VDC Research: Enterprise & Government Mobility Market Blog

Customer Closeness to Become Increasingly Important for Managed Services Vendors, as Competitor Landscape Evolves

 

As VDC prepares for publication of the Managed Services & Hosted Applications report in late May 2012, our team conducted a survey of IT decision makers regarding their firm’s perceptions and overall adoption of mobile managed services.  Over 400 respondents across a range of vertical markets participated this survey, which yielded interesting findings.  As the landscape of mobile managed services solutions and solution providers continues to evolve, study of respondents’ perceptions around these providers (e.g. SIs, OEMs, mobile ISVs, carriers) is one of the key objectives for our research of this market.  

As shown in the chart below, VDC asked that respondents rate the importance of several key decision-making criteria in influencing their selection of a mobile managed services partner.  While the market has seen numerous mobile ISVs (e.g. Airwatch, Zenprise, Mobile Active Defense) enter the market with compelling solutions to address evolving mobile requirements, we see many organizations favoring companies with whom they have already established a relationship – whether it be SIs, OEMs, or other vendor partners – to provide their organization mobile managed services.  As mobility has yet to become central to many organizations’ strategies and IT departments’ areas of expertise, these respondents place a high degree of importance on the capacity of its mobile managed service provider to understand the full scope of their mobile initiatives. This fact yields a significant advantage for larger players in the mobile managed services market, as these organizations have already developed strong industry relationships, and may possess greater resources to address companies’ unique mobile requirements.

VDC will expound upon the evolution of the mobile managed services market and vendor ecosystem in the Managed Services & Hosted Applications report – due to publish in May 2012. 

Today's Launch of the Lava XOLO 900 to Foreshadow Intel's Role in the Smartphone Market

While Intel’s brand continues to lead in the PC market, the evolution of today’s mobile marketplace has seen a strong majority of consumer smartphones adopt an ARM-based CPU. The ARM architecture was developed by ARM Holdings – a British semiconductor company that licenses its processor technology to today’s leading mobile vendors – including Apple, Freescale, LG, Marvell, Microsoft, Nintendo and Qualcomm. In contrast with Intel’s x86 processors, ARM technology has gained widespread adoption for its more reduced power output. The small form factor of today’s technology necessitates optimization of CPU performance at minimal power output.

The Lava XOLO 900 smartphone, developed by Lava Technology, will be released into the Indian market today – with vendors such as Lenovo, Motorola, and Orange lined up for future release of mobile devices employing Intel’s x86 Medfield CPU. This will be a significant win for Intel – a firm which has played a strong role in revolutionizing computing technology, but has not – until now – found traction in the mobile market. Beyond the shift Intel’s success would drive for the mobile hardware market, the launch of the XOLO 900 into the market will likely foretell the future of mobile software development for Android on x86.

Although Google and Intel have partnered to optimize Android for Intel’s mobile x86 CPUs – and most of today’s Android apps will function on these devices – it is important to recognize that Android will not run the same on x86 and ARM-based CPUs. For today’s IT leaders, this means further fragmentation in an already divisive market. We will also keep an eye on the efforts made by mobile developers and MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) vendors to adapt to this substantial shift.

SAP Pulls the Trigger — Mobility Specialist Syclo a Logical Acquiree

When you are aiming to grow your mobility business as agressively as SAP is, a strategic M&A strategy is likely to / expected to be part of the equation. Indeed, based on the acquisition of Sybase in 2010, and now Syclo, VDC estimates that SAP's mobility revenues could potentially reach $500M this year. However, as we all know — the software giant is definitely aiming higher.

Mobile is not the new desktop, but it certainly is going to positively impact the bottom-line for SAP in the coming years based on the company's focus and agressiveness. SAP and Syclo have had a solid relationship for some time now — in fact, SAP chose Syclo as one of its three mobile co-innovation partners in 2010 (RIM and Sybase are the other two — Sybase now part of SAP, was acquired in May of 2010).

While Syclo's middleware and mobile development platform (known as its Agentry platform) is in use by a significant portion of the company's clients, the company did reveal last fall that it had begun to work with SAP's Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) and was planning to transition its clients to SUP - indeed, the effects of the landscape shift that resulted from SAP's acquisition of Sybase has and continues to impact the channel and hence, the entire mobile ecosystem.

Others have mentioned that acquiring Syclo was a defensive acquistion by SAP — in my view, that is partly true, moving forward, I see companies like Oracle and Microsoft making much bolder moves than acquiring a small (~$50M) private company like Syclo. However, strategic M&A will be critical — and there are several companies similar to Syclo that are likely being evaluated by SAP (and competitors) for acquisition.

