities and our country.  Mobile and M2M technologies and free markets may be able to transform this industry with or without politics.



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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 February 6, 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 Enterprise Mobility Asia 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 News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

The U.S. government has approved specific Android devices for use by federal employees and officers in the military this year. This is the first time that smartphones have been approved to handle classified documents in the field. Read Original Content

The U.S. Forest Service has selected Psion's compact Workabout Pro 3 for data collection in rugged environments. Read Original Content

TomTom passed another milestone by providing fleet management solutions to 15,000 customers who actively manage over 175,000 vehicles. This is an increase of 30 percent compared to the 134,000 vehicles at the start of the year. 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/.

Glacier Computer, developer of rugged industrial computing solutions announced recently the availability of the T510K a 10-inch portable tablet to their existing product line of vehicle & fixed mount terminals, portable tablets, and rugged handheld computers. Read Original Content
With concerns over disease and global trade trumping tradition, federal regulators are promoting the switch to RFID electronic ear tags for cattle tracking. Read Original Content

Mobile Health News Weekly - Week of January 30, 2012


The Mobile Health News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to medical mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
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 Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

The mHealth market earned revenues of $230 million in 2010 and is estimated to reach $392 million in 2015, according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. Read Original Content

Linking dermatologists to patients in remote areas through telemedicine gives patients more accurate diagnoses and better disease management than they would receive without access to a specialist, says a study in the January Archives of Dermatology. Read Original Content

Juniper Research believes that mobile healthcare and medical app downloads will increase significantly. The company predicts that there will be 44 million downloads of such apps in 2012, rising to 142 million in 2016. Read Original Content

Webalo technology eliminates the need for traditional mobile application development tools and custom programming to provide in hours, instead of weeks or months, mobile access to the specific enterprise data and functions that smartphone and tablet users rely on to do their jobs.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Webalo, www.webalo.com.

According to Research2Guidance the smartphone application market for mobile healthcare will reach $1.3 billion in 2012 up from $718 million in 2011. Read Original Content

By 2016 the number of patients monitored over mobile networks will reach 3 million, according to Juniper Research. The firm believes that increasing smartphone processing power along with new healthcare peripherals will cause an uptick in more patients using the smartphone as a home health hub. Read Original Content

New research from Frost & Sullivan predicts that remote patient monitoring will continue to play a significant role in transforming healthcare. The report says the market for remote monitoring technology, especially for home healthcare and disease management, will soar to $294.9 million by 2015. Read Original Content

ABI research projects that the market for just sports and health apps will break $400 million in revenues by 2016. Read Original Content

Leading robotics company iRobot announced today a $6 million investment in and expanded partnership with InTouch Health, a leading provider of telemedicine solutions. The relationship will provide iRobot an entry into hospitals and other medical facilities, as well as a partner that understands those markets. 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.

More on IBM's Acquisition of Mobility Vendor Worklight

Last week I wrote my initial analysis of IBM's announced acquisition of mobility vendor Worklight.  Yesterday, I received a written reply from Worklight's Austin Ford that adds important information that is worth sharing.  Here is his reply in its entirety.

I'm happy to see your interests in our company! To address some questions, let's first mention that Worklight is actually predominantly used as an MCAP play (true story, most deployment usage of WL is B2C). Yes we're also a MEAP, and these distinctions in Gartner's language (they claim they coined both acronyms) are getting blended into 1 this year.


For some comparisons to the Sybase SUP, this might address the high level stuff:
 *Worklight outputs are web languages (HTML5) and usage of open or closed libraries and / or / combination using the actual SDK's from the mobile OS manufacturers. This means the outputs are actual true native code and all of it, not virtual machines and proprietary translation code like many others or limited native functionality like SUP.
*SUP = "write once, run everywhere" mentality. Proprietary outputs from a proprietary IDE experience even though it's based on Eclipse. Uh oh, you're married and already on restriction.  *Worklight = web languages (CSS, HTML, Javascript, libraries) + native SDK's together in Eclipse. Java and web developers normally ramp quickly. Also developers are motivated to learn native SDK's I've found, the skills can be leveraged anywhere the native SDK's are used again.
*SUP = extremely deep experience and hours required to get an end result that's almost as good as a true native or hybrid.
*Worklight has invested heavily in full runtime components for accessing device functionality, many we engineered in house. For example we contributed to the Phonegap project (now sponsored by Apache) and that is one of many runtime components embedded in our production environment.
*SUP doesn't have deep runtime API capability. In partial defense, for the apps they're traditionally called on to mobilize (SAP MEAP), user experience hasn't been that critical.

