The Smartphone Explosion & Next-Gen Mobility
By Sam Sliman, President, Optimal Solutions Integration

 

Smartphone Explosion

 

It is clear that there is no stopping the smartphone from permeating the business world.

 

Consumers have embraced smartphones, particularly the Apple iPhone, in a big way. Apple sold more than 1.7 million iPhone 4’s within the first three days of launching the product. According to IDC, 54.7 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2010, up 56.7% from Q1 2009. AT&T says 40% of its iPhone sales are to businesses, and PC world reports that 8 of 10 business professionals today use smartphones as their primary business communications platform.

 

The straightforward pushing to mobile devices of email and other business productivity and communication applications is well underway, with Forrester reporting that 95% of businesses today deploy these apps to execs and IT staff. But email access and calendar synching and basic reporting and data entry barely scratch the surface of enterprise mobility’s full potential.

 

IDC predicts that 2010 will be a “watershed year in the ascension of mobile devices in the enterprise,” and Gartner lists mobile applications among the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010.

 

For more stats on enterprise mobility drivers, read Why SAP Enterprise Mobility Now?

 

Next-generation mobility now

 

More than 75% of business decision makers believe that mobility is key for long-term success, according to Forrester.

 

The mobility delivering this sort of strategic value goes well beyond email and alarms for execs and IT, beyond even field service, customer service and sales force data access & entry.

 

The future of enterprise mobility, a future that is drawing nearer, involves tapping virtually all business applications and enterprise databases to deliver real-time business intelligence and on-the-fly analytics to everyone in the enterprise, from business leaders to line-of-business workers.

 

Next-generation enterprise mobility means critical, real-time information is available and can be acted upon anywhere, anytime to deliver meaningful and measurable business value -- improving existing business processes and, more importantly, enabling new, value-based processes.

 

According to a recent survey conducted by Ventana Research, more than 70 percent of businesses are interested in mobile business intelligence (mobile BI), with 13% having already deployed mobile BI solutions, 30% currently deploying mobile BI solutions, and 27% planning to deploy mobile BI solutions in the near future.

 

With its advances in in-memory technology, the acquisition of Sybase and a thriving partner ecosystem, the time for next-generation SAP mobile solutions is now.