Christmas at the Mobile Gourmet’s house was saved this year by the Roto-Rooter man. He rode in literally on Christmas morning to clear a main sewer line block due to cold pipes and other related ‘stuff.’ But what got interesting was when the tech completed the job. 

The tech, Willie, was a very nice and patient guy probably in his 50′s. In all likelihood he has seen it all in his line of work, but what seemed to challenge him the most was when the job was done and he had to close the job on his BlackBerry.  He sat in his van for probably 20 minutes carefully entering in data with the tip of his pen one key stroke at a time with reading glasses on. He had to refer to a paper list of service codes occasionally and periodically wait for the app to update and refresh. On occasion he said that he has had to wait as long as 30 minute for the app to make one single update, and he couldn’t do a thing about it but just wait.

Clearly there are benefits for the mobile app: real-time updates to the dispatching system, integrated billing with connectivity to a wireless credit card reader and printer, and enforced uniform data entry. However, for Willie he didn’t see the value for himself. He had been using the app for almost a year and still he was very deliberate and careful when entering in data, compared to when he simply did things on paper. Overall, the mobile app may be saving Roto-Rooter money or making them more money, but as he put it, he didn’t see the benefits in his paycheck.

What we have here is a classic case of disconnect between those who implement the app and those who use the app.  I’m not saying that all the techs are like Willie, but surely there are other techs – perhaps younger and more tech savvy – that still would find the app to be challenging. It’s obvious that a larger form factor like a tablet would be better and having the ability to enter in data without having to wait for real-time data synchronization or screen refreshes would be vastly more efficient. For someone like Willie, it seemed he would rather clean out the gnarliest pipe than deal with that mobile app.

So, the lesson for any of you implementing a mobile app is to include a cross section of users in the upfront design of your apps and follow up with periodic analysis of app usage in the field to continuously improve upon it. These concepts may seem obvious, but there are still plenty of companies and vendors that take short-cuts for the sake of getting the door our quickly or saving a few bucks. Mobility is a long-term investment in your business and you should treat it as such to ensure that your people are making the most of it.

∞

As I write this, I’m on a bus to DC traveling to see my family for Christmas. The bus is fully equipped with hi-speed wi-fi. We were checked in by a guy with a sophisticated mobile app on an iPad; ticketless and effortless. I look around and every other person is occupied with a mobile device of some sort – smartphone, iPod, Kindle, iPad or laptop. It’s hard to imagine the scene any other way, so accustomed am I to the technology.

The other night I watched a bit of an 80s movie, ‘The Woman in Red’ with Gene Wilder. The office scenes contained desks with no computers on them. People were using pay phones to communicate. It didn’t really seem that long ago, but 1984 looked like some quaint old-fashioned world. I haven’t sought out the original 1935 film with Barbara Stanwyck yet – but imagine that the biggest changes would be the fashion and the film being in black and white. The communications technology probably hadn’t changed all that much in those 50 years. The cordless phone might have just been coming on the scene. But imagine if someone were to remake the movie in 2034 – now what would THAT look like?

The acceleration of innovation on the communications front over the past decade is mind-boggling. Much of this innovation has been on the mobile front of course – and mobile technology, combined with the Internet is literally changing the way we live our lives. So I am going to throw my woolen hat in the ring on this predictions thing and thrown in a couple of ideas on where I believe things are headed. So here goes.

Content in the Cloud – I can see the day very soon when I will be comfortable with using most content – my music, apps, films, books, magazines — in the cloud. I will subscribe to a mobile service from my mobile operator or other service provider and they will deliver all this content to me across all of my connected devices. Only the pieces that are meaningful to me will get a physical place on a shelf or cabinet, which will be reflected in the physical design of my home.  

Everything is Connected; Everything is Communicating; Everything will have Context. I will have a sensor on my phone that tracks my moods, my blood pressure and the number of calories I consume. My kids will be connected to me – I will know where they are at all times. My 95-year old grandmother will be connected to me. I will know if she needs my help. My dog will be connected to me – I will know when he ate his breakfast and if he leaves the yard. I can be connected to people – if I want to – by a ‘bump’ that shares personal information – with someone I meet depending on what I want them to know. Imagine a new ’augmented reality’ Match.com that shows potential matches lighting up when you walk into a room. Scorpio. 38. 6’2”. Divorced. Likes brunettes who like Johnny Cash. Ding ding ding, well hello!  

