VDC Research: Enterprise & Government Mobility Market Blog

iOS6 Enhancements for the Enterprise – More by Accident than by Design

Although iOS 6 won't be available to the public until later this fall – as per usual, it will be released with the next generation iPhone – the first beta build was released to developers in conjunction with Apple’s WWDC event earlier this week. As always, Apple’s announcements attracted strong buzz in the consumer markets – few of the 200+ updates, however, translate to support enterprise mobile deployments.  Below, VDC has highlighted the top five enterprise-relevant applications to be updated in iOS6:

1.  Mapping

• Vector-based map elements for smoother graphics, Turn-by-turn directions, 3D mapping, and live traffic information 
• Share location 

2.  Shopping

• Passbook for virtual storage of tickets, loyalty cards, and coupons 
• Integration with Yelp, OpenTable 

3.  Productivity

• Support for FaceTime on cellular networks - (Unified Communications)
• iCloud SDK – storage, sharing of docs 
• Offline reading of Safari webpages

4.  Security

• Lost mode enables immediate device lock with a Passcode and a contact number to appear on-screen – Enterprise
• Manage which applications have permission to access their contact information
• Guided Access to enable locking of device into a single app  (Education)

5.  Mail

• Open password-locked documents in mail and pull-to-refresh for messages
• VIP feature in mail for enhanced organization

 

Ousting Google’s software, Apple has invested substantial resources to develop more sophisticated mapping and directions technology.  Real-time updates in traffic information, turn-by-turn directions, and location sharing (with other iOS users) will have implications for the transportation industry, public safety organizations, and other field-service companies.  Along with the BYOD devices employed in these industries, many organizations deploy iPads and iPhone for use in-vehicle, when rugged-grade technology is not required.

Apple’s announcements around Passbook and integration with Yelp and OpenTable will have a strong impact in the retail vertical, further driving retail organizations to mobilize their workforce and to take advantage of these new channels to increase brand awareness and demand.  This is also another jab at Google, responding with Passbook to compete against Google Wallet.

The final three areas VDC would like to draw attention to are updates to productivity, security, and Apple’s mail application.  While Apple’s focus remains on the consumer market, these solutions will see support in the average enterprise that allows BYOD devices, as these updates will enhance security capabilities and improve employee productivity.  In all, while these updates are not designed for the enterprise, neither was the iPad…Nonetheless these updates will be appreciated and further amplify the relevance of Apple – and consumer-grade technologies as a whole – in the enterprise.

New VDC Research Program Will Provide Valuable Insights into Mobility & Enterprise Applications

We wanted to let you know about an important new annual research program we are launching called The Voice of the Customer Series: Bringing Mobility to Enterprise Applications. The series, which is based on extensive primary research of enterprises’ existing and planned behavior, will provide you with the information you need to help ensure you are making the best decisions possible in every aspect of your mobile application business strategy.

We’ve designed this program to help senior IT and line of business executives responsible for mobilizing enterprise applications as well as consultants and systems integrators responsible for advising and/or implementing mobile applications. This service will get them up to speed on the latest information on how enterprises are approaching the big decisions of technology and vendor selection, project budgeting, solution roll-out and ramp-up and much more. We will also be offering insights into the consumer experience and expectations regarding their adoption of mobile enterprise applications. Some of the issues we’ll be looking at during the next 12 months include:

• Current and forecasted mobile ERP adoption trends by industry, corporate size and module
• The vendor’s mobile functionality capabilities and roadmaps based on an extensive enterprise end-user survey and in-depth interviews with leading and emerging ERP vendors
• Current and emerging pricing models by vendor, end user pricing receptivity and the source of best in class mobile solution delivery
• The mobile ERP emerging market footprint and evaluation of the potentially disruptive impact of mobile in a number of markets

Want to learn more? Click here to download the Research Outline.

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.

Enterprise Mobile Workers: Tracking Tomorrow's Mobility Opportunities

Today's workforce is undergoing some significant changes, and mobile workers are at the epicenter of many of them. In VDC's most recent report, we project that the mobile workforce will grow to 1.2 billion workers by 2014 - or roughly one third of today's workforce. No other workforce segment is as large or growing at the same rate. The segment spans virtually every industry and organization size.