Of course there are other Worklight favoring differentiators like openness to support & materials, ease of use, full production environment included (no upsell to particular add on components), SLA's, flexibility in installations, and just generally good people with a great product of high value to enterprises and ISV's.

Good current write-up by Pete Lagana (Excellis Interactive) here: http://www.asugnews.com/2012/01/04/developing-sap-mobile-apps-sybase-unwired-platform-vs-native/

~Austin Ford
austinf@worklight.com

I want to thank Austin for taking the time to share with all of us!  These are definitely exciting times in the world of enterprise mobility and I look forward to watching events unfold in 2012.
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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.

M2M Comes in Flying Swarms - You Must Watch This!

M2M (machine to machine) solutions come in all sizes and varieties but I have never seen anything as cool as this.  These little nano quadrotors can carry video cameras, remote sensors and all kinds of clever components.  Machines are getting very, very scary smart.  Think about the real time management capabilities needed to manage a swarm of these on your iPad.







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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.

M2M News Weekly - Week of January 30, 2012

Welcome to M2M News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to M2M (machine to machine) and embedded mobile devices.  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.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility 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

According to a new market research report the total smart grid technology and related application market is expected to reach $80.6 billion by 2016 at an annual rate of 28.7 percent from 2011 to 2016. Read Original Content

The Microsoft/OSIsoft Worldwide Utility Industry Survey 2012 shows a 25 percent increase over last year in the number of utilities companies that have implemented smart-grid technology. Read Original Content

The cumulative number of smart meter units installed in Europe is expected to grow from 7.6 million units in 2010 to 105.99 million units in 2020 at an annual rate of 30.2 percent. 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/.

Cisco predicts the number of connected devices will reach 15 billion by 2015 and the GSMA predicts there will be 24 billion connected devices in the world by 2020. Read Original Content

Mobile Expert Podcast Series: CSC's Quentin Fisher

CSC's Quentin Fisher
This is a very interesting interview that I did with CSC's Quentin Fisher this week.  He is responsible for CSC's enterprise mobility and BI practice and spends most of his time working with SAP solutions. Learn how CSC is using mobile apps connected to SAP's Hana, and the trends they are seeing.


I am testing a new way of publishing a podcast on my blog today.  Hope this works!


Listen to the podcast now!




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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.

Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly – Week of January 30, 2011


Welcome to Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility in Asia.  Asia is predicted to be the fastest area of growth for enterprise mobility between now and 2016.

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 News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

In India, “mobile is becoming the preferred way to reach a billion people at low cost,” states SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe.  For SAP, the markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan grew 30 percent, India grew more than 100 percent, and China grew more than 60 percent annually.  Read Original Content

There are over 601 million active mobile subscribers in India, generating $38.2 billion in revenues.   India has the highest subscriber growth rate in the world.  According to Google, “the next 200 million new users in India will largely be mobile-first users and out of those, 100 million will be mobile-only users”. Read Original Content

Nokia saw an 11 percent increase in mobile device volumes for their devices and services business in Asia Pacific region in 2011.  In greater China, however, there was a decline of 33 percent. Read Original Content

The enterprise mobility market in India is expected to reach $1 billion by mid-2015, up from the current $244 million, predicts research firm Zinnov.  “Mobility apps have dramatically changed the way companies function.” Read Original Content

Mobility News Weekly - Week of January 30, 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 Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
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

Android accounted for 39 percent of the market in the final three months of last year, up from 29 percent a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said. Apple's share fell to 58 percent from 68 percent.  Shipments of tablets reached 26.8 million in the quarter, up from 10.7 million a year ago.  Read Original Content

A study published this month by Arieso, an Atlanta firm that specializes in mobile networks, found that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S uses twice as much data as does the plain old iPhone 4 and nearly three times as much as does the iPhone 3G.  Read Original Content

According to new data from NPD, tablet PC shipments are expected to grow from 72.7 million units in 2011 to 383.3 million units by 2017. For comparison purposes, worldwide PC shipments for 2011 were 352.8 million, after seeing a six percent decline in the fourth quarter.  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/.