Apps are King. Businesses will use mobile apps as the primary way to generate revenue, create value, and attract customers. It will be bigger than the Internet as we know it today. Apps will be advertising, apps will be content.

The Beauty of Doing Nothing. I actually wrote a screenplay treatment about 15 years ago – in which the characters escaped to Maine, which was the only state designated as an opt-out or dark zone to experience the luxury of being offline and disconnected. I believe this notion will likely come true – at least in some aspects – there will be new social etiquettes and lifestyles built around being on and offline. Workers may start to object to expectations of being online 24×7 with some new disorders being attributed to this uber-connectedness.

Mobile Payments will Become Ubiquitous. Your phone will be your wallet. Your debit card will be old school. Because of this, there may need to be a foolproof security mechanism to prevent unauthorized use – either from theft or the simple fact that people lose their phones all the time.

Mobile Mind Mapping. Analytics of user behavior, collective emotions, location and other contextual information will become like gold to businesses. On the flip side, there will be serious privacy issues, which will need to be balanced as mobile marketing takes off. Incentives may need to be offered for individuals to allow following of their data trail.

And then there’s Evolution. There will be some kind of new evidence that our brains are being rewired to adapt to this pace of communications and connectedness; social skills and relationships changing, attention spans limited, better hand-eye coordination; more multi-tasking; another kind of thinking. Like most people, I already use Google as an extension of my brain. So if I rely on Google more and more for quick facts, will my brainpower be reserved for more important things like better memory and synthesis of ideas?

Some of these things are far out; some are right around the corner; and a few are probably my own little wacky ideas best reserved for screenplays (perhaps I should be working on the next ‘The Woman in Red’?) But there’s no doubt that mobile and social and location-based technologies are going to have a dramatic – I will even say life altering — effect on all of us. Beam me up!

∞

Oh what a year! Is it me, or does it seem like every year since 1998 has been the year that mobility finally ‘tips’? You know the question, right? ‘So, is this the year of mobile?’ Oy vey – ‘hell if I know,’ I would mutter to myself.

But this year feels different! Finally, we can all take a collective exhale and answer with conviction: ‘Yes.’  But my recommendation is that you follow that exhale up with a deep inhale because your blood better be richly oxygenated for 2011. We’re in for a wild ride.  

There is no shortage of good analyst stats that suggest this thing is going to be bigger than the wheel, sliced bread, your father’s Oldsmobile and ‘The Bubble.’ My favorite stat being a recent number from reputed Gartner analyst Nick Jones, who said ‘the mobile voice and data business worldwide is on target to pass the $1 Trillion mark by 2014.’ Talk about a nice round number!  (For perspective, the US GDP is approximately $14 Trillion).

Here are some of my other favorite mobile stats showing its ‘bigness’:

• Worldwide market for Mobile Advertising and Marketing is expected to grow at 40% CAGR, reaching $28.9b by 2014 (ABI)
• Worldwide market for Mobile Content is expected to reach $35.8b by 2012 (IDC)
• In 2015, shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased via mobile phones (ABI)
• Payment for goods and services and money transfers initiated from a mobile phone will reach almost $630 billion by 2014 (Jupiter)

My colleague Tony Rizzo (aka Mobile Master #1 in the MMverse) has been after me for some time to add my voice to Mobile Masters. I’ve been quiet on the MMverse not because I don’t want to participate, but because, well…the problem is that I can’t sit still long enough to actually write. (Tony has strapped me to my chair for this one). In all seriousness, I am more a visual sorta guy, which is par for the course as a tech CMO, I suppose. I am someone long steeped in the PowerPoint tradition. I like to say my brain works in Flash.  

Seriously, as I sit here two days before the holiday cleaning up the desk from a thrilling 2010 and contemplating what’s to come next year, I thought I would share my thoughts on what we can expect.