In addition to this major workforce shift, the GEN Y/ Millenial generation, who has a very different relationship with mobile technology, is now entering the workforce. What makes this significant is that this generation is driving expectations regarding what types of mobile solutions are available from prospective employers and how they want to communicate and interact with co-workers.

To learn more, you can read our most recent research note here or tune in to The Global Mobile Workforce Quickcast.

Apple’s Efforts in Education: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

This past Thursday, in an event shrouded in secrecy and laden with anticipation, Apple announced the launch of three apps designed to transform the role of technology in education.             

Honoring Steve Jobs’ passion for education, Apple set lofty goals for these newly released apps.  Rather than defining the financial opportunity for these transformative products, Apple opened this event with an overview of current challenges we face in education.  Phil Schiller, SVP of worldwide marketing for Apple, noted today’s textbook prices upwards of $100, the “one size fits all” approach taken in many classrooms, and our nation’s educational curriculum falling behind that of other industrialized nations.  Citing the fact that only about 70% of entering freshman graduating high school in four years, Schiller set the stage for the reveal of three new apps: iBooks2 - now offering textbooks, an enhanced iTunes U enabling colleges to create course apps, and iBooks Author to simplify development of these engaging new e-books.

As usual, this announcement by Apple succeeded in exciting imaginations around the potential for future opportunities to enhance student engagement and promote interactive learning.  Yet, while Apple may have succeeded in setting the ball in motion, we’ll have to wait and see who will step up and take this to the next level.  As exciting as it was to see an Apple event spotlight education, these apps are not destined to transform today’s classroom environment.

In conversations with schools currently employing iPads in classrooms, we have heard that Apple’s educational platform is “still not congruent with how students are learning.”  Beyond the media capabilities enabled by the iPad, students looking to research a topic now look towards tools such as Wikipedia and Twitter as sources for data. Further, with many schools having adopted the 16GB iPad, VDC believes teachers will be hard-pressed to make use of these iBooks textbooks, which may each consume as much as 3GB or more of disk space. 

In all, while these apps are unlikely to represent the future of education, Apple’s announcement has whetted the appetites of students and teachers around the world as we await the release of further advances in educational technology.  VDC will dive deeper into issues around content ownership, content development, accessibility of these educational tablets, and more in future blog posts and in VDC’s first Education Services report – set to publish in November, 2012.

 

Mobile Impact: Vertical Market Spotlight - Transportation and Warehousing

The potential for efficient, flexible and effective coordination of transportation processes and networks lies in the emergence of internet-based information and communication technologies. Technologies such as RFID, e-commerce and telematics provide proven potential for the improvement of efficiency in coordination and transaction processes. In particular, these technologies provide opportunities for improved flexibility in coordinating supply and demand in dynamic supply network environments.

Warehouse processes

Mobile solutions have been helping organizations optimize basic warehouse processes for some time now – key processes such as reception, put-away, picking, shipping, and inventory management. Most importantly, these technologies are enabling organizations to reduce and/or eliminate human intervention. RFID-enabled products are playing a significant role, as multiple items can be read at the same time, eliminating the need for individual scans of pallets or cases. RFID can significantly reduce or eliminate problems due to human errors, which warehouse and transportation environments mainly relate to product counting and stock control, particularly in receiving and picking activities. For example, RFID can eliminate manual and visual verification of each received product, and speed up the receiving process and help to avoid bottlenecks at distribution centers, warehouses, and store entrance docks. Additionally, RFID integration into warehouse activities can promote cross-docking business models, where products move from inbound vehicles to outbound vehicles without any need to be stored, thus significantly reducing labor intensive and costly activities such as put-away and picking.

Given the potential of mobile technologies such as RFID to improve warehouse operations, numerous trials have taken place to verify the potential in supply chains of transportation intensive organization such as CPG manufacturing and retail. Publix Super Markets Inc., a Florida based supermarket chain has been actively using Electronic Product Code (EPC*) labels to improve the distribution of produce as it moves from suppliers to multiple distribution centers. Another notable example is Ballantine, a large fruit supplier – the company has been using RFID tags with their produce shipments to retailers like Walmart in order to gain competitive advantage and to deliver a fresher, more consistent product to consumers.

