Mobile Health News Weekly – Week of March 26, 2012

The Mobile Health News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to mobile health 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 and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

According to a recent Deloitte survey, 78 percent of senior mobile industry executives view healthcare as the most promising new growth channel for 4G services. Read Original Content

A recent report from BBC Research indicates that the global telemedicine market grew from $9.8 billion in 2010 to $11.6 billion in 2011 and will almost triple to $27.3 billion in 2016. Read Original Content

One of the broadest efforts to assess "mHealth" strategies is being made by dozens of faculty, staff and students in multiple departments at the Johns Hopkins University, which has 49 official studies underway in Baltimore and around the world as part of its Global mHealth Initiative. 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.

Globally, about 3.1 billion people used mobile phones in 2007; that’s nearly half the planet. In theory, this access to the Internet and specifically to mobile phone technologies should advance healthcare delivery, but is mHealth really going to improve health outcomes? Read Original Content



A new global mHealth market survey conducted in late 2011 examines the opinions of both start-up companies and mHealth and traditional healthcare market players that have had experience publishing applications for a smartphone platform. The report covers major questions about current mobile health market, and discusses hypotheses about market trends. Read Original Content

Mobility News Weekly – Week of March 26, 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 and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly

To drive innovation and business opportunities in Finland's mobile ecosystem, Microsoft Corp. and Nokia will each invest up to 9 million euros into a newly established mobile application development program at Aalto University during the next three years.  Read Original Content

Every 3.5 seconds, someone in America loses a cell phone, and more often than not, it happens in a coffee shop. All those absentminded moments add up to $30 billion in annual losses, the report, from mobile security company LookOut claims.  Read Original Content

According to research firm IDC, Apple is the app designers’ platform of choice. Despite flourishing sales of devices powered by Google’s Android OS, more developers said they were “very interested” in developing apps for devices running Apple’s iOS.  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 U.S. Army has officially announced a prototype of the Army Software Marketplace, a web-based app store that currently includes twelve different training apps that have been approved for Army-wide use. That includes just iOS apps, but it will soon include apps for Android.  Read Original Content


The latest version of Apple’s iOS software, 5.1, has hit roughly 61 percent adoption among users of some popular iOS apps. Developer David Smith saw 61 percent of users already upgraded to the latest version of iOS after only 15 days of release.   Read Original Content

The Black Hole of Enterprise Mobility Apps


I was eating my fried chicken cobb salad at an airport restaurant in Chicago yesterday and overheard a table full of businessmen next to me talking about mobile apps.  One of them bragged about how easy it is to develop mobile apps.  He used as evidence the fact that even his brother-n-law had developed one. 

I don't doubt it was a major accomplishment for the brother-n-law, but I do doubt the mobile app in question was actually enterprise ready.  There is much more involved with developing mobile apps than just putting your favorite spreadsheet into an iOS app and getting it approved by Apple.  There are things like deployment, maintenance, integration, app management, single sign-on and security that must be considered.

Unless there is a strategic reason to develop your own mobile apps, you should really look for off-the-shelf mobile apps first from quality mobile app vendors before succumbing to the temptation to develop your own.  I recently spoke about this subject on a webinar that is now available on-demand.  Developing a mobile app is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of cost, time and resources required to maintain it long term. 


When I was the CEO of a mobile app company, I remember how hard it was simply trying to organize and maintain all the different versions and code bases of the many custom apps we had developed for our customers.  It was crazy!  We had enough customers so it was justified for us to invest in tools to help manage this challenge, but it was still a cost and chore.

I will say it again, "Mobile apps have a beginning, but they don't have an end."  They will be here for the rest of your career so you need a plan.  Pick carefully the mobile apps that you want to design, develop, deploy, document, archive, support and maintain forever.  It can easily become a black hole with no escape if you don't.

I am also a big fan of cloud based mobile off-the-shelf apps when these are available.  I believe that most enterprises will have several different buckets of mobile apps.  Some buckets require custom developed mobile apps because of their unique features and the competitive advantages they provide, others however, can be off-the-shelf because they are simply providing efficiencies for standard ERP processes. 