Let me know your thoughts – do you agree, disagree? Let’s get a dialog going!  Don’t be shy…

Even better, let me invite you to submit a guest blog with your own 2011 mobile trends thoughts! I’ll convince our Mobile Master #1 to post them. 

∞

Here we are, one more full year into mobility. I’ve been posting mobile market predictions since 2003, and I have to say that I often amaze myself with my 100% accuracy rate (that accuracy rate is only surpassed by my innate ability to convince myself that I am capable of such things).

Here are some quick examples of my better predictions from the last several years:

• Apple’s iPhone will not make it in the enterprise (since updated in my most recent blog post)
• RIM will not succumb to the allure of the consumer market; they know their bread is buttered by the enterprise (shortly after which RIM loudly announced a $350M consumer land grab marketing campaign, and promptly killed their margins and their stock price)
• 2008 is the first truly substantial year for enterprise mobility (but I really meant 2010)

Well, OK, no one’s perfect at making predictions or divining longer term trends. Still, we plug away at it, fully believing in our special and unique insights. This year I’m going to break things up into two categories – what I think are obvious trends and predictions, and those that are perhaps less obvious.

Some Obvious Suspects

Obvious Trend #1: The Mobile Cloud

For three years I’ve been saying that SaaS is really spelled SSaa – Software as a Service, Anytime, Anywhere. I’ve also been known to say that mobility is the exclamation point at the end of the SaaS sentence. Either way, in 2011 the Mobile Cloud and mobile cloud-based services and apps truly begin to take over. And why not?

With the likes of Antenna’s hosted Mobile Application Platform (aka the Antenna Mobility Platform, or AMP) taking both the significant complexity and huge costs of building out the necessary back end development completely out of the equation, and allowing enterprises to invest heavily in the actual building of amazing, fully manageable and fully secure mobile apps, that exclamation point is now three exclamation points deep (!!!). Mobile pioneers and early adopters build out on the hosted MAP; laggards are still trying to build in-house and, well – its gets ugly on that front real fast.

So, the trend is the mobile cloud; the prediction is that many, many enterprises will look to get away from building in house, from burning hundreds of millions of dollars needlessly, and will choose instead to lean on the hosted MAP to do the hard work.

Obvious Mobile Trend #2: Mobile Technology Consumerization, Rise of the Mobile Machines

Yeah, yeah, mobile technology continues to be heavily embraced in 2011 by every user out there, young and old. Is there any doubt? Does this even qualify as a trend or prediction at this point? I think not. Mobility is here. Period. I’m posting this as one as my safety predictions (i.e. I’m assured of getting at least one of these right).

Obvious Mobile Trend #3: The Retail Industry Gets Mobile

This one is on most trends lists. It’s true for both Retail and CPG. It’s a huge market that is directly tied to Obvious Mobile Trend #2 above. Mobile shopping warriors (as IDC refers to them) will account for many, many billions of dollars in sales in 2011 (beginning with the 2010 holiday season – which is, of course, already well underway). This will all, in turn, drive huge real time business intelligence and analytics efforts.

Having a mobile solution for those mobile shopping warriors won’t be enough though. The total mobile shopping experience requires both great mobile services and smart pricing capabilities. And there is no escaping real time BI and analytics. Take a look at Best Buy for example: they delivered a really solid mobile app and mobile shopping experience, but forgot completely to take into account competitor pricing. In addition to the Best Buy mobile app, mobile shoppers also checked their mobile price comparison apps and found numerous products on sale and a lot cheaper elsewhere – so much so that Best Buy’s recent financials took a huge direct hit, leading to the company having to provide significantly lower expectations guidance for the next quarter.

Obvious Mobile Trend #4: iPads and Tablets Will Make Major Inroads in the Enterprise

I’ve already had my say on iPads and tablets, and there is no doubt in my mind that this market is likely to become the dominant enterprise hardware market, much more so than on the consumer side. 2011 will be the year we can trace and look back to over time to note when laptops officially began what will be a long and slow decline.

Not the Usual Suspects

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #1: The Enterprization of Mobility

This is my BIG 2011 Mobile Prediction! Although everyone under the sun talks a great deal about the mobile-driven consumerization of the enterprise, I absolutely believe that in 2011 it will be business users who buy the next wave of cool devices first and foremost for business use, and then in turn put them to personal consumer use. This marks a return to the more traditional way technology enters the consumer marketplace (which mobility has turned on its head for the last two years).