Bottom line, this acquisition was for Syclo's customers — SAP is commited to SUP , and will continue to innovate and enhance/expand its capabilities.

What about IBM Maximo?

In early March at IBM's Pulse event in Las Vegas, Syclo revealed that its SMART Mobile Suite for Maximo was available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. The company has been working with IBM for over ten years, and has deployed mobile solutions for more ~400 IBM Maximo enterprise asset management software customers (Syclo's Maximo solutions are prebuilt/pre-integrated Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) applications that leverage Syclo's EAM experience). My question is around what will happen to IBM Maximo users who are Syclo customers — naturally, SAP will support these users (its in their best interest) in the near term, but there is certainly a risk of some attrition within this customer base.

Sapphire!

I'm looking forward to attending Sapphire in May - if you are planning on attending, please ping me (@eakleiner) if you'd like to chat about enterprise mobility.

Q1 FASTForward Published: A Classic Attack From Below — Gauging the Impact of Best-of-Breed Mobile Startups

 

Our FASTForward Reports are a new offering here at VDC — our Q1 Report entitled "A Classic Attack From Below — Gauging the Impact of Best-of-Breed Mobile Startups" has recently published.

Here's a quick summary:

Best of Breed Mobile Startups are Driving Enterprise Mobility Innovation

Legacy enterprise mobility solution providers are struggling to respond to the rapid change in mobile technology preferences, shifting business and technology sourcing models and enterprise investment drivers. As a result, significant gaps in their capabilities are beginning to emerge. Recognizing the opportunity created by these gaps, best-of-breed mobile startups are bringing disruptive innovation and technologies to the market that are quickly becoming commercially viable, and are also producing rapid ROI for customers. Key mobile segments that represent significant opportunity for innovation include enterprise  application development and management and mobile application security solutions.

The Mobile Arms Race has just Begun

Enterprise mobility as an IT discipline is still nascent. A key issue is that many solutions currently deployed are nonscalable point solutions buried in some business silo. However, as enterprises better understand the value and opportunity that mobility represents and take a more strategic approach to solution selection and sourcing, the impact on the vendor landscape will be significant. We expect consolidation to represent a key near term theme with mobile start-ups increasingly becoming strategic acquisition targets.

Development of Mobile Capabilities will Represent the Single Most Important Near-Term Initiative for ISVs.

Enterprise software vendors can ill afford to sit on the sidelines. Mobile capabilities are becoming a key selection driver among enterprise SW vendors’ customers and represent a potentially critical avenue for these vendors  to expand the footprint of their solutions into new markets.

The Report focuses on four acute issues or investment concerns — each relates to the necessary infrastructure or platforms required to design, deploy and support business-critical mobile solutions:

• Mobile Security Management
• Mobile Application Management
• Mobile Application Development
• Back End Enterprise Connectivity

We identified the following vendors within each of these segments - each is featured in the Vendor Spotlight section of the full Report.

• Apperian
• 3PMobile
• Bitzer Mobile
• InBay Technology Solutions
• Nukona
• Webalo

We consider these vendors to be potentially disruptive and uniquely positioned to address many of the gaps that continue to emerge in the mobile ecosystem. Several are early stage start-ups that have not yet secured funding and are just beginning to emerge from stealth mode, while others are more established.

You can download the executive brief here

Mobile Startups on Our Radar

Through the course of our research, we are exposed to some of the best and brightest minds in the mobile industry – many of them part of large, multi-million (or billion) dollar firms.  Occasionally, and more interestingly, we stumble across smaller startups with innovative, disruptive, transformative solutions, and yet have managed to fly under the radar.  Below, we’ve profiled several vendors we have been looking at recently:

buuteeq, Inc.

Started in 2010, buuteeq is looking to transform hotels’ online, mobile, and social marketing methodologies and image. Based around a Digital Marketing System (DMS), buuteeq promises independent hotel operators the opportunity to align their business with modern technologies – and the business opportunities these technologies have to offer. 

Tello, Inc.


Founded in 2010 by Joe Beninato, Tello has developed a new, mobile platform to transform how customers currently offer feedback to businesses.  With mobile and social apps, Tello empowers consumers with the ability to comment on their experience or level of service at a particular establishment.  Tello then aggregates, analyzes, and presents these findings to their business customers.

 

Kawet

Based out of Paris, France, Kawet developed a mobile enterprise app (MEAP) solution to facilitate cross-platform development of mobile apps.  Although competition in the MEAP market has been heating up, Kawet is unique for its strong backend integration, and integration with mobile application management (MAM) and mobile device management (MDM) solutions.