SAP's Mobility Vision - Any Way You Want It

When you first look at the list of mobility vendors that are attending SAPPHIRENOW 2012, it may seem like most of them compete with SAP mobility, but that would be to forget that SAP sells ERP software.  Look at where SAP makes their money.  They make their money selling and maintaining large enterprise software implementations that run companies.  Mobility is an enabler.  Mobility extends and adds value to these large SAP users.  Those are important points to understand.

In a way, I think SAP's mobile strategy can be defined as, "I don't care."  I don't care what mobile software you use as long as it adds users and value.  If more users can access SAP through a third-party mobile solution, and SAP receives more user fees, then all is well.  Yes, they have spent billions of dollars on mobile middleware, tools, infrastructure and mobile applications (e.g. Sybase and Syclo), but that was, I believe, to ignite a now explosive enterprise mobility marketplace.  They needed to kick-start the market and they have succeeded.  There are now many mobility vendors supporting SAP users.

This week I read a story, written I believe, by Eric Lai about how fast SAP's internal developers could develop mobile applications using Adobe's PhoneGap mobile development environment.  Why might you ask would SAP be promoting the virtues of developing in another vendors solution?  Again, I think the answer is, "They don't care!"  SAP will provide everything needed to mobilize SAP environments, but if you want to use another vendor's solution - go for it!!!  SAP will get their user licenses, more value will be added to the SAP environment and everyone is happy.

I think the most important thing SAP has done for mobility in the past three years is to be aggressive and to promote that mobility is essential for large enterprises.  The folks at SAP invited me in late 2009 to join their SAP Mentor program.  This is a voluntary position, and I taught dozens of sessions over the past three years on mobile strategy at their events.  Today, everyone seems to believe in the value of enterprise mobility.  I read this morning that there are now eighty-one mobile applications on the SAP app store.  Very nice!

I think SAP's new partnerships with Adobe PhoneGap, Appcelerator and Sencha, plus the continued partnerships with appsFreedom, ClickSoftware and Sky Technologies prove my point.  There is room for many mobility vendors as long as they support SAP's middleware strategy and add value to the SAP user community. 

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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 Retail Apps Equal Sales

If companies have hesitated to develop a mobile strategy or mobile retail apps over concerns as to their value, this article on a report from ABI Research should send them straight to the phone calling the next available mobile developer.  Here is an excerpt from the article, "The results are promising for retailers, with 45.8% of respondents saying the app caused them to visit the store more, buy more of the store/brand’s products and services (40.4%), spread the word about their store shopping experience (35.8%), and even encourage friends to visit the store (30.8%)."

Once a company decides (the sooner the better) to invest in mobile retail applications it is important to recognize this is a permanent project.  Just as things change by season and holiday in retail, so to will the mobile application needs and designs.  Many companies choose to work with their ad agency or other third party developers on mobile retail and marketing apps because of the campaign nature of these applications.

IT organizations are rarely equipped to manage application projects that change as rapidly as mobile commerce and marketing applications.  Most often, the IT organization will create web services and other APIs that expose certain business processes like "order entry" and "track shipments" that are used by these mobile applications, but out-source the design, development, deployment and support of them.

SAP already seems to recognize the value in mobile commerce, for their customers and for themselves.  Here is an excerpt from an article I read last week, "Luis Cesar Verdi, President of SAP Brazil, told Computerworld UK, “Our strategy is to first help our clients understand how to use our mobile technology internally within their organisations,” he explained.  “However, we intend to extend this and get them to offer our mobile applications and infrastructure to their customers,” he added.  Verdi said that this is likely to be specifically within the services sector, for example, in retail, financial services and utilities.

