Management software usher in a mobile storm

Do not simply think that the mobile device as an application terminal is the management of mobile software. Mobile Internet has spawned a lot of new applications different from the past, and mobile applications even lead to changes in the management software market. Management software has ushered in a mobile storm. The veteran manufacturers are gearing up to make changes. The newly challenged ambassadors are ambitious. A contest involving strategic vision, technology platform, application innovation and financial strength has started.

Mobile Internet has undoubtedly become the current IT industry, one of the biggest hot spots. Among the top 10 2014 technologies and trends released by Gartner in 2014, there are three mobile-related technologies: the diversity and management of mobile devices, mobile apps and applications, and the Internet that connects everything. In a separate report, Gartner predicts that mobile CRM applications will grow by 500% in 2014.

Undoubtedly, Mobility has become a hot spot in management software in 2014.

Speaking from a high-priced acquisition

SAP premium acquisition of Sybase, can be described as a milestone in the wave of management software mobility.

In May 2010, SAP changed the image of conservative and steady development and announced the acquisition of Sybase at a cost of $ 5.8 billion with a 56% premium to accelerate the deployment of mobile services and help customers to achieve better wireless applications. At that time, in most people's concepts, the so-called mobile application was the use of mobile devices as management software. Just spent heavily to achieve this "simple goal", many people secretly feel worthless for SAP.

But today it seems that many people at the time underestimated the value of Sybase Mobile Development Platform. In an interview with China Computer News on May 29, Rick Costanzo, executive vice president and general manager of SAP Global Mobility Solutions, said: "That was a very worthwhile acquisition." Gartner's Global Mobility, launched in August 2013, In the Magic Quadrant for Application Development Platform, SAP is included in the Leader quadrant. SAP's current mobile application development platform, SAP Mobile Platform (SMP), is a combination of three mobile development platforms, two of which are derived from Sybase.

SAP had planned to increase the number of users to 1 billion by 2015. In 2013, SAP again proposed a transition from B2B software companies to B2B2C software companies, aiming to become a leading B2B2C company. To achieve these goals, mobile applications will play an integral role.

In our country, enterprises have been actively embracing the trend of mobile, mobile application has become a major hot spot of enterprise information construction. Recently, CA Technologies commissioned the investigation agency's global survey report "Scientific Insight: Enterprise Mobility - Application as the King" shows that: Chinese enterprises to promote mobile strategy faster than other countries except the United States in the mobile Overall IT spending will increase by 1/3 in the next three years; 95% of respondents have already deployed or plan to deploy enterprise mobility strategy in one year; Chinese enterprises that have successfully adopted the mobile measures are increasing revenues and shortening products Time to market, improve competitiveness, improve customer experience, improve employee productivity and reduce costs have increased by 12 to 18 percentage points.

Far beyond the terminal extension

Reporters interviewed some CIO found that many CIOs think mobile applications are the most immediate effect of the application. This is partly because the mobile terminal can bring the convenient office experience anytime and anywhere to rapidly enhance the benefits. On the other hand, the enterprise leaders including the top leaders can understand the benefits brought by the mobile application and can effectively promote the corresponding project.

In China, the field of enterprise-wide mobile applications is probably the most extensive field of OA is probably the field of OA, this is because mobile devices can be used as an OA system extension terminal to facilitate leadership in the business trip, meetings and other office not in the office for approval and other office operations. Therefore, the current OA products in China are basically strong or weak with mobile capabilities.

However, if the key value of mobile applications is to extend the reach of traditional management software applications, it is too out of date. Zheng Yulin, senior vice president of UFIDA believes that mobile applications on the one hand is an extension of the original management software applications, on the other hand expanded the management software application scenarios, and innovative business applications. The more attractive mobile applications today are innovative applications that are hard to come by traditional management software with the help of mobile features. For example, take full advantage of mobile positioning and more.

As early as around 2010, when communicating with Xie Guangjun, director of the Yanjing Beer Information Center, the reporter put forward his hope that the sales staff of Yanjing Beer could be managed with mobile devices. Xie Guangjun this application needs, and UF Upp introduced Mobile Shop Management is very similar. It is reported that the mobile tour management is mainly for business tour shop clerk, to provide patrol shop scene collection, inventory collection, storefront situation collection, competing product acquisition and salesman operations control and other functions.

Innovative applications that combine mobile apps with big data platforms are even more refreshing. According to Rick Costanzo, mobile applications can not stand alone, and they can really bring value in close cooperation with technologies such as cloud computing and big data.

