Here are a handful of partnerships, launches and momentum updates that show SAP’s seriousness about building a vibrant mobile ecosystem.

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I stalked the Mobile Campus of SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando on Monday, looking to shoot video of some of the most interesting enterprise apps on display. (more…)

It’s hard to impress me with statistics and factoids. I’m inundated by them all day, every day. But these new findings, courtesy of iPass’s latest Mobile Workforce Report, blew me away: (more…)

The old SAP would never have been able to deploy apps in a matter of weeks, either for customers (via its Rapid Deployment Solutions group) – or for itself. (more…)

The world needs another piece of tech jargon like I need a hole in my head. (more…)

Cleveland-based Safeguard Properties inspects and maintains more than a million foreclosed homes per month across the United States. It does so on behalf of their owners, primarily large banks and government agencies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (more…)

Who suffers more when an employee loses his or her unprotected iPad, the large enterprise or a small business? In absolute dollars, probably the big company. An executive or salesperson could have tens of thousands of confidential customer records worth hundreds of millions of dollars of business stored on a tablet or smartphone.

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Take this 100% un-serious quiz, excerpted from the Mobility Manifesto e-book, to see if your company is driving down Mobilization Road – or flying into the Danger Zone.

1. Do you have a smartphone or a tablet for work?
Yes, a smartphone. (+5)
Yes, a tablet. (+5)
Yes, both. (+10)
No, neither. (+1)

2. If smartphone, how smart is it?
It won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. (+5)
Smarter than your genius cousin. (+5)
Do you mean smart as in intelligent, or smart as in stylish? (+10)
Not smart. I need an upgrade. (+1)

3. Can you get your company e-mail on your device/s?
Of course. (+10)
Of course not. It’s against company policy. (+5)
(Ahem.) No. (+1)
Did someone tell you to ask me that? (-1)

4. And IT is aware of all this?
Yes. (+10)
What they don’t know won’t hurt them. (+1)
Hold on a sec while I go wake them up and ask. (-1)

5. Hypothetically speaking, if IT doesn’t know, what would they do if they found out?
Fire me. (-1)
Tighten down the screws on the company network. (+5)
Shrug. (+1)
Help me set it up the right way. (+10)

6. Can you access enterprise apps from your mobile device/s?
That’s what makes it/them so useful. (+10)
Ha! That’ll be the day. (+1)
If by “access” you mean “look at, like a child outside the window of a candy store” then yes. If you mean “actually use,” then no. (+5)
Again, did someone tell you to ask me this? (-1)

7. Who owns your device/s?
I do. (+10)
My company does. (+5)
Are you going to tell IT about the e-mail thing? (-1)

8. If you own it/them, does your company pick up any of the costs?
No, the cheapskates. (-1)
Yes, they cover some or all of the purchase price. (+1)
Yes, they cover some or all of the monthly service fee. (+5)
Yes, they pay for the whole enchilada. (+10)

9. If you own it, did you get to choose the device you wanted, or did you have to pick from a list?
My choice (+10)
Picked exactly what I wanted from a list. (+5)
Picked the least of several evils from a list. (+1)
I got what I wanted, and then pretended like
I didn’t know there was a list. (-1)

10. At your company, who can bring their own device?
No one. (+1)
Anyone with the chutzpah to flout official policy. (-1)
Just the suits. (+5)
Everybody: delivery truck drivers, CEO, admins. (+10)

11. How often do you have to change the password on your device/s?
Password protection is for wimps. (+1)
Whenever the things lock me out and force me to. (+10)
Never. I use the same PIN for my voicemail, ATM card and phone, and if I ever changed it, I’d be completely incapacitated. (+5)

12. Does your company have a mobile governance policy?
A what? (+1)
Yeah, but I’ve never read it. (+5)
Yes, I got a copy when IT set my phone and tablet up on the company mobile device management platform. (+10)

13. What does “remote wipe capability” mean?
Do not use that kind of language in the workplace! (+1)
When the touch screen gets really dirty, you can clean it from across the room? (+1)
I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with security. (+5)
IT can permanently erase everything on my phone if I lose it. (+10)

14. What’s an enterprise app store?
Beats me. (+1)
Someplace where I can download Angry Birds for free. (+5)
Is this a Star Trek reference? (-1)
That company web site where I download all the apps I need to do my job. (+10)

