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10 mobility trends inspiring and scaring the channel

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Mobile-minded

Mobility and mobile device technologies are effecting significant change in the industry, both in how enterprise business customers want to buy and how solution providers and integrators need to sell. Here are 10 trends no mobile-leaning solution provider can fail to understand.

The Apple effect/consumerisation

The storming success of Apple's iPad has changed the way both consumers and businesses think about tablet computing, and the ecosystem of devices and support specific to the iPad and iOS platform represents both an opportunity and threat for solution providers. IT industry experts have warned resellers to be wary of how the iPad and other devices that might be described as consumer-centric are quickly invading retail and other specialised vertical markets.

Infrastructure/management

Solution providers that don't look at some aspect of mobile infrastructure - the products, services and software that allow users more productive and efficient use of their various mobile devices -- are missing a real channel opportunity, and that doesn't mean the selling of the actual devices, Mike Baur, CEO of distributor ScanSource told CRN. "I had a partner say to me that he isn't selling the iPad, but what he is doing is selling software to the beverage manufacturers to assist inventory management at restaurants," Baur said. "The restaurants themselves are buying iPads, but there has to be a way to link that and to use and manage the [mobile] data. Our channel makes nothing on an iPad, and makes a lot on what else can we surround the iPad with."

Mobile apps

Resellers need at least a basic, application-centric practice relevant to mobile devices, whether it be custom app development or app integration. "A lot of them don't do app dev, but we expect them to start to do more of it," ScanSource's Bauer said. ScanSource, for example, has a specific resource called AppSource, an online library of "off the shelf" mobile data applications partners can customize, configure and test out.

M2M

Solution providers need a fundamental understanding of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and how customers' infrastructure requirements, going forward, will require addressing both attended and unattended devices. That means everything from automobile telematics - in which technology monitors cars and can communicate things such as when oil needs to be changed - to refrigerators with IP addresses and RFID tags on livestock that can communicate, say, the last time a farm cow was milked.

Mobile POS

Mobile point-of-sale and payment systems are exploding, with increasing interest in mobile payment technologies like Square. The recent decision by Starbucks, for example, to adopt Square in more than 7000 Starbucks locations in the US means that the move by retailers to replace cash and traditional POS systems with mobile payment technology is a very real one.

New vendors

The emergence of companies like Square into the POS and mobile infrastructure segments hits on another truth about mobility: It means there are a host of new vendors for solution providers to attempt to work with or around - and that they'll encounter established vendors in unexpectedly new ways, particularly with technologies like near-field communications (NFC) coming to the fore.

Mobile UC/video

Customer expectations of unified communications have evolved to a point where access to enterprise-grade UC functions, from voice and presence to video, need be available anywhere, from any enabled device. That means mobile UC solutions have to go beyond basic fixed-mobile extension technologies. In fact, UC and video overall have to be a seamless, integrated offering from which partners can build service and enhance the end-user experience, said Tracey Newell (pictured), executive vice president of global sales at Polycom. "The world is converging, and we've got to think of it as the end user does, so we have to think of it as a nontechnical person, and they expect to meet face to face," she said. "It has to be that easy."

Mobile security

Mobile security, physical security and surveillance are fast-growing markets. Customers are looking at physical surveillance and IP video as part of an overall infrastructure solution that includes not only security for mobile devices and networking but also the ability to access and manage those video assets from mobile devices.

Big data and cloud

There's no question that two of the other major trends in the industry have big impact on mobility and mobile technologies. Big data, for businesses, means better analytics and more efficient management of huge volumes of data. And as for cloud, mobility is an even bigger headache for IT departments than cloud is, but the two trends inform each other.

Android

Amidst all the talk of Apple this and iOS that, you can't forget about Google Android as a market force. In the automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) market, for example, particularly for rugged mobile computers, the growth of Windows Mobile as a platform is flat, whereas Android-based devices are on a steady growth curve. The Windows impact lessening -- Microsoft has no announced plans past version 6.5 -- so solution providers in the space need a better understanding of the Android ecosystem.

Mobile-minded

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10 mobility trends inspiring and scaring the channel

Upcoming hot topics to learn about.

Mobile-minded

The Apple effect/consumerisation

Infrastructure/management

Mobile apps

M2M

Mobile POS

New vendors

Mobile UC/video

Mobile security

Big data and cloud

Android

Mobile-minded

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