What is even less obvious is that 2011 will also mark a return to enterprises doing a far better job of taking back a significant level of ownership and control over both user liable and corporate liable mobile devices. Serious management of mobile device hardware assets and the mitigation of security issues and concerns will begin to dominate the enterprise landscape. If there is corporate data on a device, the smart enterprise will be far more proactive in 2011 in insuring that data is totally secure. Why? Refer to Jason Wong’s Mobile Prediction #6 in his 2011 Trends blog post.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #2: Windows Phone 7 Goes Mainstream

I predict we’ll see a significant WP7 uprising in 2011. In the enterprise. Then spilling over to the consumer market. I further predict that Microsoft finally gets its mobile mojo back (well, it never had a mobile mojo, true, but…) and will see somewhere between 15 and 22 million WP7 devices purchased in 2011. It’s in writing. Some of that mobile mojo will be driven by Microsoft’s Kinect technology, which is clearly returning some real cool to Microsoft in the eyes of Gen Y.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #3: Mobile Drives Strategic Enterprise App Development

Look for enterprises to begin planning their new strategic application development efforts with mobility and mobile form factors as the key initial parameters to build against. To a large degree this is tied to Obvious Mobile Trends #1 and #4 above. It represents the forefront of a true paradigm shift in enterprise IT thinking, and is further underpinned by Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #1.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #4: Enterprise IT Remembers That it has Huge BES Infrastructure Investments!

In 2011 both enterprise IT and executive enterprise management teams will wake up and come to grips with the fact that they have to balance all employee iPad and WP7 pressures against leaving sizable and secure BES environments and BES long term investments stranded. RIM, meanwhile, needs to deliver a strong enterprise message early in 2011 that says, in effect: ‘Hang tight, we’ll preserve your significant investments in BES and (MDS) infrastructure.’ How? See #5 directly below.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #5: Mobile Devices Come and Go

Palm, I hardly knew you. Android, much to the surprise of many, but not to me, falls out of the enterprise race in North America and Europe. Taking its place will be the previously noted iPad (likely coming in two flavors – big and small – in 2011, along with a massive Verizon push) and WP7.

And then there is the RIM PlayBook. This looks to be an exceedingly cool device (though we won’t know for sure until we can actually touch them). I believe QNX is going to be huge for RIM, as will the PlayBook – coupled with all of that secure BES infrastructure we note in Not so Obvious Trend #4 above, RIM will grab a true second lease on enterprise life. Much is contingent on RIM understanding it needs to ship the PlayBook, for real, no later than July 2011. And, of course, RIM knows its the enterprise and not the consumer market that butters its bread. (Hmm…where did I hear that before?)

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #6: Advertising Will Be Done Inside the Mobile App

As Steve Jobs believes, so do I. This, finally, brings us full circle in 2011. Mobile users will never really need to leave their apps. HTML5 and hybrid apps (apps that fully combine HTML5 and MAP capabilities – especially in the mobile cloud) will be prime drivers here.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #7:  Human Centered Mobility (HCM) Drives Mobile App Development

Amazingly, it is still not very obvious that the most important development in enterprise mobility is to recognize that the mobile user is at the center of mobile adoption. In 2011 we will begin to see the significant use of HCM-driven mobile application design principles to drive mobile app design in the enterprise. HCM further underpins Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #3 above.

Not so Obvious Mobile Trend #8: The Mobile Masters Community Web Site Will Place a Mobile Iron Chef

Not really a trend, but a one time occurrence; never the less, I predict that the MMverse’s very own Mobile Gourmet wins the first ever Mobile Iron Chef competition in 2011.

∞

Was 2010 a crazy year for mobility or what? We start with ‘There’s an app for that’ as the new ‘Got milk?’ catch-phrase. Android devices are being activated at a rate of 300,000 a day. Apple changed the game again with the iPad. RIM and Microsoft showed some life with their launches of BlackBerry 6 OS, the PlayBook, and Windows Phone 7. And we end with Angry Birds is the new Pac Man!