The feature phone market is still relevant with staggering global figures that show over 70 percent of phones sold in 2011 were actually feature phones. According to Forbes, feature phones are now more profitable than smartphones.  Read Original Content

With its chips popping up in the iPhone and an array of other mobile devices, ARM the U.K. based company saw its pretax profit surge 45 percent to £69 million ($108 million), while its sales rose 21 percent to $217 million.  Read Original Content

IBM to Acquire Mobility Vendor Worklight - An Analysis

IBM has jumped into the MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) competition with yesterday’s announced intent to acquire MEAP vendor Worklight.   Worklight is headquartered in New York and was founded in 2006 by CEO Shahar Kaminitz.  Worklight's software supports HTML5, hybrid and native applications for smartphones and tablets with industry-standard technologies and tools.   Their solutions include an Eclipse-based software IDE (integrated development environment), mobile middleware, mobile solution management and analytics.

Worklight Studio competes with Appcelerator, Verivo (formerly Pyxis Mobile), Sybase Unwired Platform (SAP), Antenna, Syclo, ClickSoftware, Kony Solutions, Rhomobile (Motorola), Webalo and other mobility vendors that are experiencing rapid growth.

The deal size was not disclosed by IBM or Worklight, but the Israeli website Globes (www.globes.co.il) reported the acquisition to be $50-60 million.  Worklight raised $21 million in investment capital, from investors Genesis Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Index Ventures, and Shlomo Kramer.  Globe also estimated 2011 revenues for Worklight at between $5-10 million (http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000720723).


My analysis is that all ERP vendors need a standardized approach for supporting mobility.  Mobility, and MEAPs in particular, are far too strategic to leave up to partner ecosystems to deliver.  SAP acquired Sybase, IBM will acquire Worklight, and we are all awaiting Oracle’s expected 2012 move to acquire a MEAP vendor.

Interesting note, I cannot think of many situations where an ERP vendor bought a mobile apps company.  I am told that SAP's proposed acquisition of SuccessFactor will involve some mobile apps, but have yet to see them.  ERP vendors seem to want to buy the middleware, so they can standardize integration, syncing, security and management, and leave most apps to their partner ecosystem.

In a recent IBM study of more than 3,000 global CIOs, 75 percent of respondents identified mobility solutions as one of their top spending priorities.  Nearly all of the global analyst and research firms are also reporting enterprise mobility to be a top three priority.  In the Enterprise Mobility Survey 2011 that I conducted in September of 2011, 80% of survey respondents said enterprise mobility was "very important" to "critical" to their company's future success.

IBM officials said with this acquisition, IBM's mobile offerings will span mobile application development, integration, security and management.  Dow Jones Newswire reported on an internal memo from IBM’s senior vice president in charge of middleware software, Robert LeBlanc that highlighted their ambitions, “"Now is the time to make IBM essential in the era of mobile computing."

I had the privilege of interviewing Worklight’s COO Kurt Daniel about 15 months ago and published the interview on this site.  Here are some excerpts that you may find interesting given this week's news.


Worklight has developed a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and a mobile SDK (software development kit), not for their own use, but rather for systems integrators and end customers to use to develop their own enterprise mobility solutions.  They want to be a technology company, not a mobile application company.

Kevin: What are your areas of responsibilities at WorkLight?
Kurt:  I look after our worldwide business channels, partnerships, sales and marketing.
Kevin:  Tell me about your solutions.
Kurt:  We have the WorkLight Studio, WorkLight Server and WorkLight console.  ISVs and OEM partners use these solutions to build their own packaged mobility applications.
Kevin:  How do you avoid competing with your partners in the mobility market?
Kurt:  We don't sell applications.  We are not experts on ERPS or other backend systems.  We focus on developing the best mobile technology possible, not services or mobile applications.
Kevin:  How do you fund your start-up business in the early years without generating revenue from services and mobile applications?
Kurt: We raised over $17 million.  That affords us the opportunity to invest in the technology without losing focus by delivering services and enduser solutions.
Kevin:  How do you keep your users loyal to your technology?
Kurt:  We provide them with a platform and SDK that supports the latest modern devices.  We provide them with great productivity tools that enable the same code base to be used across multiple devices and mobile operating systems.  We offer trial versions for 60 days.
Kevin:  Where do you see mobility going in the next 18-24 months?
Kurt: Enterprises are going to need to support a larger number of mobile devices and mobile operating systems.  They will need to support iPads, tablets of all kinds, Android and many more mobile apps.  Internally, companies will be launching large numbers of their own mobile applications that were developed in-house.
Kevin: Who do you compete with?
Kurt:  In-house development teams, Sybase and Antenna.
Kevin:  In conclusion, where does your company fit in the enterprise mobility ecosystem?
Kurt:  WorkLight is a 100 percent technology focused company.  We develop a horizontal MEAP.


