VDC Research: Enterprise & Government Mobility Market Blog

May Event Recap (1 of 2), CTIA Orlando

2012-05-25T19:24:00-04:00

The city of New Orleans hosted the spring edition of the CTIA conference earlier this month — the last time this event was hosted at the Ernest N. Morial convention center was in 2003. While the event continues to attract a broad range of exhibitors focused on all things mobile, attendance was a mere ~20K (down from ~40K that attended the same event last March in Orlando). Schedule wise, the event is challenged, as many enterprise mobility-oriented participants have had a busy first half of the year (event wise) with must-attend shows for a good segment of the ecosystem. Both CES and NRF are always scheduled for January, MWC and HIMMS are typically both in Feb. — May was extremely busy, with BlackBerry World, SAPPHIRE, Interop and the CTIA all occurring in the first 3 weeks of this month. While “conference fatigue” played a role in the level of participation at the CTIA event — it certainly didn’t help that Interop was scheduled during the same week. In fact, several folks I met with were able to squeeze both shows in (impressive).

As would be expected, Steve Largent kicked off the event with some bullish statistics on mobile device proliferation, and the need for additional spectrum. This theme was echoed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (a keynote speaker the first day of the show). The "spectrum issue" is sure to be a critical issue in the coming years, particularly when considering the rapid pace of device proliferation that continues to outpace the aggressive growth rates that many market watchers (including VDC) have predicted. There is no doubt that our congress and the FCC will need to make some difficult decisions in the coming months, and that spectrum policies will be continue to be debated.

The show kicked off this with the EMF's Appsolutely Enterprise event, where companies such as App47, Apperian, Bitzer Mobile and Boxtone were provided with a forum to detail their solutions and value proposition to the market. I did not have the opportunity to attend the event, but I did meet with several of the vendors that presented and their feedback was good — while the attendance at this event was less than expected, it was well received.

While the spring edition of this event primarily targets a consumer oriented clientele, there were two notable enterprise oriented announcements that caught my attention:

TeleCommunications Systems (TCS) announced its Enterprise Security and Protection (ESP) cybersecurity portfolio:

TCS has been readying this solution for some time, and has done well in productizing its solutions for the enterprise. TCS is looking to enterprise markets for growth, as the firm has historically been a strong player in government markets.

Fresh off of closing an $8M C round of funding in early May, Visage announced that it had entered into an agreement to integrate its MobilityCentral platform with Concur's expense management system using the Concur Connect platform.

While CTIA scored a coup with snaring Bill Clinton to keynote the final day of the show, it seemed like there were a lot of folks at the Louis Armstrong airport on Weds. evening. Overall, the show was a worthwhile event to connect with clients and catch up, as far as “news” goes — the above referenced stories sum it up, the timing just wasn’t there for a lot of participants who had already made Q1 announcements, and who are likely prepping their Q3 announcements. Roger Cheng from CNET wrote a good piece at the conclusion of the event, questionning whether the current twice a year format will be sustainable for CTIA — I think Roger has it right, I'm looking forward to the fall event in San Diego, the enterprise focus is the appropriate way to go for the association and their constituents in my view.

Stay tuned for my next event recap — SAPPHIRE Orlando.

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Hangar 14’s Streetwise CADlink Application to Support Adoption of Consumer-Grade Tablets into the Fire Department

2012-05-25T08:21:00-04:00

Recent conversations with various public safety units – including police, EMS, and firefighter – highlighted a key barrier that has slowed adoption of consumer-grade tablets into the fire department – the lack of Android and iOS applications to support key workflows in this market. Many police departments, on the other hand, have experimented more with laptop and tablet technologies, and thus have drawn more attention from commercial vendors offering applications and hardware packages. In order for fire department units to take advantage of the more cost-effective consumer-grade tablet device, we will need to see a stronger ecosystem of apps develop to further the utility of these devices when firefighters bring these devices into the field.

One FD IT department we spoke with expressed the challenge this has presented for their department in deploying tablets. This unit explained that they would likely deploy Android tablets – largely because the application Streetwise CADlink is currently available for this OS. The Streetwise CADlink was developed by Hangar 14 Solutions – a company led by firefighting veteran Phil Kouwe.

While small, this startup appears destined for strong growth in coming months as this solution enters the market. As Phil Kouwe explained, many fire departments currently have deployed Toughbooks or other netbook form factor devices – these devices often remain closed, and are thus not truly mobilizing these workflows or enhancing productivity in the field. The Hangar 14 solution for Android tablets is designed to integrate critical response information, enabling firefighters in the field to access incident information, maps, turn-by-turn directions, hydrant locations, satellite views, and the locations of other units responding to the site. As the Streetwise CADlink application gains increased visibility and potentially expands to support iOS devices, we expect this solution to significantly impact the adoption of consumer-grade tablets into the firefighting market.