So as we head into 2011 what can we expect? Here are my gourmet predictions for the mobile world, and of course some food related prognostications.

1. Microsoft will buy Nokia. Why? Sheer volume. Windows Phone 7 will not help them catch up to iPhone and Android so as a result they will buy Nokia for its vast market penetration and device OS which is popular outside the North American market.
2. Richard Blais will win Bravo TV’ Top Chef All-Stars. He was clearly the best of the season and he is on a mission to win it with his avant-garde southern style cooking – as long as he doesn’t freeze off his fingers with all that liquid nitrogen.
3. The RIM PlayBook will revitalize RIM in the enterprise and PlayBooks will outnumber iPads 2:1 in airport terminals. IT will embrace it and frequent travelers will demand it over their laptops.
4. By end of the year, developers will favor building HTML5 apps for mobile and desktop Web over building native mobile apps. HTML5 apps are easier to build, are cross platform and provide just enough functionality for good everyday apps.
5. Korean is the new Japanese. No, Kim Jong Il and his son won’t take over the world, but Korean food is sure making an impact here in the States. On the west coast you have the Kogi truck with their Korea-Mexican fusion fanatics and on the east coast you have David Chang and his army of followers. The Korean foodie forces are moving inland–bibimbaps will be in Kansas in no time!
6. There will be at least one major mobile virus or malware attack. It’s just too tempting for hackers. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere and users are less security-minded when using their mobile apps and devices than they are with their desktops and laptops. This will be a wake-up call to the industry.
7. The Angry Birds series of apps will be the first billion dollar mobile app franchise, but I still won’t buy it.
8. The Next Iron Chef America on the Food Network will be David Chang. Hey, I’m following through on my Korean theme.
9. NFC (near field communications) will be the new GPS. Every app maker will try to make use of it in their apps.
10. HP’s webOS devices show up late to the party and can’t get any attention. This may be the final go for the Palm legacy. We salute you for your contributions to modern mobility.

∞

2011: The year of mobility? Or not?

For as many years as I can remember the analysts have been predicting the ‘year of mobility.’ As a friend once described analysts to me, they are great at predicting the past. Ok. Sounds good to me but did we maybe miss the ‘year of mobility’ or is it more like a slow crawl through the ages? I guess the analysts are pining for the old days of CRM when it seemed like one day there was nothing and the next day CRM ruled the world and all the smiling children frolicked in fields of cotton candy and bubblegum. And the pot smoking has got to stop right now.

What we saw in the past with leapfrog technology adoption is just that, a thing of the past. With the collapse of the dot bomb era and the free spending ways of old there were too many failed attempts at projects that cost too much money to just jump onto the next bandwagon.

What we see now is more calmly calculated and well thought out. In some cases analysis paralysis has set in but for the most part it is an evolutionary change not a revolutionary change.

Mobility in 2011 will continue to be a primary focus for most enterprises but one of the major shifts will be to address two distinct facets of the market: 1)Internal Enterprise, 2)External Customer Facing. This shift has begun slowly but is picking up steam. The days of IT making all technology decisions in a vacuum and then positing these selections on the business are over. The best practice process is now to ask the business what it needs and then select technologies that support the ever-changing need.

The new player in all of this is the Marketing organization.

In the past mobility projects were targeted at a specific internal user group (field service, field sales, help desk, and so on down the line). The goals were to decrease costs , increase productivity, improve billing cycles, improve customer care, etc. This is the stuff that Marketing people loath. There’s nothing glitzy in increased margins. You don’t do a press release and interview your own internal field worker and ask them how their life has improved (usually). Customers don’t typically volunteer to do a case study because you can bill them faster. There’s just no sex appeal to this kind of improvement.

Now we see the sand shifting. As enterprises look at their consumer markets it’s now time for the logo police and the department of brand enforcement to get heavily involved. Marketing is getting involved early and driving direction on many projects for two reasons: They own the brand and they have the budget! As consumers become more mobile the interaction with their providers will have to adapt. Enterprises will need a mobile presence and just viewing the existing web site on a smaller screen doesn’t cut it anymore.