Montreal, Canada, the public transport system (STM) is one of North America's largest public transport system, has suffered the loss of passengers, the downturn in revenue. STM changed this situation by working with SAP on customer loyalty programs and developing innovative mobile applications called STM Merci. STM collects about 1.3 million passengers' preferences and merchant information along the way each day, and enters into agreements with willing businesses along the way to provide discounts to passengers who shop and consume while passing businesses. STM Merci fully applied cloud, big data, analytics and mobile applications to analyze the above information. With this app, STM Merci gives him the push to get promotions as they pass by merchants that match their preferences. In this way, a win-win situation has been reached: merchants along the way get a good promotion path; STM improves the passenger's stickiness, stabilizes and even increases the business income, but also charges a certain fee from the merchants along the route; SAP as a mobile application Of providers, to meet the needs of customers, but also access to business benefits.

A case of mobile applications in the transportation industry at Oracle is also closely integrated with big data applications. Using the SFSPA mobile app from Oracle SOA Foundation, the San Francisco Department of Transportation reintegrated parking patterns with real-time data and demand-based pricing mechanisms and integrated it with Oracle SOA Suite to make it easy for citizens to find over 8,000 parking spaces.

The combination of mobile and big data has also been well established in the sports industry, making SAP the sports and media industry the 25th vertical. In these industries, with the help of mobile applications, management software applications can be closely integrated with consumers to help them improve their services and business opportunities. NBA, F1 McLaren, San Francisco Gold Rush football team so have become SAP users.

For example, SAP through the HANA platform to help NBA extract useful information from the historical big data, providing viewers with real-time services, so that stadium visitors and television viewers can get the analysis data. For another example, the San Francisco Gold Rugby Football Team, through its partnership with SAP, allows the spectator to enjoy intelligent services within its ultramodern gymnasium: not only direct snacks in the seats, but also real-time insight into event analysis data on smartphones .

Quadrant diagram

Important strategies that can not be ignored

In this context, management software vendors may not be the "mobile priority" as an important strategy. Many people think that mobility may change the management software market structure, if you can not keep up with the wave of mobility, the old management software vendors are likely to be out; and some new beach-goers if you seize this opportunity, or can be based on the market .

SAP

Beginning with the acquisition of Sybase, SAP has emphasized and laid out a mobile strategy earlier in the traditional management software industry. After the acquisition of Sybase, SAP also acquired Ariba, a mobile device management platform provider, and Syclo, a provider of enterprise mobile applications, to further refine its mobile strategy. Today, SAP has integrated Sybase's mobile development platforms SUP and Mobiliser, as well as Syclo's Agentry, to create a powerful mobile development platform, SAP Mobile Platform (SMP), and build and improve a mobile ecosystem. In 2013, SAP formed the Partner Innovation Center for HANA and SMP platforms.

Over the past few years, SAP has been memory computing, cloud computing, mobile applications as its strategic technology, SAP Technology Conference held this year, D-CODE rarely mentioned mobile applications. In response, Shi Wei-xue, now a member of the executive board of SAP and head of product and innovation, explained that the concept of mobile apps is now relatively mature and widely accepted. Mobile apps are ubiquitous and there is no need to make mobile apps an independent topic To emphasize.

Oracle

Oracle, which has been heavily integrated in the management software space, recently started talking about mobile applications. Oracle Greater China middleware technology consulting senior director Lin Yifei has said that as the IT market, enterprise application solutions provider, Oracle will not let go of enterprise mobility in the booming market, Oracle has been in support of enterprise mobility has been Have a complete solution.

UF software

As China's leading local management software boss, UF software from 2003 began to focus on mobile applications. Zheng Yulin pointed out that UFIDA has been closely following the technological progress, focusing on market and user needs, providing mobile application services: in 2003, UF started to do SMS platform; 2007, WAP application platform launched; 2010, launched mobile application platform; 2012 Year, UAP mobile application platform (UAP Mobile) 1.0; now, UAP Mobile has developed to version 2.1. Today, UFIDA responsible for enterprise computing platform and a new generation of computing platform research and development UF UF center in the UF move strategy plays an important role. UF UF Center UF mobile strategy based on the progress of continuous improvement UAP Mobile platform for UF high-end, mid-range mobile strategy to provide support.

UF Software separately for the high-end, mid-range and low-end product launch market-specific mobile strategy.

In the high-end market, UAP mobile application platform is the basis of UF's mobile strategy. Users can buy all kinds of mobile applications provided by UF, UF Mobile UF Mobile platform can also be based on their needs quickly and agile development of mobile applications.