Fleet management systems

Fleet management systems enable logistics managers to monitor the daily distribution process of goods to customers (e.g. retail outlets) while monitoring important parameters (e.g., load temperature etc.). These systems record the position of the delivery fleet and the product temperature in real time (via temperature loggers), using a telematic unit that is fitted in each vehicle. The position of the vehicle is then relayed back to a central monitoring centre using GPRS technology. The data received is typically stored in a database and can be displayed on a variety of platforms, including mobile.

Fleet management systems are critical for the supply chains of CPG manufacturers and in retail distribution, were GPS/GPRS hardware is routinely integrated with refrigerated containers and/or trailers. By monitoring their assets in real-time (for any changes, such as refrigeration status and human or system errors) and using fleet management systems to predetermine routes and delivery times, these organizations can proactively detect any route violation(s) and have alerts generated an alert at their control center – allowing dispatchers to take necessary action(s) to avoid longer transportation times, which might affect the quality of the products.

Vehicle-routing systems

Vehicle-routing software is critical for transportation intensive organizations – these solutions enable firms to optimize their vehicle usage (e.g. minimize transportation time, distance travelled, etc) while bringing the ability to maximize vehicle / capacity usage.

The principal advantage of using automated vehicle-routing systems is that they can take into consideration a larger number of constraints and calculate more alternative solutions than can ever be done manually. Vehicle-routing software incorporates advanced scheduling methods (routing algorithms) that can generally be relied upon to provide very efficient solutions. For mission-critical scenarios, a vehicle-routing system can enable the scheduler to make fundamental changes to existing routes to allow late or urgent orders to be planned into the schedule while the system checks for any implications (missed delivery windows, legal infringements, etc.).

To learn more about the enterprise mobility opportunity in transportation and warehousing, click here for the executive summary to our recently published (November 2011) Report.

Growth of Enterprise Apps Ecosystem to Drive Tablet Adoption in 2012

Although 2011 was a big year for tablets with notable large deployments (e.g., American Airlines, SAP, and the Department of Veterans Affairs), the perception of tablets as a complementary/companion device remains. The aforementioned deployments are early evidence of potential this device class may offer to transform today’s enterprise.   The extended battery life, portability, and large screen size of tablets enable enhanced computing capacity and usability over the smartphone, while preserving the portability, connectivity, and long battery life appreciated by many smartphone users.  While tablet use and adoption has currently centered on the consumer market, we believe that the growing ecosystem of enterprise-class applications will drive tablets into the enterprise in 2012. We project that the global market for tablets will exceed 100M units by 2014 – while this pales in comparison to laptop penetration in the enterprise, it is significant growth.

Alongside the anticipated advantages these devices will enable for enterprise customers (i.e. in sales, business intelligence, or communication), companies such as IBM have begun to recognize the generous profit potential for companies best able to access this growing software market. Earlier this month, IBM expanded its suite of mobile offerings with the announcement of seven new mobile applications targeted at enterprise users.  These social networking apps cater to users of iPad and Android devices, offering software to facilitate capabilities ranging from instant messaging and reduced calling costs to management and attendance of online meetings. Salesforce.com’s anticipated Touch.salesforce.com (a tablet-optimized HTML5 mobile app) will also be impactful, as it will seamlessly enable users to access their Salesforce applications across tablet and smartphone platforms.

We expect that the market for tablet-optimized enterprise applications will experience substantial growth in 2012, led primarily by large ISVs and by innovative startups. As enterprises and IT organizations become more comfortable with mobile devices and tools, we expect to see tablets expand across the enterprise. This growth will spur further innovation and technological advances in software applications, driving new uses for this device in the enterprise.

Can the FDA Regulate Mobile Device/ Applications Without Stiffling Innovation and R&D Spend?

