Mobile Observatory: Mobile Trends and Predictions for 2011. Some Obvious, Some Not

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.

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Tags: 2011 Trends, Mobile Observatory, Tony Rizzo