Thinking Out Loud..
Month
One of the best things about working in the information technology industry is… yes, the technology. I speak with the nagging sense of personal guilt which comes from being an IT professional who has succumbed to non-rational buying decisions – leading to simultaneous ownership of both a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and a laptop bag which just got a little bit heavier with the addition of an iPad.
I am not alone. Mobility is the buzzword of the day. The proliferation of appealing mobile devices, faster broadband, and cloud-based applications all conspire to add appeal and glamour to the ability to use technology any time, anywhere, free of the physical constraints of conventional networks.
Industry growth forecasts add fuel to the fire. Last year Cisco announced – with understandable enthusiasm – that based on its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Mobile forecast for 2006-2013 – global mobile data traffic will increase 66-fold by 2013 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 131 per cent over that period.
Gartner’s most recent forecast on global IT spending saw a reduction in year-on-year growth across the entire industry from 5.3 per cent to a forecast year-on-year growth of just 3.9 per cent. The reduced forecast is linked to the current Euro debt crisis. But at the same time, Gartner is forecasting 9.1 per cent growth in hardware fuelled by growing demand for mobile devices and PC upgrades linked to Windows 7.
Everyone wants to be mobile and many of us have been guilty of buying the latest mobile gadget without really thinking through just what the business benefits will be.
This is harmless enough on a personal level, but buying decisions at an organisational level must be underpinned by a hard-nosed understanding of the business benefits and a solid business case. The mobile device should come last in the decision sequence – post the establishment of the use case for the role and the actual applications to be mobilised, not first as is often the case. Deploying the right device to meet the use and business case requirements will often make or break the actual business case. Clear use cases, by role, need to be defined prior to embarking on enterprise mobile applications. Not every role has the same requirements for mobile application access.
I suggest a six-step plan to ensure that the horse is placed firmly in front of the cart when it comes to advising on and managing the implementation of organisation-wide mobility solutions.
The hype around mobility has been fuelled by the relatively uncontrolled nature of early deployments of mobile email – along with the proliferation of appealing devices – which have created the misperception within organisations that this creates a
foundation for mobile access to enterprise applications.
The reality is that mobile deployments need to be highly structured and carefully managed. As with all technology deployments, the business requirements have to be paramount and the cost benefits of mobile deployments need to be fully understood upfront. Mobility has strong business advantages but it also has the potential to pose serious risks if security and architecture issues are not identified and managed to a robust standard.
The bottom line is that mobility decisions have to be made without any emotional attachment to cool devices. Follow good process. A reality check after the fact will likely be one you won’t want to cash.
This post originally appeared in my column on http://www.insidesap.com.au
A great insight into a professional services firm using Social Media and how they are doing it in a Business to Business environment. Very encouraging…
A funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago in our organisation. Two years ago we started using yammer internally to communicate. Our business is primarily mobile based consultants. At the time we were using Blackberry’s as out smartphone of choice. Long story short adoption was woeful and it never really got going.
A month ago we re-platformed the business with iPhone 4s. Simultaneously we relaunched yammer internally using the iPhone app as a key selling point. Usage has exploded and we are now yammering internally with an entire new level of intra business communication going on.
I accept that a lot has happened in the last 24 months around people’s willgness to use social media applications but it just struck me that a decent UI really helps drive adoption.
Six weeks ago I announced that it was my intention to make use of my iPad only as I traveled over the Christmas and New-Year period. That involved a week working in the Oxygen Auckland office and then Whangamata and Ti Point as family destinations. The experience was interesting and despite a few frustrations along the way ultimately satisfactory. For someone who has religiously traveled with a laptop in the past in was in many ways a liberating experience.
Preparation
Prior to leaving Sydney I spent two days working from my own office in an attempt to make sure the whole thing was going to work. During this period I established two important things:
Based in and around the Auckland Office
I was able to use the native applications for most of the time but was forced to revert to using iTap to get back onto my own laptop when working with complicated spreadsheets, any PowerPoint files and when I needed to access quickly emails stored on our exchange server. The iPad mail client was just painfully slow at retrieving mail from folders that was not already synced over the air. Using iTap VGA out and the Bluetooth keyboard proved to be a relatively painless experience. In many ways it felt very similar to working directly on my own laptop. Printing during the period proved challenging and in the end it was easier to email the file to a colleague and have them complete any printing for me.
Summary… the fact that I was forced to regularly access iTap to get back to use my own laptop while I was based in the Auckland office indicates to me that iPad substitution in this environment was not altogether satisfactory and not a long term solution. The own real gain is in portability as you are still using a laptop or a Terminal Server client to access or work in a more natural way. Key misses in my workflow were around complex spreadsheets, deeper email functionality and PowerPoint file reads and edits. Would I do this again - NO
On Vacation
This is where the iPad really came into its own. During the holiday period the always-on nature of the SIM and WIFI connections meant I could always be in touch with the office if required. During the vacation period email traffic was lighter and the need to work with complex files reduced. I found myself checking emails and reviewing documents without needing to use iTap to access my own laptop.
Summary.. This is where the iPad exceled. Its portability and always-on nature made it a great travel companion. It had just enough functionality without requiring me to access iTap and connect back to my own laptop. Would I do this again - YES
The Applications I Used for Work Activities
During the six week period the iPad was given a thorough workout with the following applications, beyond the standard mail, contacts and calendar, well used:
The Hardware I Used
Over a long weekend and a few nights at home I was keen to catchup on the MadMen TV series, or at least figure out if I liked it.
As an Apple fanboy (self confessed but probably true) I was all ready to rent an Episode and see what whether I like it. Turns out that was harder than it could be and TV rentals via iTunes are not yet available in Australia. I ended up purchasing one episode and watching it. I liked it and will be looking for more.
In thinking more about it… I am convinced TV rentals like movie rentals are the way of the future. Do you really need to own it? Libraries seem to have worked well for eons - albeit it as a community service, but maybe the future of minimal/infrequent use content really is rental. The same logic probably doesn’t apply to my daughters Bob the Builder DVD. I would be a poor man if that was rental bases. I think their will be a tipping point where it make sense to own things you are going to watch more than say ¾ times and for everything else rentals are it.
Surely as we move more and more to the cloud all we want to know is that it’s available and if we want to access it their will be a small charge. Seems a whole lot easier than owning stuff we probably only watch once or twice anyway and then having to remember what we have and where it is.
As business confidence returns, CIOs are once again being asked to turn their focus to innovation and growth – rather than survival-oriented cost saving. Innovation is the latest topic I focus on in my InsideSAP article. You can read the full text here..
There are still those who laugh behind their hands at the whole greenie idea of sustainability. After all, in the real world when you’re focused on making budget for the next quarter, who has time to save the planet with a smaller carbon footprint?
Read the full story here.
In the last 100 days it has become clear that SAP has radically transformed itself and repositioned. For the first time in ages we are seeing a really clear product strategy based around; On Premise, On Demand and On Device all tied together with a clear orchestration program.
What’s also clear is that SAP are prepared to put significant investment behind it. This week’s proposed friendly acquisition of Sybase makes a statement and points to a real commitment to mobilising the enterprise. Streamwork and BI OnDemand in the On Demand product category also look to represent significant new opportunties to further extend the On Premise SAP paradigm into the cloud.
The next six month’s should be exciting - as this new strategy further evoles and as SAP ERP6 Enhancement Pack 5 ships for existing on premise ERP6 implementations we have a whole new world of possibilities and opportunties begining to emerge.
Recently I talked about process value and the face that not all business processes were created equal. Read the whole story on the Oxygen site here..
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