With so much noise surrounding the sheer number of applications in Apple’s App Store, as well as the ramping of content on Android Market, it has been refreshing to hear more from RIM recently about quality not quantity of applications.

To get this message across, RIM announced the concept of “Super Apps”. Although I am not especially keen on the name, it was absolutely necessary to look at how people use applications and how they should be integrated into the operating environment to offer the richest, most complete user experience, that sits squarely with RIM’s philosophy of offering the richest most integrated user experience available.

Which of course leads to the question “what is a super app?”. According to RIM, a super app must:

1. Offer an “Always-on” Experience: BlackBerry OS allows multitasking, with the idea that a super app can run in the background and even start up automatically with no user action required. This allows for much of the apps work to happen seamlessly, without an app chugging away in the foreground.
2. Tight Integration with Native Apps: The key to the BlackBerry experience is the simplicity, especially core functions such as inbox, calendar, address book, phone as well as camera and browser. RIM’s API frameworks allow developers to include menu/drop-down items into these core functions, reducing the need to constantly switch between applications, integrating seamlessly with the native app experience
3. Proactive and Notification-driven: RIM’s push infrastructure allows for apps to proactively  notify a user of the right information at the right time. They can notify the user in many ways when a certain event occurs or relevant data arrives to the device
4. Highly Contextualized: Utilising RIM’s location APIs allows for app development that is relevant and contextual utilising not only GPS, but cell site location and geo-coding as well as deeply integrated.
5. Social and Connected Allows for integration of third party apps into the email, SMS, MMS or chat clients to enable users to share content from your apps with others in their address book
6. Designed for Efficiency: A core part of RIM’s ethos is efficiency, offered through and end-to-end architecture that is optimized for “always-on environments”. Super Apps should be built with efficiency and scalability in mind.

In many ways, super apps highlight how RIM has opened up more APIs and services, as well as improving tooling resources for developers. The new services go much deeper than before, and offer major opportunities to integrate apps with native functions (such as the email inbox), as well as with payment and advertising functions among others.

It has already been shown how users will pay for richer, more deeply integrated applications: iPhone Users Install Most Applications but BlackBerry Owners Pay for More

Mobile enterprise applications will also benefit dramatically from the deep integration into core functions and resolve the major issues of certain types of applications (especially CRM) behaving “in an offline state”. Oracle demonstrated how healthcare workflow applications can benefit from this level of integration on a BlackBerry, and the results were impressive.

Ultimately, it is about time another OEM (Nokia excluded) started talking about rich, deeply integrated experiences, rather than focusing on sheer app volumes in “app silos”. Surely one deeply integrated, rich application that is genuinely useful holds sway over 200 apps that lack any rich integration whatsoever?

Andrew Brown

With the ever intensifying app war out in the smartphone marketplace, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has upped the ante by offering a new push service for BlackBerry software developers to enable rapid delivery of application-content to BlackBerry smartphones. It’s no secret that RIM has a market leading user experience for mobile push email, underpinned by it’s “ground-up for wireless” network architecture, but finally RIM is taking the game to Apple and Android developers where all the noise is being made, by leveraging its network operations centre (NOC).

Push applications are not new to the BlackBerry, but access to the required BlackBerry APIs and other resources was costly in the past and the necessary fees were prohibitive to many application developers. It seems as though access to APIs in version 5 of the handheld software is going to be a game changer.

The push service is being made available in two tiers:

• BlackBerry Push Essentials is a free service while
• BlackBerry Push Plus has a free tier and paid tiers, but essentially allows a host of monitoring and scheduling tools as well as offering pricing tiers for very high push notification loads (10,000+)

Developers are required to meet some baseline criteria

• Applications must provide a one-time message to indicate push usage to the user
• Software must indicate higher data pricing when roaming and that users should check with their carrier for data pricing
• Apps must allow users to switch pushes on or off
• Users must be able to remove the app and/or change BlackBerry smartphones

RIM is bullish about the offering, which it describes as: “…unlike alternative push solutions that can only notify users that new content is available for download because of push message size limitations, with the BlackBerry Push Service, full content (up to an industry-leading 8KB in size) is pushed to the device and made immediately available for use."