SAP SAPPHIRE NOW: Articulating Enterprise Mobility

2012-05-17T00:00:03-04:00

With the ever predictable siren for the ‘year of mobile’ it may have finally arrived. While it has been more of a progression than an overnight sensation there have been some fairly significant recent events that have propelled the market forward. We finally have the mobile devices that are capable of supporting engaging mobile applications and with the advent of the tablet we a truly mobile device with sufficient display real estate. Another major development – that has previously been woefully absent – has been the support and direct investment in mobile solutions by the larger enterprise software vendor community. While that challenge remains acute, SAP, the leading ERP vendor, is making it very clear that mobility represents a major anchor of their most recent transformation. While enterprise software vendors have historically touted mobile strategies and capabilities these (SAP’s included) could largely be chalked up to either vapor ware or extremely poorly designed solutions.

With the acquisition of Sybase in 2010 and more recently of Syclo, SAP is upping the ante. Having spent the last two days at SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW event one thing is clear: no one at SAP dares mention ERP. While this ‘ERP disassociation’ has evolved as a message and strategy over the past several years, it clearly manifested itself at this event. Once again, following the footsteps of R3 and Netweaver, among others, SAP is attempting to ‘innovate without disrupting’. That SAP struggled in identifying and executing its most recent transformation is perhaps an overstatement. However, the usability of SAP’s core solutions lagged emerging competitors resulting in lower utility of the overall platform. In addition, the gaps in its cloud services were increasingly evident. Recognizing these deficiencies is resulting in one of the most ambitious transformations of SAP.

The realization of this transformation is rooted in three strategic thrusts: the cloud, HANA in-memory computing and…mobility. SAP recognizes that while the original value proposition of integrated enterprise platforms may still be relevant, the articulation of that strategy has evolved considerably. The ERP gold rush of the late 90’s is over. Moreover the need for modernizing traditional – perhaps even legacy – ERP solutions is more apparent than ever before. What SAP is attempting to accomplish – especially with mobile – is to transform business processes by making critical business data intelligence more available, in real time, on virtually any platform, to broader groups of highly distributed users through a secure and scalable architecture.

Having tracking enterprise mobility solutions over the past decade, VDC recognizes the value and importance of ‘mobilizing’ key enterprise assets. In fact, we have long argued that for the enterprise mobility market to scale beyond point specific line of business applications common across many industries, significant investments and commitments from major enterprise software vendors would be required. To better track and validate this opportunity, VDC is launching a new ‘Voice of the Customer: Bringing Mobility to Enterprise Applications’ research service. This service is designed to provide critical information surrounding the opportunities and challenges around introducing mobility into enterprise organizations from the decision maker’s perspective. For more information, please contact us…

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

2012-05-08T14:33:43-04:00

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.

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

2012-04-27T08:27:00-04:00

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

2012-04-22T15:34:00-04:00

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

2012-04-20T22:11:00-04:00

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

2012-04-20T18:21:00-04:00

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

2012-04-19T15:46:00-04:00

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.

Mobile Payment Market Welcomes Swiff

2012-03-31T21:12:13-04:00

As the market gets flooded by mobile payment solution providers in the recent years, the receptivity for accepting mobile payments has increased. Based on our end-user research, 37.1% of the retailers claimed that they are either using or currently evaluating mobile payment/ POS solutions. While the interest for more consumer-oriented solutions such as location based services is higher, the security and compliance requirements for mobile payment solutions are a lot more complicated.

PayPal recently introduced PayPal Here in the past couple of weeks and is now a strong competitor to Square-like solutions that have been emerging. Last week, the market welcomed another entrant, this time an Asia-based solution, Swiff. The company offers secured mobile payment with its mobile card reader dongle. While the increasing competitiveness in the mobile payment market should be part of an another blog, we thought the Singapore-based Swiff was worth noting given the interesting approach they are taking.

Instead of directly targeting merchants (i.e. mostly SMBs) that are interested in accepting card-based payments, Swiff is partnering directly with banks and financial institutions. The company is not just building on the existing relationships that these organizations have with their clients, but also targets to earn their trust much more easily. So, instead of having a PayPal-like company accepting the payment from the customer and paying the merchant, Swiff is enabling banks to be the medium in accepting payments. Given the high demand for mobile banking in regions such as Latin America and Africa, as well as emerging country markets like India, we believe partnering with banks could be a good differentiator. It is also worth mentioning that the flat-rate business model that is followed by other providers like Square, PayPal and Intuit's GoPayment, that is roughly around 2.7% to 3% based on the solution provider could potentially be a better move than the varying rates applied by Swiff - which varies between 1.6% to 3%. It is interesting to see new entrants trying to distinguish themselves from the competition and we expect the mobile payment market to continue attracting such interest around the globe.