Some mobile apps may be mission critical, but are only used by 10 people.  There are no economies of scale.  It may not pay to train a whole team to develop, document and support a mobile app for just 10 people.  Contract an expert team to jump in and develop it, if it is that important and worthwhile.  However, find out if someone else can support it in the cloud.

If your organization is like most I work with, you have very limited resources and budgets.  Pick carefully the kinds of mobile apps you are willing to develop and support yourself.  Don't waste your best talent developing mobile apps that can be purchased off-the-shelf and in the cloud.  Look for opportunities to develop unique mobile apps that provide the biggest strategic value and competitive advantages.  Then development them using a standard IDE (integrated development environment) connected to a MEAP.  Also, if you outsource the development work, make sure they use your standard IDE and MEAP.  Don't let them mess up your standards!

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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 March 26, 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 and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

According to the latest data presented by YouGov, a survey on SMS and mobile phone marketing showed that 65 percent of people like receiving offers on their mobile phones and 75 percent of smartphone users prefer receiving offers via SMST. To review all the morsels of info found in the YouGov study, check out their infographic. Read Original Content

Advertising on mobile devices rocketed by 157 percent in 2011, to a new high of £203.2 million, according to the annual IAB and PwC mobile advertising spend study. Read Original Content

Catalyst Financial Resources LLC has released a report on the future of mobile media advertising and marketing. In the report, Catalyst gave a bullish outlook for the mobile marketing industry. The report indicates U.S. advertising spending is expected to grow to $169.5 billion in 2012 from $158.9 billion in 2011. 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

Coca Cola is counting on mobile to help realize CEO Muhtar Kent's 2020 Vision Plan of doubling 2010 revenue to $200 million by 2020. Earlier this month the company launched an update of its 1971 ad, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke", reconfigured for the mobile age. With a few taps of the Smartphone, consumers can really “buy the world a Coke” and even add a personalized message. Read Original Content


By year's-end, mobile will contribute 25 percent to total paid-search ad clicks, up from 12 percent. By then, U.S. mobile campaigns will contribute about 23 percent to Google's paid-search revenue in the United States. Read Original Content

Mobile Middleware Strategies

Andre Guillemin and I just completed a 30 plus page whitepaper on mobile middleware strategies, and I will be discussing this on a webinar on Thursday, March 29th at 1 PM EDT.  The whitepaper title is Making Sense of Mobile Middleware Strategies.  Choosing mobile middleware was listed as the third biggest challenge on insiderResearch's recent Mobile Outlook 2012 report (get the report free here).

Webinar attendees will also receive a free copy of my whitepaper.

I invite you to attend!

Webinar Details:
Making Sense of Mobile Middleware Strategies
Thursday, March 29, 1PM EDT
Learn More

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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 Expert Video Series: The Sybase 365 Team

I have said it before, and I will say it again, I believe the Sybase 365 platform is one of Sybase's most interesting mobile platforms and one of their best kept secrets.  It is huge in m-Commerce and in mobile banking.  It is also widely used around the world for mobile commerce.  In this interview, I talk about Sybase 365 with Sybase's Allen Lau and Gabe Thendean.

An interesting side note - The Sybase 365 platform is integrated in some of SAP's mobile competitors' solutions.  Some of these competitors are actually using the power and capabilities of Sybase 365 to give them competitive advantages over SAP and SUP.  I think SAP should pay more attention to Sybase 365 as it can be the engine to power much of the new wave of mobile banking and m-Commerce globally.




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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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 Expert Video Series: SAP's Greg Chase

I had the privilege of recently attending SAP's DKOM conference.  This is the SAP's developer's kick-off meeting (for SAP internal developers only).  They invited me to speak on enterprise mobility and its impact on managing the "real-time" enterprise.  While there I was able to spend time with SAP Mentors including SAP Mentor Greg Chase.

In this interview I ask Greg, who works in the Cloud Computing area of SAP, about cloud computing, enterprise mobility, business intelligence and how it all works together.