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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 May 13, 2012

Welcome to the 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 and 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

Citing a commitment to the Asia Pacific region as an important market for cellular communications, Celcite Management Solutions has opened a new office in Singapore. Read Original Content

The results of a survey by Frost & Sullivan reveal that 25 percent of Australian businesses rate mobility to be either their top priority or a very important priority in 2012. Read Original Content

Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase Inc. has been working with The Philippines’ Globe Telecom to run live commercial voice traffic across multiple Asian operators, allowing Globe Telecom to exchange international calls directly with other mobile operators rather than routing calls through traditional wholesale voice carriers. Read Original Content

Indian e-commerce firm Snapdeal has launched a mobile app for Android devices, reaching out to the millions of Android users in India. Read Original Content

To increase the options for mobile banking in India, banks have begun offering mobile services through a new method, USSD, which works on a menu-based banking model on mobile devices allowing users to perform services by recalling the menu and simply dialing a number. Read Original Content

The number of citizens in Taiwan accessing the Internet via mobile devices is currently more than 4.9 million, according to the Institute for Information Industry in Taipei. Read Original Content

Subscriptions for 3G last year grew 172 percent in China and a staggering 1,050 percent in India.  It is predicted that China will have 230-250 million 3G subscribers by the end of 2012. Read Original Content

SAP Enterprise Mobility and Multilevel Marketing

In an article I read this morning, "Luis Cesar Verdi, President of SAP Brazil, told Computerworld UK that Brazil currently has 1.5 million end users for its mobile applications, but plans to increase this rapidly to 20 million by 2015.  To achieve this, Verdi plans to target the general public by going through enterprise customers that currently use its ERP systems and mobile applications."

I wrote about this multilevel enterprise mobility strategy last year and believe it will be effective.  B2C mobility is and will continue to be a fast growing market for mobility vendors, and SAP has the opportunity to touch billions of mobile users through B2C mobility.  Let's think about it.  SAP is big in utilities, consumer packaged goods and other industries with large customer bases.  Providing mobile IDEs (integrated development environments) through SDKs through partnerships and acquisitions will make it easier for mobile vendors to extend SAP out to these users.

Mobility is going to touch every industry, supplier ecosystem and customer base.  Companies need to start developing their strategy for supporting these groups sooner rather than later.

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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 Health News Weekly – Week of May 6, 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

Rogers Communications will enable wireless infant pajamas in Canada later this year as part of its M2M mobile health portfolio. Read Original Content

Telit Wireless Solutions announced its CC864-DUAL cellular module will connect the next generation Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry from CardioNet, Inc., a wireless medical technology company with a current focus on the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiac arrhythmias. Read Original Content

The Department of Defense released a mobile app to help service members adjust to life at home after returning from combat deployments. Positive Activity Jackpot, developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, uses augmented reality with a smart phone’s GPS to help find nearby activities and diversions for someone used to the high tempo of combat life. 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.

Mobiquity, a professional services firm creating mobile solutions, announced Dr. Stephen Ferzoco has joined the company as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Ferzoco will help Mobiquity tap the vast potential of the mHealth industry, estimated by analysts to top $4.6 billion by 2014. Read Original Content

The future of the mHealth space is, in a word, "growth," which is exemplified at this week's International CTIA Wireless 2012 trade show in New Orleans. The mHealth market is expected to grow from just $500 million in 2010 to $8 billion by 2018, according to a report from Global Data. Read Original Content

Float Mobile Learning’s most recent quarterly report on mobile applications for wellness, home care, emergencies and hospital management reveals a trend toward “do-it-yourself” medicine. Key findings show a movement toward patient-centered healthcare, with mobile devices placing medical knowledge in the hands of patients. Read Original Content

Mobile Expert Video Series: Harish Rau, Part 2

This is Part 2 in this series with Element Five Solutions' Harish Rau.  In this segment, he shares advice and lessons learned during implementations of the Sybase Unwired Platform. He is a true enterprise mobility expert.  By that I mean, he has been down the path and lived to share his experiences with you and I.

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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 May 6, 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

Apple is in roughly the same position it was last quarter, with an 8.8 percent share of the market in terms of units shipped (according to IDC) and a share of profits (according to Dediu) down two percentage points to 73 percent.  Read Original Content

comScore announced the U.S. launch of Mobile Metrix 2.0.  Mobile Metrix 2.0 brings comScore's Unified Digital Measurement to smartphone devices, combining passive on-device measurement with census-level data to provide one of the most accurate and detailed views into actual U.S. mobile media usage across apps and mobile browsing.  Read Original Content

A new Canalys report reveals worldwide smartphone shipments in the first 2012 quarter have reached 146 million units, which means a 45 percent year-on-year growth. In the U.S. the industry grew by 5 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/.