When it comes to user experience it is the visionaries in many Marketing organizations that are pushing the envelope.

Unburdened by technology limitations (and not being the ones who have to deliver a working product) these geniuses create an image and brand presentation that furthers the companies reach, provides valuable content and interaction and increases brand loyalty. This is a facet of mobility that has only begun to start to take hold. For 2011, definitely a trend.

And did I mention budgets? For many enterprises the Marketing and Advertising budgets dwarf the GDP of most small countries (a typical business unit would kill for such a budget). Marketing and Advertising consider their new mobile applications to be strategic in nature and providing long term benefit. That’s another trend for 2011.

As one marketing guru at a very large company recently mentioned to me, ‘Is that all this is going to cost? Hell. We probably spend more on paperclips in a year than that.’  That deserves three exclamation points – !!! I’m not sure how many paperclips they use in a given year but when their gross Marketing and PR budget is over $100M he’s probably not too far off the mark.

The other thing that these Marketing folks are looking at is that applications built using Marketing and PR budget dollars are not perishable. Consider that a well produced TV commercial can cost hundreds of thousands (or in some cases millions) of dollars. The commercial usually has a shelf life and once it expires the cost is lost. But a well designed mobile application can be expanded and enhanced. New features can be added and additional functionality can be accessed as the user journeys though the customer life cycle. This is a huge advantage if it is done right. Doing it right will be – we hope! – a trend for 2011.

Doing it right involves proper planning and selecting a technology platform that allows you to deploy rapidly, manage change, update apps on the fly, target app behavior on different devices and most importantly be able to provide an outstanding user experience. Happy users will share their experiences with others and become an extension of your PR effort.

The only downside to the new Marketing influence is a tendency to use “unconventional” mobile processes. For instance, using a PR firm to mock up screen shots for a target device, then having them build a one-off app for that device and not being able to scale or address other devices without writing new apps for each device. This is fine for the first deliverable but what happens when you want to change the apps or add new functionality. The answers is, complete re-write of each app for each device. Same effort and cost as the first phase. That, we hope, will not become a trend in 2011.

This is where the right mobile application platform really shines.

Combining your Marketing team’s vision and flare with the IT department’s knowledge of technology will allow you to select the right mobility platform for you and your requirements. Work together to build a plan and select the right platform to execute the initial deliverables as well as provide the ability to keep evolving as your needs change.

Will 2011 be the year of mobility, how the heck should I know, I’m not one of those analysts! It will be a year of interesting change and shifting market dynamics. All of this spells a wild ride and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Meanwhile, field service…there’s nothing like it. It may not be a mobile trend in 2011, but we and our $10 budgets are still the mobile pioneers that created what those Marketing, Advertising and PR teams are now riding.

∞

Back in the pre-launch Blackberry Torch days, as my BlackBerry Curve was winding down its useful life, I was sorely tempted by both the iPhone and the iPad. Tempted yes, but I didn’t cross the line, at least on the iPhone side - I picked up a Torch, and though I can never imagine going back to a non-touch screen device ever again, the real keyboard has made me a happy camper many times over. I can’t live without it.

Now…the PlayBook – could it make me an even happier camper (having earlier totally convinced myself I was going to get an iPad)?

Going strictly on first looks (and strictly ’don’t touch, just look’ first looks) I confess I am intrigued by it. RIM’s new QNX operating system has a very fast feel to it, does true multitasking, supports Adobe’s Flash, the screen is visually solid, and the 7″ form factor is most decidedly not dead on arrival (defying Steve Jobs’ prediction of several months ago – all the more interesting now that Apple is rumored to be getting a smaller iPad into the market).

I had been absolutely sure I was getting an iPad. In fact, absolutely nothing has been keeping me from getting one…and yet, I haven’t. I can’t help but believe there are many millions of other BlackBerry users (especially enterprise BlackBerry users) out there doing the same thing…waiting to compare hands on, head to head, waiting to see what iPad version 2 will bring to the game (a retinal quality display maybe?) and how the PlayBook will stack up…

Will it Take Long?