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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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 March 25, 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 and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

Bank of America is introducing a number of new mobile capabilities to meet the investment needs of Merrill Edge customers, allowing Merrill Edge iPhone users to deposit checks remotely using their mobile devices while iPad app users will be able to pay bills. Read Original Content

WIRED today announced the first-ever magazine advertisement utilizing NFC technology will appear in its April issue. Readers who own NFC-enabled Android smartphones can launch a mobile website allowing them to test-drive the new Lexus Enform with Safety Connect, Lexus’ in-car navigation and information service by simply placing their phone near the ad. Read Original Content

Square has launched a completely revamped smartphone application, rebranding its “Card Case” mobile payment app as “Pay With Square,” featuring a redesign that aims to improve local business discovery for prospective buyers. 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

Juniper Research has put forward a bold projection. According to the research titans behind the report, one in ten smartphone owners will use their handset to pay bills by 2016. Read Original Content


More than two-thirds of affluent consumers who own a smartphone have used their mobile device to shop for products and services, but since they prefer the in-store experience, luxury brands have to start creating humanistic experiences on mobile. Read Original Content

What's New in HTML5 - Week of March 26, 2012


HTML5 based ads are gaining on Flash.  For ads that will be seen on mobile devices, developers are focusing on HTML5.  Read original content

Systems management and monitoring firm DN2K is turning to HTML5.  It announced that HTML5 is now, “one of its core technologies in its business and industrial application platform”.  Read original content

ChronoZoom is a new HTML5-based web application developed by Microsoft Research, Russia's Moscow State University, and UC Berkeley.  The site uses mixed media to let visitors visualize the universe.  Read original content

A free HTML5 video converter service has been launched to provide a method to convert video files to HTML5 compatible formats.  http://www.html5-converter.com/  Read original content

I found a series on using HTML5 and CSS3 to transform a website into a mobile site.  Read original content 

Mozilla updated HTML5 video controls in the latest version of Firefox version 12, which was just released in beta.  Read original content

With all major browsers now supporting the HTML5 Geolocation API, it would be interesting to understand what can be done with it.  In this linked article, Danwei Tran Luciani for The Code Project  explores the possibilities.  Read original content

Opinion piece - Native apps will be around for some time to come, but the push for HTML5 standardization from powerful groups like Facebook and others are starting to push apps from native to web.   Read original content

The HTML5 Canvas element and Google Maps were used by Vizzuality to create an interactive map that provides visualization of the intensity and location of deforestation.  Read original content

WSX, a new feature from VMware, uses the HTML5 Canvas element and Web Sockets to let users access virtualized desktops remotely through a web browser.  WSX is compatible with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari on the desktop and Safari on iPads.  Read original content

MoSync has announced its new mobile development SDK, MoSync AB, which will allow developers to use HTML5 technology to, “Create hybrid apps or native apps with native features and UI experience for Android, iOS and Windows Phone and submit them to multiple app stores within hours instead of weeks.”  Read original content

Seventy-nine percent of mobile developers report they will integrate HTML5 in their apps this year, according to a survey conducted by IDC and Appcelerator.  The survey responses indicated that developers are planning to develop HTML5 and “hybrid” apps.  Read original content

A new Internet Explorer 9 website for The Hunger Games film shows off the possibilities for HTML5-based sites.  The website (http://thecapitoltour.pn/) was launched by Microsoft and Lionsgate.  Read original content


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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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 Expert Video Series: Kony Solutions' Sam Lakkundi

Several weeks ago I had the good fortune to meet up with my long time friend and mobility expert Sam Lakkundi while I was in Orlando, Florida.  Sam and I have been meeting up at enterprise mobility conferences for most of a decade.  He has traveled the world first with Sybase, and now with Kony Solutions as the VP of Mobile Strategies.

Kony Solutions is an interesting company.  They are kind of the new kid on the block in the enterprise mobility space, but they have huge experience in the mobile B2C (business-to-consumer) area.  This experience is serving them very well now because as companies adopt the BYOD (bring your own device) model, they are finding that the B2C and B2E (business-to-employee) models are converging.  If a company decides to support a wide number of mobile devices using many different mobile platforms, then that is basically the same model as B2C.  This plays to Kony Solutions' strengths.

In this interview Sam discusses BYOD models, HTML5, enterprise mobility, mobile strategies, mobile UX, mixed mode development and much more.




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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus
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