It is fascinating to ponder Worklight's strategy.  They decided to build a new and powerful MEAP, but not to provide services or sell mobile apps to end users.  They chose to use their investment capital to focus exclusively on developing technology and developer support.   That is a rare strategy.  Sybase mostly followed that strategy with their embedded mobile database and synchronization business (iAnywhere and former Extended Systems) and was purchased by SAP, and now Worklight who followed a similar strategy will be acquired by IBM.  What does this tell us?  Perhaps ERP vendors don't want the burden of supporting a large MEAP or mobile app enduser base that does not fit their traditional customer profile.  They would rather just acquire the technology stack?  What do you think?

Most MEAP vendors depend on services and end user app sales to help cover expenses as they develop and mature their solutions and channels.  Worklight refused to follow that path.   It doesn't appear they had yet reached profitability, since it seems they took in another $4 million in investor funding in the past year, but they did accept IBM's offer as their exit strategy.  They committed to focus on the technology, rather than indulge the temptation (and distraction) to grab short term end user sales.

End user mobile app sales are sexy.  They get the press and show well, but ultimately I think the MEAPs themselves are the mobile market consolidation points.  Not just the mobile middleware, but the IDEs.  The integrated development environments that are used to design and develop the apps.  Some mobility vendors like ClickSoftware and Syclo actually support several choices of mobile middleware under their IDEs.  The customers often only see the IDE, but underneath the covers are middleware options.  SAP and the Sybase Unwired Platform also offer numerous choices (SUP, NetWeaver Gateway, Sybase 365, etc.) for middleware in their architecture.

If all the large ERP companies are going to ultimately acquire their own MEAP solution, that means MEAP market fragmentation will be hardened along ERP lines.  If that is the case, would mobility vendors that focus on mobile end user applications find it necessary to support all the major MEAPs if they want to sell into those markets?  That would be expensive!!!  If that is how the market evolves, then it seems cloud based ERP-to-mobile app integration hubs would be worth a consideration.  Mobile app developers would simply connect to one cloud based integration hub that integrates with all the ERPs.  Wow, this line of thinking reminds me of my early days working with EDI/B2B translators and EDI hubs.

It will be interesting to watch the choices companies will make that have a mix of different business solutions and ERPs across their IT landscape.

If I have any bad data or information in this article please correct me!

Please share your thoughts and ideas with us!!!


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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 Marketing News Weekly - Week of January 30, 2012

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 Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility News Weekly
Also read M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

The global redemption rate of mobile coupons will average at over 8% by 2016, which represents an eightfold increase over the best paper coupons campaigns, according to a study by Juniper Research. Redemption values are expected to exceed  $43 billion globally by 2016, driven by better targeting and mobile apps. Read Original Content

According to Fiksu, the last half of December 2011 was the most competitive for mobile marketers, with mobile traffic and mobile adspend in the final week up 100% over prior weeks. Read Original Content

Total U.S. mobile and social media revenue including consumer and business access, content, advertising and marketing increased 30.2% to $45.38 billion in 2011, according to media econometrics provider PQ Media. Read Original Content

Verivo is a leading provider of enterprise mobility software, Verivo helps companies accelerate their business results. Its unique technology empowers teams to build, deploy, manage and update their mobile apps -- rapidly and securely. Verivo’s mobility platform is used by hundreds of companies in numerous industries, worldwide. This newsletter is sponsored in part by Verivo.  To learn more, visit www.verivo.com

Mobile advertising spending in the U.S. reached an estimated $1.45 billion in 2011, up 89%. In 2012, U.S. mobile ad spending is expected to grow 80% to $2.61 billion. This is up significantly from previous estimates of 47% growth to $1.8 billion Read Original Content