I’m excited by this announcement. As expected, most of the focus has been on consumer content, especially news, stocks and sports, but the real value is in how this changes, or rather enhances the BlackBerry user experience. RIM’s architecture facilitates "listening" for content updates, instead of having to initiate what can be lengthy processes via comparable mobile app push services. The service will run on BIS and BES and will put itself in a strong position for business applications, by bringing updates to the user, rather than a user foraging for information. There are already some solid examples of push app technology, from patient information in healthcare and sales force automation to emergency response.

Competition is fierce, and the number of personal liable devices forcing their way into businesses will keep growing. With BESX RIM is allowing IT departments and administrators to “bend without breaking” while this announcement sees RIM really starting to extract maximum value from its architecture, which will allow the company to differentiate itself from competition. RIM is now effectively placing itself both in the minds of consumers and businesses.

Andrew Brown

The smartphone market just took another surprising turn in a year where the battleground around mobile operating systems has become more intense than it has ever been, as HP acquired Palm for $1.2 Billion.

It has been well documented that Palm’s innovative WebOS has struggled to gain a sufficient foothold in the market, and sell-through has lagged because carrier promotion has been limited. Recently Palm has essentially been shipping a 6 month old device  with limited differentiation along with suffering from mounting channel inventory issues at key carriers such as Verizon and Sprint. Outside North America, sales have also been significantly lower than expected.

While both companies had a proud history in the PDA market (including the iconic Palm V and iPaq), both companies have struggled to gain a serious foothold in the smartphone market.

 

 

Whilst $1.2B seems a high price on the face of it, there is clearly and  it makes sense as there are clear synergies, and almost as importantly, a cultural fit, with various ex-Palm employees such as Todd Bradley and Satjiv Chahil present in HP’s PSG team.

• HP lacks presence and a clear direction in its smartphone business. The acquisition of Palm offers great mobile operating system IP as well as product development. It builds out the missing mobile part of the HP jigsaw.
• Palm lacks the channel distribution, efficient supply chain and reach. It lacked the funds to accelerate its product launches and refresh cycles. HP offers Palm the ability to resolve these issues and extend its reach in carrier channels, as well as opening up new channel opportunities.
• HP has spent years optimizing its supply chain capabilities, something that Palm has found a constant challenge.
• HP could potentially be acquiring Palm as a proactive move to prevent competitors getting hold of valuable IP in WebOS. It also warns competitors away from attacking Palm with patent infringements.
• The move would allow HP will offer the valuable WebOS to licensees, potentially creating a rival to Android? Palm’s perceived value is more closely linked to its software and platform development than specifically to its devices. Under one parent, platform fragmentation could be kept to a minimum. It is unclear if there is an intention to take this path at the moment.
• HP could potentially be acquiring Palm as a proactive move to prevent competitors getting hold of valuable IP in WebOS. It also warns competitors away from attacking Palm with patent infringements.
• The acquisition offers HP the ability to scale, WebOS for an emerging tablet and larger device business, where it is a leader and where Microsoft’s Windows Operating System is not the answer.
• The forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series looks likely to offer little in the way of customisation for mobile operators. Clearly the acquisition of Palm allows HP to put something differentiated into the market.
• HP now has a mobile piece with which to integrate its enterprise software offerings and target the mobile worker, supported by its global services business.

More details of the deal will obviously emerge in the coming days, but what is certain is that HP will increase investment in WebOS, which it perceives to be the leading mobile platform which will offer a serious and credible mobile string to the bow of a formidable, global, tech giant. Interesting (and competitive) times for the mobile devices market indeed!

Andrew Brown

After much excitement and expectation, Microsoft finally unleashed its “Tron-like” Windows Phone 7 Series Operating System on the world at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (the term series apparently refers to the phones that will be announced throughout the year, not a variety of OS flavours as in the past).