In the mid-market, UF UF newly established this year, the positioning is to become "a mobile Internet with the traditional ERP software management" provider. UF UPR company president pointed out to Qihan: "UF Upp's mission is to become a leader in enterprise applications in the Internet age, to be more focused and professional, with the help of mobile Internet and cloud services to help enterprises embrace the wave of mobile Internet, Business model, management mode and business model innovation. "It is reported that UF UPR breakthrough in two aspects: First, based on the original management software to increase R & D investment in mobile Internet; Second, innovative business model. UF UPR mainly provides various types of standardized higher-level mobile application services for medium-sized enterprise groups as well as mobile application operation services such as billing management for mobile applications and mobile application support services. At present, UF Uop has to provide dozens of mobile applications related to office, approval and business services to customers.

In the low-end market, the CSP platform, which has been basically completed and completed, is a platform completely reconstructed by Chang Jie through mobile Internet technology. CSP platform in product development focuses on two aspects: First, to enhance the user experience, to the more simple and easy to use direction; Second, combined with customers in the Internet, mobile Internet age business model, management mode, work patterns change to strengthen the mobile, Social collaboration, e-commerce management features.

Kingdee software

Kingdee Group is also setting off a vigorous wave of mobile applications. Recently, Xu Shaochun, Chairman and CEO of Kingdee International Software Group, has determined to move a laptop into the trash to mobilize Kingdee in front of many media outlets. Kingdee proposed "dual-core drive to accelerate the transition to the mobile Internet" strategy. Among them, dual-core refers to the ERP and user experience. Kingdee hopes to grasp the continued rapid growth of mobile Internet and accelerate the transformation of ERP business so as to leveraging a larger enterprise IT market.

Although Kingdee seldom emphasizes mobile applications in the field of traditional management software, the reporter saw from Kingdee's official website that Kingdee has launched a series of applications covering EAS application, K / 3 Cloud application, K / 3 WISE application, real estate application, collaborative application, KBI Key Performance Indicators) Kingdee Mobile Applications Including HR Applications.

Market structure is changing

Many start-up companies with the concept of mobile Internet in the already relatively stable management software market wavering flag, hoping to win a place. PeopleSoft Interactive, founded in 2011, is one of them.

The core product of PeopleSoft Interactive Mobile CRM sales is easy. The product is based on the trend of mobile application and socialization of management software. It is a new generation of mobile Internet CRM that integrates customer management, sales management and sales support through the complete reconstruction of CRM by means of mobile Internet, social networking and cloud computing. Shi Yanze, the founder of PeopleSoft, said sales can easily rebuild CRM by using advanced mobile, social and cloud computing technologies to subvert the design and experience of traditional CRM processes and forms. Instead, they are really focusing on "people" (salespeople) Integration of sales processes, sales knowledge base, teamwork and daily office and other core functions, based on the era of mobile Internet CRM applications. Now, the sale has gained the favor of many users, PeopleSoft Interactive has also been recognized by the capital market.

Fu Qiang UF Mobile Division general manager Fu Qiang think, not to mention the competitiveness of these new start-ups, which shows that mobility has been driving changes in the management software market structure, the increase in mobile Internet applications, traditional management software Manufacturers bring challenges.

Turning to the impact of mobility on the management software market, Zheng believes that the application of mobile Internet changes, in turn, to promote the management software and business operations management changes. If the management software companies can not provide support for this, it may be out of the market.

Xu Shaochun's attitude is very optimistic. In an interview with the media, he pointed out that the mobile Internet is a major development for Kingdee in the next major opportunity. He even believes that in the wave of mobile Internet, the next three to five years, the management software may appear as influential companies such as BAT.

Fu Qiang divides the mainstream competitors in the current mobile internet management software market into three categories: traditional management software vendors and cloud-based management software providers and operators on the e-commerce platform, which do not include new market entrants. Fu Qiang explained that only the front-end application of mobile solutions to meet the deep needs of users, mobile applications should be in-depth business, and the key advantage of UF lies in the accumulation of the number of users, as well as understanding of user business and needs.

Analysis on the Mobility Strategy of Several Major Manufacturers

Platform and the chain dispute

With the promotion of mobile applications and in-depth, the application of the key and difficult has changed. When talking about mobile applications a few years ago, the industry generally talked about how apps fit into a variety of different mobile devices and operating systems and how to secure data on mobile devices. Zhang Jianxin, general manager of UAP Mobile Application Platform Products Division at UFIDA, told reporters that it is not hard to meet these needs nowadays. The difficulty is how to make mobile applications change as needed and quickly develop applications according to business needs. Zheng believes that mobile applications are becoming diversified, lightweight and agile. They need a complete solution that includes platforms, management, and operations to support these capabilities and put higher demands on the capabilities of suppliers. Oracle Greater China middleware technology consulting senior director Lin Yifei also believes that mobile applications, mobile security, mobile platform is the mobile of the three most important factor and standpoint.