The increasing number of smartphones and media tablets deployed to the health care environments, has resulted in an influx of mobile apps targeted for patients and health care professionals. While the success of Apple's iPad is the main driver for tablet deployments in the industry, multiple mobile OSes for smartphones and tablets have also flooded the market. Based on our end-user study that we fielded in 2011, 36.9% of health care respondents stated that their organization has evaluated and decided to deploy media tablets, with an additional 42.3% planning to evaluate. As a result of the rapid mobile device proliferation occuring in the health care industry, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently proposed a draft guidance to regulate mobile medical apps. With this proposal, the FDA sought to solicit input on some of the mobile medical apps that may represent a potential risk to patient health in case they do not work as intended.

While the general consensus is that the FDA should be regulating some of the mobile medical apps that are specifically designed and used for diagnosis and clinical treatment purposes; the gray areas that have been identified in the proposal could cause potential disruptions in the industry. The agency encourages the technological advancements and further development of mobile medical apps that can provide health care professionals with highly valuable patient information. Hence, some of the mobile medical apps related to medical devices have already been cleared by the agency prior to the proposal. However, it remains to be seen whether the FDA can actually keep up with the latest developments in mobile technology and ensure patient safety without stiffling innovation and R&D spend.

More information on the impact of the FDA on mobile developments can be found in our Research Note that will be published in the next couple of days. In the meantime, please click here to access our most recent QuickCast  - Taking the Pulse of Mobility in Health Care.

IBM’s Mail Triage - a Peek into the Potential Future of Mobile Email

If we were to estimate the proliferation and popularity of various internet platforms and applications, judging solely by the ratio of news and industry coverage dedicated to each, we would see Google, Twitter and Facebook tower over other applications, such as email.  And yet, according to research conducted by Smarter Tools, the total number of posts on Facebook and Twitter combined comprise no more than .2% of email traffic.  This trend has carried over into the mobile world as well, with approximately 82% of smartphone owners regularly checking and sending mobile email.

So how is it that email, which has developed into a staple of personal and business communication, falls short in attracting the attention and recognition these statistics would suggest it has earned?  Lacking a serious challenger to threaten this nearly 50-year old technology, email has not been as driven to evolve and innovate to maintain relevance in the digital age – particularly for users in business settings where smartphone adoption continues to ramp.  

This may soon change with the introduction of a revolutionary new mobile email technology by technology giant, IBM.  Recognizing the importance of adapting email to the evolving needs of an increasingly mobile user base, IBM has been working on developing an improved user experience targeted to satisfy the unique demands inherent to the use of mobile email applications.  IBM’s Mail Triage Project enables users to “triage” emails, or sort them by the degree of urgency and intended follow-up.

Incoming emails will initially fall into the “Untriaged” box, indicating that the user has not yet addressed these messages.  Whereas traditional email clients generally identify “unread” versus “read” messages, analysis of consumers’ mobile email behavior inspired IBM’s researchers to dichotomize users’ new and unread messages.  Although mobile email users check their inbox throughout the day, these individuals frequently assess these messages without opening them.  Thus IBM’s email client enhances the value of the “inbox” screen by identifying several characteristics of the email.  Seen below, a blue background indicates a new message, while a blue circle to the left identifies all unread messages.  Additionally, another circle serves to illustrate the number of recipients, with a green circle indicating the email was intended only for this user, a half circle showing it has few recipients, the clear circle revealing many recipients or that this users was Cc’d, and no circle identifying an email in which they were Bcc’d.  

 

Source: IBM

The functionality of this mobile email client extends to the desktop computer, where users may address emails they had determined to “defer” until reaching a computer email client.  While IBM’s Triage product may not represent the future of mobile email, this evolution of email to suit a mobile environment is a significant milestone for the email application.  The eventual launch of IBM’s Triage will likely drive further innovation and adaptation of email applications and the emergence of competitor products to better serve our increasingly mobile lives.  

IBM revealed some of the capabilities of their Mail Triage client back in the summer of 2010, when the company opened its Mass Lab in Littleton Massachusetts. The company has done well at playing the part of  a vendor/device agnostic participant in the mobile ecosystem, and is now emphasizing its software prowess – this can be evidenced by the Mail Triage client as well as a bevy of tablet oriented apps that were revealed just this week.