What is immediately apparent is the look and feel. The main takeaway is that the phone is of secondary importance, with all the focus on the interface. The design and layout of 7 Series' UI (internally called Metro) is original, utilizing what lead project designer(Albert Shum, formerly of Nike) called an "authentically digital" and "chrome-less" experience. Microsoft has been praised for moving away from the stamping its PC legacy all over the OS as in the past, with only a single hardware button indicating it’s a Windows Phone at all.

First impressions are positive-the simplicity leaves the user feeling that the OS is fast and responsive, but there are nagging doubts surrounding what Microsoft has stripped out to make this OS snappy-and clearly the OS won’t be compatible with earlier phones given the high specs that Microsoft will demand of its OEM partners.

The new system, centres on "hubs" designed for specific tasks. For example, Windows Mobile 7 Series' People Hub aggregates social networking and email contacts, from Facebook, Windows Live, and webmail accounts among others, enabling the user to interact with their friends across multiple media through a single application."

Microsoft’s launch has been slick and polished-with the fickle majority now saying that the death of Microsoft’s mobile business has been greatly exaggerated.

 

Certainly the key features are all core consumer in nature: Zune integration and XBox Live integration as well as social networking integration for popular sites such as Facebook. Enterprise is still catered for, but less detail was forthcoming outside the “Office Hub”that was announced. It has been suggested that many non-business users that bought a Windows Mobile phone in the past had no idea who manufactured the phone. However, OEMs aligned with the WP7S launch may see their brand stand out more with an OS that is less obviously has “this is a Windows Phone” stamped all over the UI.

Nevertheless, questions remain:

• Lack of clarity on hardware OEM reference designs
• No surprises in OEM partner line-up (does this really mean a chance for Dell and HP to get into this market-I’m not sure)
• Lack of detail on .net CF framework (core for development and enterprise) and what functionality has been stripped out to sharpen OS responsiveness.
• Backwards compatibility and multitasking
• Business Integration with UC and the Cloud: Azure and OCS

What is clear is that a Microsoft mobile OS will finally sit in a (hopefully) compelling set of devices to go up against Android, Symbian and the new iPhone for the Q4 holiday season. For enterprises, if precious little plumbing has been stripped from the OS, then this could be a very interesting platform for business as well.

Andrew Brown

Recently a number of statistics have been thrown into the enterprise cloud computing debate. Some suggest that 20% of companies will forsake all IT assets and utilise cloud services only. This is a very bold prediction to put it mildly. It is true that over 95% of companies globally are SMEs (over 99% in the EU27) and that cloud computing meets many of their needs at face value, but digging deeper the future of cloud computing in business is infinitely more complex…., and frankly, well, cloudy.

If enterprises do adopt cloud computing, it will likely take the form of private or hybrid clouds.

Despite many companies relaxing their demands of just over 5 minutes of unscheduled downtime per YEAR, it is clear that there is a demand for SLAs by companies for cloud providers, and positioning public cloud services for true enterprise ready adoption is not really feasible. Google’s association with public cloud services, for example, may well limit its attempt to penetrate vertical markets like government (Is Android Well Placed for Google's Enterprise Ambitions?), despite limited success to date with Google Apps.

Alliances are already forming to offer private or hybrid services that match the same level of service as in-house IT. For example, the Microsoft-HP alliance is a great example that presents mutually beneficial offerings to both vendors (HP sells Microsoft optimized servers for SQL Server etc and gets its servers into Microsoft’s Azure cloud),  while Cisco, EMC and VMware have also teamed up to offer a cloud infrastructure. Fundamentally, it's about joining forces to sell the hardware and software that will comprise private clouds. Ultimately, though, many of these IT megavendors are complimenting their latest and greatest on-premise solutions with a cloud offering.

