Recently, Techaisle conducted a very detailed study on SMBs adoption of Mobility Solutions across several countries. It is quite evident that Mobility Solutions are important for SMBs and a high percentage of these businesses are actively implementing them. The level and mode of implementation varies by country. For example, US & UK SMBs have a more holistic approach to mobility implementation that includes notebooks, smart phones, tablets, and applications. A country like Brazil is more focused on smart phone enabled applications with continued usage of notebooks.
What is interesting is that SMBs within countries such as Italy, Germany, Canada and Brazil have also indicated that they do not have a formal company policy to implement mobile solutions yet they are going ahead in an experimental fashion.
The chart below highlights the rankings within a country of various statements related to mobility solution implementation. The actual question was “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements, where 1 is completely agree and 5 is completely disagree?”
Security and confidentiality about data on mobile devices consistently ranks #4 within all the above six countries. This is not to say that accidental loss of device with sensitive data is not of concern to the IT decision makers, but it takes a somewhat lower priority than mobilizing the organization. This is similar to the fact that notebooks have been used pervasively by the traveling workforce, however, not many SMBs have implemented any form of device lock-down, purge or recovery applications. Nevertheless, IT vendors should focus the attention of SMBs on device management especially when these SMBs allow employees to purchase and use their own devices within business environment.
Mobility solutions affordability has also ranked either 6 or 7 but when asked specifically the biggest inhibitor is the cost of device and data plan when adopting mobility solutions.
When SMBs rank “Mobility solutions are important but we do not know how to implement”, it does not mean that they know everything about mobility solutions. It simply suggests that there are SMBs who are satisfied with the simplest implementation of mobility that revolves around their unique business environment, ability to access information from anywhere and able to communicate and collaborate within the organization. However, the complexity of solutions varies by the type of business, availability of public domain cloud applications as well as the number of employees.
When we dig deeper into the data, we find that mid-market businesses are the early adopters of mobility solutions; small businesses do realize the importance of such solutions but have not yet been able to develop any formal company policy to implement
The top challenges to adopting new mobility solutions can be broadly divided into 4 groups – Cost and complexity, management and employee issues, network and device issues and security. Of these cost and complexity issues dominate SMB thinking.
Both small and mid-market businesses, cost of solution, data service pricing, and security are top concerns for implementing mobility solutions
More details can be found in our country level reports titled “SMB Mobility & Adoption Trends including Tablets & Smart phones”.
Tavishi Agrawal
Techaisle
Techaisle Blog
At the recent GigaOm-Appconomy conference the talks and panel discussions centered around app development and the challenges associated with it. There was a great set of panels that honed in on some of the key challenges faced by app developers as well as app marketing companies. Some notes and learning from that conference:
- Too many apps: There are obviously a huge number of apps available but that does nt mean that app economy is robust – yet. The research firm Localytics reports that on an average there are 48 apps installed on a typical iPhone and 26% of these apps are only used once. While usage is a separate issue, the first problem is that of discovery. How does a user discover new apps ? While apps are organized into categories it still requires the user to flip through and find apps that suit their needs. On the enterprise side the challenges are the same. Should an enterprise IT department play the role of a curator for these apps?
- Rise of Mobile IT departments: There are two trends that are increasingly impacting enterprise IT departments – one is that IT departments are increasingly allowing users to bring in their own devices. This is how phones like iPhones have gotten into enterprises bringing the issue of managing and supporting these devices to center stage. But managing mobile devices brings forth a new set of challenges different from managing devices that IT has purchased. What happens when the device changes? How do you ensure data security? How do you ensure corporate security policies are being followed? This is not just driving a new set of IT policies but a new mind set within IT departments that shifts away from traditional “command and control” to one that is more democratic and focused on user needs. With users taking over the role of managing their own device and app updates, It departments are free to advise and support ad focus on areas that are critical to the business.
- Which apps are likely to succeed: The vast app market has apps in every possible category. However, there needs to be some criteria by which enterprise mobile apps developers. This was well articulated by Raj Nathan, SVP at SAP who stated that there were two kinds of apps that developers should look at – one simply extends existing functionality onto mobile devices. This, he said, is not very compelling. The other kind are transformative in nature in that they extend and enhance the role of the person using the apps. The example given was that of a truck driver who receives his or her travel route on a mobile device. This would be an example of the former type of application. Now consider if the same app also allows the driver to record and send back information about a competitor’s pricing and discounts tied to a particular store on their route. That person’s role is now transformed and indeed elevated to being a competitive weapon that can be used to decide marketing actions in real-time. What Raj Nathan is saying is that mobile apps offer the opportunity to fundamentally alter the playing field. So in what areas can such transformative apps be created for the enterprise. There are four according to Vishy Gopalakrishnan, Director of Mobility Solutions at AT&T:a. IT change management
b. Knowledge management
c. Transaction management, and
d. Business analytics and reporting
The above list makes sense and there are apps in each of these areas but how many are really Transformative?
