Team,
A very powerful, intense week. I got to meet many many clients, and be a part of their discussions around their mobile ambitions. I got to
learn a lot from their dilemma and challenges and that leads me to believe that
these nuggets of information can be used to learn the landscape and include in
our platform the value that our clients seek. There were also various exciting announcements from
Facebook, Firefox and others, which makes this evolution interesting and confusing. Let us look
at this closely.
Facebook Home --
Facebook will launch with TC a mobile device called First( for $99) and
this HTC First device will be a Facebook Optimized device, targeted for 500
million + facebook users and growing. The idea is to close the gap with Social
+ Mobile, and while this was already been addressed with Social apps on mobile
devices, this is an attempt to
integrate the Facebook experience on a device. The industry has been
speculating the growth and business value of this, but to us I think this
imposes a new discussion with our clients on the impact to their Mobile Eco
system.
Firefox OS – New Mobile OS and a device in future. Firefox
OS is just one of many alternative OS' hoping to shake up the mobile scene,
which is already crowded. Firefox will also work with ZTE for a Firefox OS
device with features as a newly
integrated payments system and other features.
The Point: Facebook and Firefox are after the larger global market with low costs device and
open systems. Their entry to the Mobile OS is one in a glut. With a rich and
rather confusing device diversity ( I’d like to call it mess) enterprise now has these to consider in
their application development. While Facebook is after Mobile advertizing market ( 7.3 Billion
and 13% is already Facebook’s share and led by Google) and Firefox OS is after
the adoption, I must say this adds interesting conversation with our clients.
MobileFirst Value: Fortunately, I see this as an immense
opportunity for our Mobile
Middleware and overall value proposition of MobileFirst. I have always said to
our clients that the value of mobile middleware is to provide security, integration
and control and allows clients to reduce the burden of keeping up with all the
changes in the Mobile OS’ world. After all Mobile Middleware – or IBM Worklight as
a platform enables the ‘write once and run anywhere’ model AND the platform
provides the device specific optimization and if Facebook and firefox were to take off our platform would
just have to include these device specific optimization in the mix. – One thing
our clients do not have to worry about. – This is powerful and Value.
Lastly, while we are on this Mobile Topic, I head an
interesting bit a confirmed this with some healthcare information providers.
Apparently any application that is involved with any level
of diagnosis such as Blood
pressure monitor, Breathalyzer or temperature or even glucose monitor, would
need FDA approval. YES. Here are the guidelines:
Here is an idea – a business idea – Why not create a wizard
that encompasses these guidelines
to create a app that matches all criteria and that way our clients do
not have to worry about it. Yes I agree there is a certain sense of liability,
but we can include some feature in IDE plug-in that provides that prescriptive
(no pun intended) approach.
We do with other standards such as HIPPA and SWIFT etc.
Just a thought.
Have a great
week! As always I’d be interested in your thoughts!
:)
Nitin