Building a technology-leading mobile development platform to become a consensus among management software vendors.

Rick Costanzo points out that companies are involved in the deployment of mobile applications, five key elements: security, applications, analysis, application development and information presentation. If an enterprise, especially a large enterprise, only considers a certain point or a few points when deploying a mobile application, they respectively adopt mobile applications provided by different vendors, and as the applications increase, they will face different needs provided by different vendors Application integration issues.

The powerful mobile development platform not only enables management software vendors to rapidly develop applications themselves, but also enables partners or users to easily and creatively develop innovative mobile applications on a platform-by-platform basis. Therefore, how to build and perfect the ecosystem based on the mobile development platform has also become a challenge for major manufacturers. This also makes the relevant software vendors pay more attention to open standards and open source software support.

With a strong mobile development platform, you have the future of mobile applications. The major manufacturers invariably to the construction of mobile development platform as the key to its mobile strategy.

At present, the SAPSMP platform is considered as a mature mobile development platform in the industry and its ecosystem is relatively perfect. Rick Costanzo told reporters that the newly released SMP 3.0 supports open source development tools, support for HTML 5, because more and more large companies want open source software. "The biggest advantage of HTML 5 is that it makes one development possible for all platforms." Rick Costanzo said that with the Kapsel component provided by SAP, users can add mobile applications developed on the other platforms based on HTML 5 to SMP and, like SMP Native applications are managed and upgraded in the same way. In his view, this is a big breakthrough for SMP, which allows users to easily migrate legacy applications. Some experts have analyzed that SMP 3.0 has chosen a more open and more standard technical architecture route than the previous version. In today's era of rapid development of mobile technology, SAP only has the option of supporting standards to achieve more long-term development. It is worth mentioning that, SAP also released HANA cloud-based SAP mobile platform in May 2013. Rick Costanzo believes this is yet another big plus for SMP because HANA's rapid analytics capabilities give mobile applications real-time, accurate access to information. Insiders analyzed that the advent of mobile platforms on the cloud has simplified the development, configuration, and release of mobile applications, and made possible end-to-end management of applications without having to install and maintain a platform server.

UF UAP Mobile, a mobile application platform with independent intellectual property rights, is an important part of UF's mobile strategy. It is reported that, UAP Mobile is a UF mobile application development and operation platform is a unified platform covering the entire life cycle of mobile application development, management, security, integration, etc., is to support Web, Hybrid and Native application types of mobile application platform that supports a wide range of Open, standardized and cross-platform capabilities. UF UAP mobile application platform based on one-time development of mobile applications, you can run on multiple terminals; support for offline, online hybrid applications, you can easily build applications such as Apple, Andrews and other applications. Zhang Jianxin pointed out that the difference between the UF UAP Mobile platform and the common hybrid application platform is that using the Web technology to develop the Native application provides the WYSIWYG development tools and uses a unified development language such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, etc., without having to master Java, C / C ++, C # Native mobile development technology, you can develop Native App, Hybird App, Web App. In addition, UFIDA partners for the platform ecosystem to provide developer community, platform training, development certification, partner support and other services, partners can make use of UF mobile application store, mobile application authentication service and UF win-win development.

Although Oracle can not be found in the Magic Quadrant for Gartner's mobile application development platform, Oracle is also committed to providing a powerful mobile platform. Oracle's mobile strategy is to provide customers with a powerful mobile platform on which customers can develop their own mobile applications or directly deploy Oracle's mobile software. It is reported that the combination of open, integrated and secure features of the Oracle mobile platform is an innovative platform built on the existing IT architecture of the enterprise. According to Oracle's information, Oracle can provide enterprise customers a large number of out-of-box mobile applications.

If you look to the mobile application development platform, then IBM is also a strong competitor can not be ignored. In March 2013, IBM unveiled its mobile strategy, set of analytic and application development software based on IBM Mobile Precedence in the global enterprise mobile market in March 2013. Based on cloud computing, IBM integrated the application development and delivery platform IBM Worklight, mobile terminal management Platform IBM Endpoint Manager, mobile analytics platform Tealeaf CX Mobile. In a new Gartner report, IBM is listed on the Leader quadrant with the Worklight mobile application development platform. (Qiu Yanna)