Mobile Commerce News Weekly - Week of January 30, 2012

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 Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
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

MasterCard is running an NFC pilot program at movie theaters in Australia that lets consumers pay for food and drink items via their mobile devices. Read Original Content

According to Gordon Borrel, advertising budgets earmarked for the desktop Web will shift to mobile in the next five years, propelling U.S. local mobile ad revenue to shoot up from about $2 billion this year to about $24 billion by 2016. Read Original Content

In December, sales stemming from smartphones and tablets accounted for 11 percent of total online sales, up from 5.5 percent in December 2010, according to IBM. 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/.

During 2012, eBay predicts it will make $8 billion globally in mobile gross merchandise volume, up 60 percent from $5 billion in 2011. Read Original Content

Mobile Strategies and Situational Awareness

Robert L. Bateman, author of the book, Digital War, A View from the Front Lines writes, "Situational awareness allows us to replace the wastefulness of mass operations with the extreme economy of precision operations."  If you know where all of your resources are located and their availability to be used, it becomes much simpler to manage an efficient precision operation.

Throughout military history some of the biggest challenges for commanders was finding both the location of their enemy, and the locations of their own armies (not to mention supplies).  This resulted in huge inefficiencies due to the need to spread armies over large areas as a defense against the unknown location of an opponent.  In addition, once a battle began, it was nearly impossible to accurately see and track events in real-time due to the "fog-of-war."

In many ways, a similar challenge exists today inside many enterprises.  It is often the case that companies will purchase equipment, parts, supplies and materials and warehouse them in many different locations simply because they cannot effectively monitor, track or deliver them in real-time at the point-of-need.  As a result of this challenge, there are over-inflated and inefficient levels of inventories and assets (and often workforces) that result in poor cash management.

The same challenge can also arise when an ERP does not effectively track the use of workforces and skills.  I read a case study involving PG&E where they were inefficiently managing their assets and workforce across many different regional offices.  They solved this problem, in part, by consolidating dispatch offices and deploying a real-time and dynamic scheduling system.  This provided them with far greater visibility into the current work performed by each crew alongside a clear view of the future work on the schedule.  Here is how they described their improvements:
  • Management centralized control over the scheduling of field crews to help ensure usage goals were met.
  • Accurate measurement of current-week crew utilization rates, as well as projected utilization rates for future weeks.
  • Flexibility for management to move crews among service regions to ensure customers receive gas and electric services efficiently and effectively.
  • Consolidation of scheduling staff from having dispatchers at sixty-seven offices down to having dispatchers at just two offices.
In my Enterprise Mobility Survey 2011 Report (available free hereI found that 42.6% of survey respondents identified "improved visibility and accountability" as motivations for deploying mobile applications to their mobile workforce.  In addition, 34.7% identified "improved employee interactions and collaboration," as motivations.

All of these steps and solutions are dependent on mobile strategies and enterprise mobile technologies to provide managers with situational awareness.   Here is more from author Robert L. Bateman, "Situational awareness is the most revolutionary technology in the history of warfare.  Situational awareness can lead to a tenfold increase in velocity.  Situation awareness involves being aware of what is happening in the vicinity to understand how information, events, and one's own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future."  Bateman even converted this concept into a physics formula, "operational and tactical speed contribute to a force being out of proportion to the mass at any given location."

Situational awareness can even impact the way we manage people.  Here is a excerpt from the U.S. Army publication, Battle Command, “Technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we command in battle by becoming the tool that will allow the commander to move freely about the battlefield to where he can best influence the action without separating himself from his staff and other sources of information, communications and control.”  It is also true within the enterprise.  If you can manage your company, resources, workforce, projects and business from an iPad, then you are no longer restricted to the cubicle or corner office.

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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.

Mobility Charts Weekly - Week of January 30, 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.



Thanks to the rapid growth in active smart mobile devices worldwide from an estimated 509 million last year to an estimated 914 million in 2012, Google’s mobile ad revenues are expected to more than double from an estimated $2.5 billion last year to $5.8 billion in 2012. Read Original Content



Good Technology published a study on the mobile device market comparing iOS devices to Android Devices. The study found that iOS products continue to dominate the market, representing the most popular device being used. Read Original Content



Driven by strong demand for mobile electronic payment and other compelling applications, shipments of cell phones equipped with near field communication technology are set to rise to 544.7 million units in 2015, up nearly tenfold from 56.2 million in 2010, according to IHS. 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.