When it comes to developing mobile apps, It departments and developers must think differently about the purpose of the app taking into context its role in the larger business picture and by focusing on the transformative opportunity hidden within.
The debate started with the topic of Versatility: Multi role of PCs VS single role of Tablet PCs. However, Tablets are gaining docking stations and full keyboards and other aspects such as cameras will find their way in as a result of natural evolution of tablets.
For PC Cannibalization View
What will drive Tablets is the following:
- Longer battery life
- Shift to web based apps (no client download requirements)
- Cost in terms of power consumption
- Windows for Tablets
- Decreasing cost of flash storage
What will hold Tablets back:
- Manageability, tracking
- Corporate level security
Cannibalization should be discussed and thought of within the context of time. It will be significant in about 3-5 years. What it won’t cannibalize is the smart phone market. The problem this is going to cause is what do we call a notebook and what do we call a tablet. Apple has already announced that their notebooks going forward will resemble the new Macbook Air which will have access to the newly announced Mac AppStore and have access to the same apps that are available for iOS. Windows on ARM also means that previously Tablet specific apps will be available on traditional notebook form factors.
What we are seeing now is true convergence with the devices providing different user experiences depending upon whether they are used in a mobile context or not. One area where I do not see tablets replacing PCs is in software development.
Counter View
If Tablet PCs are given a keyboard, they then start to function like a notebook. If we look ahead, Cisco Cius, Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Avaya are not your traditional PC vendors. But more and more vendors are entering the fray and there is no stopping here. The degree of PC cannibalization will be driven by the strengths and interests of the following:
- Suppliers: some processor manufacturer will be interested to have the Tablet market grow
- New Entrants: data networking, phone companies, operators for 3/4G traffic utilization
- Substitute: apps, cloud, input VS consumption
- Customers: consumers appeal, businesses security
Cannibalization to some degree will take place and perhaps the functional substitution area is one we need to look at to determine probable size – i.e. what current functions done by PCs can be substituted by tablet PCs?
Tavishi Agrawal
Techaisle
Microsoft’s recent announcement regarding their intention to compete with iPads and other Android based devices signals a fast acceptance of tablets becoming popular with individual and business users alike. Microsoft is not new to this market having made their first tablet/slate PC related announcements almost ten years ago when Bill Gates was still at the helm. However, over that time period, Microsoft was not able to convince PC OEMs to develop these new form factors (Fujitsu and Toshiba being the exception). Major US OEMs like HP only made a half hearted attempt to develop these new devices. The reason – Microsoft tried to push the same Windows OS on to different form factors thereby offering no additional incentive to buyers to adopt tablets. Most technology pundits have focused on the fact that Microsoft is late to market with these devices and that their stranglehold on the computing market is at risk because they risk losing consumers and ISVs to alternative operating systems such as iOS and Android. This is true and well discussed so I won’t rehash that topic in this post.
What Microsoft failed to recognize was that the tablet user experience is fundamentally different than a traditional PC. It’s not just about consuming media on a different device but rather how a user interacts with different types of software. When user interaction shifts to a different paradigm – in this case Touch /Multi-touch, the entire user experience changes. That demands a complete re-thinking of user interface design so as to make the interaction efficient and productive. I believe this to be THE key impact of tablets on personal computing. The reason iPads and Androids are succeeding is because the applications running on these devices have been written from the ground up to take this issue into consideration. I believe the growth of touch devices will challenge the long held beliefs of usability but more importantly will force ISVs to think radically about informationinput paradigms that have existed for centuries. Consider a simple task of entering data into a spreadsheet cell. Currently, the norm is to pop up a full keyboard for entering data which takes away screen real estate; this is not optimal particularly on a small device. Similarly, commonly used applications that involve form filling also fail to adequately address input and interaction issues today. For ISVs, their next generation of products will have to find a competitive edge in ease of use which I believe will take on more importance among individuals when buying products and software solutions.
Abhijeet Rane
Techaisle