15. On a business trip, you leave your phone in a cab. You:
Swear. Loudly. (+1)
Threaten the dispatcher bodily harm if they can’t deliver it to you before your plane leaves. (-1)
Use Find My Phone to locate it. (+5)
Email IT from my tablet and tell them to lock it immediately. (+10)

16. From the following list, select all the places where you’ve done work from your mobile.
A coffeeshop. (+5)
The airport. (+5)
The beach. (+1)
In bed. And they wonder why we don’t use video chat. (+10)
The dog park. (+5)
My in-laws’. (+1)
The golf course. (+5)

17. Do you email, instant message or text your colleagues when you’re in the same room?
Never. Face-to-face interaction is always more satisfying. (+1)
You’re just mad that you can’t text as fast as me. (+5)
Just making sure everyone is included, and has conversations in writing for future reference. (+10)

18. When your device goes on the fritz, you:

“Accidentally” break it so you can get a new one on the company’s dime. (-1)
Turn it off and back on again, which usually clears up the problem. (+10)
Call help desk. They always help. (+5)
Call help desk over and over again until they show up at my desk, because they ignore me otherwise. (+1)

*************

Tally Your Score

Above 160: Exemplary
Your company is so hip to mobility, we’d like it to be our case study.

135 – 159: Ahead of the Pack
Pat your IT department on the back. It sounds like your CIO is plugged in, and making a concerted effort to support mobile workers, but there’s still some room for improvement.

90 – 134: Steady as She Goes
Your company is on Mobilization Road, but has a way to go to wring out full benefits. A governance policy is probably in order, as are the security and administration features available in mobile management software.

50 – 89: Lagging Behind
Scoring somewhere between Clueless and Draconian, your company needs to get with the program. Password protection, secure company email and allowing more devices are good places to start.

Under 50: Accident Waiting to Happen
Your company is operating in the Mobility Danger Zone. It’s time for IT to recognize that Denial is more than a river in Egypt, and that company data is already at risk.

———-

This article is excerpted from the Mobility Manifesto. Find similar pieces when you download the e-book by visiting www.MobilityManifesto.com.

I’m gonna knock you out. Mama said knock you out…Gartner just released its Magic Quadrant report (read the full report for free here) on the best Mobile Application Development Platforms. (more…)

Are laid-off investment bankers taking programming classes? They should be, now that salaries for enterprise mobile developers and architects are matching and exceeding Wall Street pay scales.

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Now I know what working at Apple must feel like.
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Apple’s stock price could bounce around anywhere between $300 and $1,000 over the next several weeks. I really have no idea. What I am certain, though, is that Apple’s Q3 earnings results announced Wednesday show Cupertino again blazing the trail into the mobile era.

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As it was in 2011, mobile enterprise buffs will have an overflowing buffet of great content to choose from at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW conference in Orlando.

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That startling statistic and prediction comes courtesy of Javelin Strategy & Research of Pleasanton, California.

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Did you ever lay awake at night pondering why the expression is “knowledge is power,” not “data is power”? Yeah, me neither. But then I started thinking about the press conference that SAP is holding tomorrow.

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Smartphones are vaunted for their ease of use. But that’s precisely why they can be so vulnerable to hacking software, as Micro Systemation’s XRY showed last us last Wednesday.

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(Updated April 20, 2012) I’ve aggregated, crunched and charted the public forecasts of the tech industry’s brightest analysts to see where they think the market for iPads, Amazon Kindle Fires and other Android tablets is headed.

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During the dot-com era, businesses were forced to march to a new, faster pace called Internet Time. In the post-PC era, Big Data + apps + mobile devices enable businesspeople to make decisions in real-time where ever they are. I propose we call this era, Mobile Time.

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iPads have been an incredible tool for salespeople. Companies like IBM, Genentech, General Mills and SAP have deployed thousands of iPads – and reaped the financial benefits.

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(List updated April 25 with: San Diego Unified School District (25,000), Rowan-Salisbury School District (7,000), US Air Force Special Operations Command (2,725); From March 15, 2012 with: Air France (5,000), San Diego Unified School District (20,000), Encinitas School District (1,200), Cathedral Catholic HS (1,810), and Chicago Public Schools (10,000). From March 5: Cisco (8,144 iPads), US Air Force (up to 18,000 iPads) and IBM (10,000 iPads) Back in June 2011, the WSJ had a fascinating article about one-hit wonder products like the Baby on Board sign and, more recently, Silly Bandz. That got me thinking: have the past three months proven that the iPad is no one-hit wonder?

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