Field Mobility News Weekly - Week of January 30, 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 Enterprise Mobility Asia 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 News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

Group Mobile has declared Panasonic’s Toughbook 31 to be the “best rugged computer” of 2011. In making this selection, Group Mobile's experts took price, processor, battery life, wireless options, media bay options, display brightness, and the ability to withstand harsh environments into consideration. Read Original Content

Motion has developed a tablet device that helps smart grid companies improves efficiency by 75 percent. Read Original Content

Swiss waste management and material transportation company Challande et Fils is tracking the locations of its containers and waste bins as they are deposited at construction sites and other locations, using RFID tags on the bins, as well as readers on trucks to transmit GPS location data, along with each tag's unique ID number. 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/.

Oracle has introduced new Utilities Mobile Workforce Management 2.1 and Utilities Mobile Workforce Analytics, which help utility companies improve field service efficiency, customer service and system reliability. Read Original Content

Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly – Week of January 23, 2011

Welcome to Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility in Asia.  Asia is predicted to be the fastest area of growth for enterprise mobility between now and 2016.

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 News Weekly
Also read Mobility Charts Weekly

India tops the charts for mobile advertising, according to Buzz City’s latest quarterly report, serving over 32 billion ads in 2011.  Mobile ads have grown 139 percent, with more than 126 billion ads served in 2011, compared with 52 billion in 2010. Read Original Content

Juniper Research predicts that the number of mobile banking users will reach 530 million by 2013, with the developed markets of North America, Western Europe and the Far East & China having the highest penetration of users in 2016. Read Original Content

Mobile connections in China are approaching 1 billion, with 973.7 million connections at the end of 2011, with 3G accounting for 80 percent of the new connections.  “Last year Apple said that China was its second most important market after the US, accounting for 16 percent of its total revenue in fourth quarter 2011.” Read Original Content

The enterprise mobility landscape is growing in India, states Sunil Gupta of Symphony Services in an interview with CIOL.  “We are expecting that in 2012-13, 15-20 percent of our revenues will be coming from enterprise mobility alone.” Read Original Content


India is the second largest and one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world.  “It is time for SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) in India, to consider M-commerce options.  M-commerce in India is in its initial stage, but it is showing signs of a healthy rate of growth.”  Worldwide, of the 4 billion cell phones, 1.08 billion are smart phones and over 50 percent of local searches are now done on mobile devices. Read Original Content

What's New in HTML5, Week of January 30, 2012


Each week I conduct market research on HTML5 that includes news, quotes, market growth and developments around HTML5 and share the more interesting ones here with you.  I hope you find it useful. 

Authoring and publishing tool company Doc-To-Help is now using HTML5 to turn any content into a self-contained website designed for mobile devices.  The mobile HTML5-based output offers complete navigation, table of contents, index, and multi-touch (i.e. swipe and pinch) support.

Digital Wallet provider, Skrill, launched a Quick Checkout Enterprise payment suite extension which allows credit cards to be processed more directly by using a new payment gateway with HTML5, which is designed to support smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.

Mapquest has launched a new HTML5-based mobile browser solution targeted at users of Android and iPhones.

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Webinar of Note:  HTML 5 vs Native Mobile App Development: Practical Insights, The VDC Research Report on Mobile Development Strategy.  February 2, 1 PM EST  Register Here!
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FeedHenry, the developer of cloud-based mobile application solutions, launched an enterprise mobility solution that allows developers to build HTML5, JavaScript and hybrid apps with a fully integrated Node.js backend-as-a-service.  In the FeedHenry studio, developers can now build highly complex and visually stunning mobile apps using HTML5 and JavaScript that will run as native apps on all major smartphones and tablet devices.”

Digital media platform provider Polar Mobile is planning a new product line, MediaEverywhere, which will be an HTML5-based content distribution solution for smartphones, tablets and desktops.

Social audio publishing platform SoundCloud has joined the movement to dump Flash in favor of HTML5, claiming the conversion to an HTML5 embeddable player is “a necessary move, assuming it wants to have a future on the web”.



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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.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict