Archive for the ‘Mobile in SMB’ Category

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My PC is More Mobile Than Yours

Monday, July 27th, 2009

iphoneI met with the owner of a restaurant last Thursday and had something completely unexpected happen.  The gentleman I met with has been in the restaurant business for quite some time, starting out with Subway, then rolling out his own pizza franchise concept, and now finally launching his own pizzeria.  I was there to do a little research for the product side of our business.  We talked for about an hour about several ways mobile technology could assist him in the operation of his restaurant, and also how it could help him be more in tune with his customers.

The discussion was very helpful to me, and I believe to him as well.  However, about midway through our discussion something completely unexpected happened.  This gentleman held up his iPhone that had been sitting on the table next to him throughout our discussion.  As he held it up he declared “This is my PC.”  His point was that he was not in the restaurant all the time, and he used his iPhone as not only the mechanism to help keep him in tune with what was going on his his restaurant, but also to help him access other information, make calls, visit web sites etc.  In every way, this little “phone” had become his primary computing device.

I have made mention of this trend in other previous posts, but in this case I got anecdotal confirmation straight from the horses mouth without any prompting from me.  This is not an advertisement for the iPhone, though it is a very slick device.  I am sure if asked others would say the same thing about their Windows Mobile device, or their BlackBerry, or maybe even the Pre now.  The point is that in fact, our phones are becoming much more than phones.  They are in many instances taking the place of our PC’s in the real world.

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Mobilizing America’s Pastime

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
Tulsa Drillers ticket scanning at the turnstyle.

Tulsa Drillers ticket scanning at the turnstyle.

While visiting our local minor league baseball park this past weekend, I noticed that mobile technology is becoming a part of the fan experience and club operations.  It started at the Tulsa Drillers turnstyle, where Leslee greeted me with a handheld scanner which captured barcode information off of the ticket. She said the information they capture helps them create a better product for season ticket holders and other fans.

After stocking up on food and drinks a young lady approached me and asked if I would participate in a quick survey.  She had a WiFi handheld device, asked a few questions about the wireless carrier I use and what attracts my family to the game.  She was using ReFormXT software which allowed her to check a few boxes on the device as I responded, and that information was immediately fed to a database in the office.

Once seated, everyone around me was texting between innings.  A friend of mine was using his iPhone to get stats on the visiting team’s pitcher.  A group of young ladies were taking pictures and forwarding them to friends and posting them on their MySpace account.  Almost everyone was connected.  The only person who wasn’t using a handheld device was the umpire.  At least I hope so.

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CTIA Part 2 - The Rise of the Machines

Friday, April 10th, 2009

No, it’s not some Sci Fi movie, but machines were a focus of CTIA this year. In the South Hall of the Vegas Convention Center, CTIA had a sizeable area of about 30 companies involved in wireless Machine to Machine (M2M) technologies. In addition to this, other booths throughout the show had an M2M focus, and Verizon had an entire booth devoted to assisting people getting new hardware devices certified on the Verizon network (including a strong M2M focus).

For those of you who don’t know, M2M is all about a machine monitoring some set of variables, and reporting over a wireless network to another computer. Sometimes commands are sent back to the device over the cellular network so that it can take some type of action. Semi trucks have had this for a number of years. Small computers reside on many big rigs and monitor everything from speed, to when the next oil change is required. This information is then communicated over a wireless network to a computer at some headquarters location, where it is examined, and where a human will be notified if certain events or thresholds occur.

So what does this have to do with business, especially the small and medium businesses that make up the majority of our economy? Well, as devices become smaller and smaller, this type of technology will play an increasingly large role in our businesses and personal lives.  Let’s assume for a moment you have a company that focuses on home healthcare. Imagine that some of your patients need more than just a daily monitoring of vitals. Maybe they ideally should be monitoried 3 or 4 times a day.

Dr. Eric Topol spoke in one of the CTIA keynotes and pointed out several M2M implementations that allow remote monitoring of vitals wirelessly through an intelligent bandage. No, it’s not Star Trek.  It’s becoming reality today.  The video shows an animation of how one of these types of devices works.

If produced inexpensively enough this same type of technology might monitor your air conditioner at home, and phone your HVAC repair service if problems are detected. The OnStar service provided on GM cars already provides this type of service on vehicles. Think about your own business, and imagine what you could do if you were able to monitor equipment, vehicles, people, or processes remotely. This whole world of mobility has so much to offer beyond ringtones and wallpaper for your cell phone.

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The Great Divide

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

One of the more enjoyable things I get to do in my job is talk to the folks who are actually using mobile technology to better their businesses.  No big marketing studies, no polls, no government statistics, just me and one person sitting down to talk about how mobile technology is affecting them.  It’s not that polls and statistics don’t have their place, they do.  But I have been in sales and business development for over 20 years, and there is nothing that substitutes for speaking directly with a business person to get a real feel for what works and what doesn’t.

construction-worker-cell-phoneRecently I decided to make it a point to schedule a few lunch appointments each month with various Small and Medium Business owners to talk about mobile technology.  Some of them are people I know well, and some are folks I have just been introduced to.  The approach is the same in all cases.  We sit down for lunch and talk about their business, how they use mobile technology, how they locate technology, how they acquire it, and what additional mobile solutions they would like to get their hands on.  These are business discussions, not technology discussions. 

While this is not a scientific approach to gathering statistics, the information gathered during these discussions provides a huge amount of insight into what works, and what doesn’t with regards to getting mobile technology into the hands of Small and Medium Business.  As I run across findings I think will interest a larger audience, I’ll take the time to blog about them here on MobileBizBuzz.  (more…)

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400 Stores in the Palm of Your Hand

Friday, March 6th, 2009
Kum & Go Convenience Store

Kum & Go Convenience Store

The local Kum & Go convenience store down the street from the office is usually manned with a couple of college aged kids.  They are at the register, refilling the coffee pot, cleaning the parking lot and doing lots of tasks throughout the day.  Each store must have 1,000 items in inventory.  So how do they keep track of all of the gum, chips and cigarettes and keep the supply chain efficient while managing all of the other tasks?

Dave was running the register this morning.  As soon as he gave me change for my coffee purchase, he pulled out a Symbol handheld device and was quickly in the automotive section counting quarts of oil and ice scrapers.  Kum & Go has a slick system where Dave can count his inventory in a short amount of time on a mobile computer, then take this to the PC behind the counter, dock it and then the device downloads all of the information to headquarters in Iowa.

Kum & Go is not a Fortune 1000 company with a huge staff of I.T. people running systems, but they have discovered the value of mobility.

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Small Company, Big on Mobility

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Intermec CN3 with Oneil PrinterI was at a local convenience store today and noticed a delivery man standing with the store manager, looking at a little black box, about half the size of a desktop keyboard.  All of the sudden, two pieces of paper pop out of it, the manager signs it as if he was closing the tab at a restaurant.

The delivery driver works for Solaray and I stopped him and asked him about his little machine.  What he was holding was a small mobile printer with an Intermec (they make some of the best rugged mobile handhelds in the world) wireless device imbedded in it.  The driver was delivering sunglasses, lighters and other trinkets to stock the convenience store shelves.  He just consummated the transaction and notified headquarters without a single piece of paperwork, instantly, with this little marvel.

Solaray is a small, privately held company based in Sapulpa, OK.   Sapulpa is known for Frankoma Pottery, not leading edge technology development.  Solaray recognized the importance of mobile technology and had a company develop the platform for them, then purchased the company!   No wonder they can manage 15,000 delivery locations across the United States.

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App Store Analysis

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Global Intelligence Alliance Group has just released an analysis of several app stores for mobile applications.  By this time we are all very familiar with the iPhone App Store, and the fact we are so familiar with it is pretty amazing.  It was launched only eight months ago, but currently boasts over 15,000 applications and surpassed 500 million downloads back in January of this year.  About all you can say is “Wow!”  But since that isn’t very enlightening, I’ll try to provide some observations on app stores in general. 

app-storeFirst of all it’s important to remember that only two app stores actually exist.  These are the iPhone App Store and the Android Marketplace.  All the others you may have heard about like Ovi from Nokia, Skymarket from Microsoft, BlackBerry Apps Storefront, and the webOS Software Store from Palm are all just announcements right now.  That’s right.  You can buy any software you want from an app store as long as your smartphone is an iPhone or the G1 phone.  That’s it.  There are not any other choices right now today.

So why all the noise about what are essentially download sites for only two devices?  Because until the iPhone App Store, if you wanted a mobile application for your smartphone, you had to either go through a carrier storefront (which tend to be limited and difficult to navigate) or hunt around the Internet for software to download from sites that may or may not be legitimate.  So being able to go one trusted place for software for your device is a big deal.  Add to that the fact that one of the devices has sold like no other mobile device before and you see why app stores are getting so much press.

But for all the positive press, and it is certainly well-deserved positive press, there are still some issues that need to be addressed to really free users.  In no particular order some of the biggest issues are:

  1. Searching has to be improved - In some cases even if you know the name of the application it can be difficult to find in the iPhone App Store.  This problem will only get worse as the number of applications grows, and as business applications begin to populate the store.
  2. Many more devices must be supported - With the announcement of several new app stores this problem should improve over time.  I still wonder how useful it will be if you are a small business and have to go to the iPhone App Store for one person, the BlackBerry Apps Storefront for another, and the webOS Software Store for another.  That’s not a very effective way for a small business user to find what they need for their business.  And that brings me to the third point.
  3. Business applications have to be supported - Right now all of the app stores that exist, and the ones that are coming all cater to consumer applications.  There is nothing wrong with providing consumer applications, but who is going to provide applications for small and medium business personnel?  After all, there are over 120,000,000 of them in the US alone.

We are early on in this new world of app stores, and we are off to a great start.  But to really unlock the potential of mobility for business users, the app store landscape will need to change to address these and other issues.

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The Pendulum of Business and Consumer Applications

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Those who have been in the mobile applications business since the PDA days have experienced the innovation and buying cycles many times.  When we were at Palm’s first developers conference in 1997, a majority of the attendees were developing the next biggest game beyond backgammon.  Individual or consumer based applications were a big hit until wireless data networks started working on PDAs.  The industry forgot about games and rushed to the new frontier, business applications.  The color screen was then announced, and a new wave of games and consumer apps flooded the market.  Then the ability to synchronize email shifted industry focus back to the high ARPU promises of the small and medium sized businesses and the Fortune 1000. 

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of ring tones, games, and personal applications in the market and it seems the industry has forgotten the business customer once again.  The demands of the commercial market in each of these cycles is always lagging as the business customer has higher standards (security, version control etc.) and demands some ROI for the investment.  With 100’s of millions of new Smartphone owners, the pendulum will be swinging back to the interests of the business user, and maybe sooner than we think.   ABI Research just announced that 16.5% of surveyed Smartphone users spent between $100 and $499 on applications.

That seems like an awful lot of ring tones and $1 games from the app store.  Something else is going on.  Stay tuned.

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SMB and Managed Services: Support to the Mobile Employee?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

I’ve been meeting with several different types of managed services companies around the country.  The typical MS company is providing network, PC and email administration and 24/7 support for small crashes or major disaster recovery episodes.  All of them are serving small-to-medium businesses who do not have a robust IT department, or maybe not one at all.  The MS company has become a mission critical partner in today’s business operations.  No PCs, no Internet access, no email usually equals no revenue.

Mobile workers are now introducing a new level of challenges as their smartphones, rugged devices, cell phones and wireless laptops make them a part of the mission critical profile in business operations.  Yet, while talking through the technical capabilities, value proposition, understanding of the fragmentation of the mobile solution ecosystem and what seems like an obvious high margin value-add service for the the MS MS company, I don’t get the sense that the MS industry is fully prepared to extend its services to the mobile worker.

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The Application of Mobile Technology…Where Are We Going?

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Yesterday in our senior staff meeting we were discussing some trends that are influencing the direction of the mobile industry. In that discussion we talked about some predictive statements from previous computer industry giants. The first quote was attributed to Thomas Watson Jr. in the 1950’s. Watson was then-Chairman of IBM, and the quote attributed to him was “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”. While this appears to be a misquote according to IBM, he did make a reference at the 1953 shareholder meeting about receiving 18 computer orders nationwide, when IBM had expected to sell only 5. The second statement is a well known quote from Bill Gates where he stated “640kb ought to be enough for anybody”. The point behind both of these statements is that it is difficult even for industry visionaries to predict the real potential of emerging technology. It is not unusual to underestimate its impact.

When I got back to my office I saw the Weekly Edition of the “Mobilizer Newsletter” in my Inbox. This newsletter is produced by “Mobile Enterprise Weekly, and this week it has an article from 8 mobile industry experts discussing “The Next Big Thing in Enterprise Mobility”. While I do not personally know any of the people who are quoted in the article, and I am sure each of them is an expert in his/her perspective field, I do have a couple of my own observations after reading the article.

My first observation is that the 8 experts who provided input for the article all talked about different technologies they each thought would be “the next big thing”. Not one of them agreed with any of the others. That’s not really surprising when you consider the statements from Watson and Gates. When we are in the middle of the revolution, it is very hard to see where we are going. And we are definitely in the middle of a mobile revolution.ocarina1

The second observation is that where mobility is really going is likely far more amazing than what we can imagine right now. Have you seen the iPhone application called “Ocarina” by Smule? It turns the iPhone into an electronic ocarina (a musical instrument dating back 12,000 years according to Wikipedia). By holding your iPhone horizontal, placing your fingers over 4 “holes” on the multi-touch screen, and blowing into the microphone with varying intensity, you can play a variety of songs. The application can even vary the tonal quality by tilting the iPhone at various angles. If you like music, you should check it out. I think you’ll be amazed. Who would have thought a year ago that the iPhone could become a musical instrument, and not just an mp3 player?

Ocarina sounds interesting for sharing with your friends and passing the time in an airport, but it isn’t going to help us in the business world. So what is the next big thing with mobile business applications? I’m going to disappoint you here. I don’t know. I could take a guess like other experts, but likely the best I could do is be partially right. But there is hope. I may not know what the next great business application is, but I do know how to find it, and that’s almost as good as knowing what it is.

Here’s the challenge: we need to do a better job of getting mobile applications into the hands of business people. And not just in big corporations, but in small and medium sized businesses too. After all, the smaller companies account for the majority of jobs in our nation, and therefore represent by far the largest pool of mobile business users. While mobile technology has proliferated for personal use, it’s really just getting going for business use outside of email, so the opportunity is enormous. When we get more mobile technology into the hands of businesses, they will figure out ways to use the technology that the experts never dreamed of. That’s the real key to the next big thing in business mobility.

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