Check back next week for an upcoming blog post discussing business-grade tablet applications …

 

Dual Persona Market Heating Up (Part 2 of 2)

Last month, AT&T announced Toggle – an application designed to transform the enterprise mobility market by fulfilling the needs of both enterprises and end-users of smartphone devices.  As we discussed in last week’s blog, entitled “Dual Persona Market Heating Up,” AT&T’s Toggle application was developed as part of a cooperative effort by AT&T and the startup Enterproid.  We also expounded upon the appeal Toggle may represent for smartphone users, as the application essentially enables users to construct separate work and personal environments on their mobile device (to reiterate, currently Android is the only mobile platform supported).  In this post, we will expand on the origin of this mobile app, and on AT&T’s strategic goals in the enterprise mobility market – we’ll also detail our view on the channel and share our thoughts on AT&T’s positioning for solutions such as Toggle.

Toggle’s growth into a potentially revolutionary mobile technology may, in fact, be indebted to the spirit of collaboration and ideation that has recently emerged at AT&T.  Indeed, Enterproid executives were both impressed and surprised with AT&T’s ability to collaborate and move as quickly as they did with bringing Toggle to market. What began as an idea posted in AT&T’s internal crowd-sourcing forum (The Innovation Pipeline), eventually grew to earn the support of an AT&T Foundry.  AT&T developed its foundry innovation centers with the objective of uniting entrepreneurs, developers and business leaders in cooperative efforts to transform inventive concepts into practical market solutions.  Toggle was developed with the support of AT&T and Enterproid, a tech startup whose Divide platform comprises the technological foundation of the Toggle application.

Considering enterprise requirements for highly secure mobile platforms, and the continuing BYOD trend at large corporations, we believe that there is a real commercial opportunity for solutions such as Toggle to gain traction in the mobile space.  Moving forward, as mobile devices continue to enter the workplace, enterprise oriented application adoption will begin to ramp quickly, and robust security for mobile platforms will become requisite. Dual persona solutions like Toggle can potentially give companies the opportunity to take advantage of the BYOD trend by securing the “work persona” on employee owned mobile devices while preserving the user experience that employees are accustomed to by using their device(s) of choice – additionally, employers can avoid incurring the costs associated with provisioning devices to their mobile workforce (we’ll save the issues we foresee associated with billing for a future blog post). A variety of dual persona solutions have emerged, and accompany a large number of security-focused mobile specialists – all of whom have different ideas on securing mobile platforms. 

The Channel is Key – Amongst Mobile Operators, AT&T is Well Positioned

As the mobile ecosystem becomes increasingly crowded, mobile operators with adeptness at channel partnerships will be well positioned to be the point of entry for a variety of enterprise mobility solutions. AT&T’s channel portfolio is strong, with key MEAP, MDM, and TEM vendors in place – the company has been very aggressive with its mobility strategy since forming its Advanced Mobility Solutions organization last year, with a steady flow of new partnerships and product offerings. AT&T’s managed services and mobile development competencies, as well as its professional services capabilities (via the InCompass acquisition in Q4 2010) and cloud ambitions position the company to be very competitive as an end-to-end enterprise mobility solution provider. AT&T rivals aren’t standing still, and also see mobility solutions positioned for the enterprise (and SMB) as a significant opportunity. Verizon recently enhanced its mobility strategy with the launch of an enterprise app store and a mobile unified communications platform, and also sees an opportunity ahead in the cloud. Earlier this summer, Verizon expanded its relationship with SAP to co-market/cross-sell SAP applications (a relationship that brings the ability to offer cloud-based mobile applications).  The company has also established white-label partner arrangements for several of its managed mobility offerings (for example, Verizon has partnered with Sybase for its mobile application management service). Mobile operators are without question emerging as a critical channel for enterprise mobility services – while mobile oriented ISVs in the MEAP and MDM space are having success with their direct sales activities, we see them becoming increasingly reliant on the channel moving forward. Mobile operators Deutsche Telekom, Orange Business Services, and Telefonica have all moved in a similar direction to AT&T and Verizon (for example all three have relations with Sybase for MDM solutions).