Buoyed by its successful launches, Samsung Electronics hopes to increase its share in the 18 to 19 million unit Indian smartphone market to 60 percent in the current year.  Read Original Content

Lenovo wants a piece of the smartphone pie and has confirmed it’s willing to spend the dough to get a taste of the action with an $800 million investment in a smartphone division.  Read Original Content

By the end of 2017, smartphone shipments will reach 1.7 billion units, research firm Ovum predicts. That would represent a staggering compound annual growth rate of just under 25 percent for the period of 2011 to 2017.  Read Original Content

Mobile Marketing News Weekly – Week of May 6, 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

Internet Broadcasting, provider of digital publishing technology and services and one of the world's largest digital advertising agencies, has unveiled a new family of interactive mobile-marketing products that enable advertisers to offer text-based solutions for digital marketing campaigns. Read Original Content

Amtrak, the government-owned corporation that oversees the nation’s railroad train services, has been training conductors since November to use the Apple handset as an electronic ticket scanner on a few routes. By late summer, 1,700 conductors will be using the devices. Read Original Content

With nearly 80 percent of the population owning a mobile phone, major brands, retailers and start-ups are using SMS to interact directly with consumers and drive new business. 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 has been growing between 50 to 80 percent year over year and, according to eMarketer, it is set to reach 2.6 billion this year and 4.3 billion in 2013. Read Original Content

This week Web.com Group, Inc. published its latest Small Business Mobile Survey. According to the survey’s findings, 69 percent of small businesses consider mobile marketing “crucial to their growth in the next five years.” Read Original Content

Facebook will play up its prospects for expanding in mobile advertising when it begins pitching its initial public offering to investors in New York, Boston and Silicon Valley next week. Read Original Content

Worldwide advertising dollars devoted to mobile devices are expected to leap 85.4 percent this year to $11.6 billion, according to a study by market research company Strategy Analytics. Read Original Content

Mobile Expert Video Series: Clicksoftware's Hadar Shafir

Last week in Atlanta, I met up with ClickSoftware's Product Manager Hadar Shafir, and had the opportunity to interview here and ask about their new ClickAppStore.  Enterprise app stores are an interesting recent development in the enterprise mobility space and I am intrigued by the possibilities.  The video camera is a bit shaky and for that I apologize.  If it is too much, just close your eyes and enjoy the conversation :-)

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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 Interview Series: Sencha's Michael Mullany

Sencha is one of the three new partnerships SAP announced in April around HTML5.  Here is a quote from SAP, "By collaborating with Adobe, Appcelerator and Sencha, SAP will enable millions of developers to effectively build mobile apps based on their choice of client architectures - from native to hybrid Web containers to mobile Web.  Developers will be able to do so while leveraging an industry-leading enterprise mobile application platform from SAP."

Sencha targets the enterprise market and is very excited to be a partner of SAP.  Sencha is doing a lot of things right.  They already have over 1 million downloads of their HTML5 tools, and have 350,000 members in their forum.

I believe SAP is very smart with these partnerships.  There is no way that SAP can keep up with the demand for mobile applications, so they partner with HTML5 tool vendors and ask the industry to standardize on their mobile platforms.  The end users can now choose their own development environment as long as it supports SAP's mobility platform.  The burden for supporting the demands of developers will then mostly fall on the shoulders of these HTML5 tool and framework vendors.

At the same time as SAP announced the partnerships with HTML5 vendors, they also announced the acquisition of Syclo.  Syclo has many great mobile application development tools, but does not currently have HTML5 support, so these partnerships will also serve to provide an alternative development environment for companies wanting to standardize on HTML5 when possible.

SAP also has a partnership with ClickSoftware which has an HTML5 development environment in their ClickMobile Professional solution.

I asked Sencha's CEO Michael Mullany for his prediction on what percentage of enterprise mobility apps will be based on HTML5 by 2014.  He answered, "50% will be HTML5, 20% native and 30% will be hybrid HTML5 apps.  I read that as 80% of enterprise mobility applications will be using some form of HTML5 by 2014.  Wow!

For integrations with SAP, Sencha is connecting via NetWeaver Gateway.

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

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.