The reality remains that many businesses are still wary of cloud computing. Despite some enterprises becoming more comfortable with the Cloud (such as Panasonic’s shift of 300,000 users to Lotus Live) 

Beyond the lack of control and latency are issues of cyber attacks, which can leave companies very vulnerable. The recent attack on Google shows that there are windows into datacenters and in the cloud, a company is only as secure as its weakest link.

While there is a clear desire to slash CapEx, IT spending is set to grow by 4%-5% in 2010, and surveys from companies such as Symantec suggest that cloud computing is far down the list of priorities for spending in 2010 below security, backup and recovery and continuous data protection, essentially core compliance and governance issues.

Enterprise cloud computing is growing fast, but it will be a slower journey than many are predicting.

Andrew Brown

The hype and excitement surrounding the Android platform has intensified with the recent release of Google's own handset running the OS, Nexus One. Offering high levels of user-customisation, social networking integration and a 'desktop-like' mobile browsing experience, the device is very attractive to consumers...but is the operating system anywhere close to ready for the Enterprise? Leaving aside the iPhone effect (consumer desire to use their own smartphones within a company) and the need for corporate devices to have some kind of roadmap (RIM BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices offer this to business via carriers), there are still a baseline set of criteria that a platform should meet: An 'Enterprise-ready' operating system should offer the features required by a mobile user as well as conform to the security policy defined by the IT department: Features

• Wireless access to corporate email (usually Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange), contacts and calendar information, ideally updated via 'push' with no user-interaction required. All information exchanges between the device and the server should be secure. Access should preferably be available via both cellular and WiFi connections.
• Support for Virtual Private Networking (VPN) infrastructure enabling access to internal corporate applications and network resources
• Corporate IP PBX support providing free calls over WiFi when in the office between internal extensions, and landline-to-landline call charges for landline numbers.

Corporate Email: At the time of writing, only Android 2.1 features native Exchange support, although only the Nexus One features this version of the OS. HTC-branded Android devices such as the Hero and the Tattoo both already feature HTC's own Exchange client which supports full mailbox synchronisation including subfolders as well as contact-lookup and out of office support. Other third party applications such as Moxier Mail, Nitrodesk's Touchdown and Dataviz's RoadSync are all Exchange ActiveSync licensees, that support baseline Exchange policies VPN support - Android 1.6 (Donut) brought with it support for Virtual Private Networks, including PPTP, L2TP and IPSec protocols as well as certificate authentication. IP PBX/VoIP Support: SIPdroid is a free-to-use VoIP client for the Android platform that can be used to interface with any IP PBX that supports the SIP standard. Security Naturally there are perils to and open source operating systems (besides fragmentation), such as the ability to freely manipulate and exploit vulnerabilities in the platform. How does Android stack-up here?

• Application-sandboxing: In Android all applications must state what hardware resources and file locations they require access to, and only those areas will be permitted by the operating system. It is not possible to alter these once installed without at least requiring approval by the user. This approval is requested during the initial installation and can be viewed at any point within the Applications setting menu.
• Remote Device Wipe - Although part of the Exchange ActiveSync protocol, it is not currently supported on the HTC Exchange client. This is on the roadmap for HTC Exchange 2.0. A third party Exchange ActgiveSync solution would be required to enable this functionality. Any device marked for wipe from the Exchange server will not be able to synchronise any new information, but any information held on that device will not be erased.
• password Usage - It is not possible to enforce use of a password on the Android platform using the Exchange ActiveSync policy without a third party application. Again, this is on the roadmap for HTC Exchange 2.0 However it is worth noting that Android does support the use of hand gestures as a form of unlocking a device, rather than an alphanumeric password:
• Corporate Usage Policy - It is not possible to remotely enable or disable hardware or software elements on the Android platform at this point, neither does the OS support on-device encryption. However, companies such as Sybase support the Android platform http://www.sybase.co.uk/detail?id=1064587

All in all, Android is nowhere near mature enough yet for a typical business to support Android as a credible platform. Third party providers may be offering the “plumbing”, but there are still a lack of basic enterprise functionality (policy support, password, remote wipe) to make it a credible choice…yet! Andrew Brown