The big question here is how long will RIM need to finalize the hardware designs, fully tame QNX, and get the PlayBook out the door – with apps in hand? Early Q3 2011 is a date I’ve heard, but one that is a long way off, especially when viewed in ‘mobile time.’ The 2010 holiday season would have been the ideal launch timeframe for the PlayBook from a competitive standpoint.

Though absence makes the heart grow fonder, the problem I forsee in waiting for a true head to head is that it may never come. Patience eventually wears thin and runs out. The majority of early iPad users are a done deal…they aren’t going back. If iPad v2 emerges, possibly offering a smaller form factor and a retinal display as an option, will it create another groundswell of interest – and purchases? All predictions point that way. Meanwhile, the healthcare industry is going to be awash in iPads. It’s not a mystery why financial analysts think what they think about Apple and RIM.

Strictly on paper it appears fairly easy to gauge if the PlayBook will have a fighting chance.

Fortunately the world doesn’t play off of paper.

Enterprise IT – Slow to Move, but Should Love the PlayBook

The PlayBook clearly has its consumer chops in place. I don’t believe (again, based on the show and tells I’ve seen) that there is anything missing here as far as delivering a compelling end user experience. QNX is a major step forward for the BlackBerry user (I’m already looking to the day BlackBerry smartphones begin running on it). Delighting the end user is a key checklist item that I believe RIM will prove to have nailed down.

Here’s the other critical thing though – when the PlayBook launches it will be BES-ready; this is a huge feature as it means the PlayBook will be solidly enterprise ready and secure out of the box.

That is what enterprise IT likes to hear. Those IT folks also like to tap into their typically deep understandings of any given IT issue – they know their BES environments and their BlackBerries. QNX-based PlayBooks slotting into BES will be like comfort food for enterprise IT (sure, it’s a new operating system, but RIM has insured that IT doesn’t have to worry about it relative to BES).

That begs the question: RIM, will you be able and willing to primarily exploit your enterprise strengths to drive enterprise sales of the PlayBook?

I am in the camp that believes firmly that if you win the enterprise you will win the consumer; I’m not in the camp that believes in the other way around – win the consumer (through consumer-side focus) and they’ll regain you the enterprise. I believe enterprise IT (and other management stakeholders) will be willing to wait for a device that is already highly secure and would be very willing to help get the PlayBook message across to their workforce users.

Of course, if Apple creates yet another groundswell with a lighter weight, retinal quality iPad in Q1 2011, employee demands for its support may put a great deal of pressure in place to ‘go iPad’ yet again.

IT, and senior management teams in general, have to balance those iPad pressures against leaving sizable BES environments and BES long term investments stranded. RIM needs to deliver an enterprise message that says, in effect: ‘Hang tight, we’ll give your users highly desireable PlayBooks, and we’ll preserve your significant investments in BES and MDS) infrastructure.

Size Will,  in Fact, Matter

I ride a commuter train approximately 3 hours a day round trip. For a long time I toyed with getting a Kindle (on my evening commute I want to read my books), but stayed with my Curve instead (and hardcovers!). The commute, in fact, is why I became convinced that I would acquire an iPad (Kindle…iPad – there wasn’t going to be any competition there once the iPad emerged). Keep the Torch for email and communication, use the iPad on the train.

Over the last several months I’ve had an opportunity to use a 3G iPad on my rides - in fact it has gone head to head with the Torch. Aside from reading novels (which in fact I haven’t really done much of yet) the Torch has continued to win out in head to head competition, even as iPad newspaper apps are emerging.

That is, I actually greatly prefer using my Torch a great deal more than the iPad during my commute for reading text of any kind. I’ve traced it down to size – for my commuting needs I don’t really need that 9.7″ form factor. I’m thinking that I will find the 7″ PlayBook (which will be initially 3G enabled) much more to my liking.

My (and everyone else’s) only problem is that July 2011 is a long time to wait (but then I did wait two years for my Torch to finally show up). More than likely I’ll be able to play with an early version, as will enterprises, but my best estimate even for that is February 2011.

Still, my gut feeling – and recommendation – is that the PlayBook will be worth waiting for. Especially within the context of preserving all of that highly secure IT investment in BES/MDS infrastructure.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts on this!

∞