The iPhone tsunami has had another effect. The groundswell of users carrying iPhones has meant that businesses are being flooded with requests to mobile enable their products and services. Companies that previously had a deaf ear to the mobile space are now scrambling to figure out how to get on the iPhone. But, while iPhone has garnered much of the attention the past three years, it’s not the only player. Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and soon Windows Phone 7 and even perhaps Web OS (with HP’s recent acquisition of Palm) mean that the mobile segment is more diverse than ever. Now that companies have ‘smelled the coffee’ and realize they need a mobile strategy, the next question is, how do we get on the iPhone and which other platforms do we develop for?

On Wednesday, September 15th @ 2PM EST Navara will hold a an Executive Webinar tackling this topic and more.

 You will learn:

1. How best to evaluate developer time, budget and talent availability when comparing in-house and outsourcing resources.
2. Special knowledge and resources needed to take your solutions to the iPhone and potential roadblocks in the App Store approval process.
3. The danger of putting all your mobile platform eggs in one basket.
4. Considerations that need to be made related to ongoing development, OS updates, upgrades, and emerging platforms.
5. Options for accelerating development via integration wizards and point-and-click interface creation.

Register Here: http://tiny.cc/tceyd

The latest version of the Navara Mobility Suite adds support for iPhone in addition to Windows Mobile and Blackberry mobile devices. Allscripts, the largest supplier of homecare software in the United States, is the first user of this new latest release.  From a smartphone, or Windows based tablet, a healthcare professional wirelessly transmits data from the device in the field to the organization’s centralized software system so an action can be immediately taken   From the perspective of the user in the office, they have real-time insight into the information gathered in the field.   Navara makes this happen and benefits the organization with improved efficiency and reduced costs. 

Navara Store

The Navara Store is new to version 6.2 and affords the administrator and user unparalleled control on administering the mobile application as well as the mobile device.  It simplifies system management and makes it possible to remotely install the appropriate software client . Communication settings are adapted so the user can configure the mobile device themselves and are no longer dependant on the IT department for configuration. Additionally, the mobile application created by Navara can be centrally personalized for all users. User information is imported from the organization’s software system. A new security feature of 6.2 allows for a user whose account is disabled from the main system, to have their information removed remotely from the mobile device. 

Delivering Instant Mobility for Today’s Business Needs

For more than 15 years RAM Mobile Data is one of the most prominent players in the field of mobile datacommunication. Navara, a softwaren division of RAM Mobile Data, is the leading provider of application mobilization software. It combines intuitive design tools and flexible interface support to eliminate the costs and complexity associated with mobilizing today’s enterprise software.
RAM Mobile Data has offices in Belgium, Germany and the US. The headquarters are in Maarssen, The Netherlands. 

Would you like us to create a mobile interface of your application for iPhone?

Contact:  US + 1 866 759 5794 / Netherlands +31 30 2390390 /  +32 2 715 2511 Belgium 

Future Wireless Trends to Be Discussed at Gartner Wireless, Networking & Communications Summit, April 19-21, in San Diego

STAMFORD, Conn., March 24, 2010 —   Gartner, Inc. has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies. Investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up both business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile spending.

“We are highlighting these 10 mobile technologies that should be on every organization’s radar screen,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “These mobile technologies were selected because they will evolve in ways that affect corporate strategies, significant numbers of customers or employees will adopt or expect them, or they will address particular mobile challenges that organizations will face through 2011.”

Access the complete document Gartner Outlines 10 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010 and 2011

I just returned from my 3rd HIMSS conference and lucky for me, it was on home field turf in Atlanta. For the uninitiated, HiMSS stands for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. Think of it as a massive trade show relating to all things technology and healthcare.

Last year, I wrote about the growing trend of healthcare and mobility blog post: http://www.navara.com/blog/healthcare-and-mobility  and I’m happy to see that more vendors are realizing the market potential for mobile solutions. Not too long ago, I would commonly hear companies question the value of mobility, but those doubts are long gone. Today, the biggest concerns are which platforms to support and how to create a compelling mobile application that meets the needs of its users.

Ten years ago, the mobile device landscape was much simpler. You either were in the Palm or Pocket PC camp. Blackberry was just coming into the scene and other devices such as Psion and Sharp’s Zaurus had already seen their heyday. Today, the mobile device market is much more diverse with Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android and to a lesser extent, Symbian. Let’s not forget the burgeoning tablet, netbook, iPad market.

If you were an ISV (ten years ago) your choices were very simple, you developed your mobile application for Palm and/or Windows Mobile. Today, most organizations are too resource constrained to develop for each commercially available platform. What’s a software developer to do?

Enter Mobile Process Enablement. If you’re scratching your head, saying huh? I’ll explain.  MPE is the acronym for middleware solutions that allow for the rapid development of mobile applications that tie into existing databases.  In other words, they provide a quick way to develop a mobile app that is an extension of a desktop or cloud application.

The rational for leveraging an MPE solution is that with minimal development resources a developer can offer their application onto a variety of mobile devices without having to worry about building proprietary applications that must be constantly maintained and supported. Oftentimes, a mobile middleware platform can save about 90% of the development and support costs.

Did that get your attention?

Bill McDaniel: Navara Software Engineering

We Humans are capable of learning new interfaces fairly quickly. Consider the slight variations in telephone keypads – how long does it take us to dial an unfamiliar telephone?  How difficult is it to use an unfamiliar automated cash machine?  How quickly do we learn the shortcuts for a new mobile phone?  Certainly these examples cite both excellent universally acceptable design practices but also our ability as humans to adapt and learn new designs easily.  More interesting – I propose it takes the average person less time these days to learn an unfamiliar interface than it did 15 years ago, and I attribute this to the fact that we are presented with new interfaces much more frequently now than we ever have been before.

Case in point:  Video game controllers have come a long way in the past 15 years.  Atari’s now-nostalgic one button joystick interface bears no resemblance to Microsoft’sXBox 360 ergonomic controller with it’s astounding 25 buttons.  Every year another new interface is presented, normally around the time that Santa Claus requires his wish list, and the next plastic race car wheel or wireless band instrument is marketed to eager consumers hungry for a new interface to master.

In business software, the same issues occur.  Interfaces grow and change throughout the system life cycle.  With time, all interfaces must adapt to support increased functionality – or just as likely increased marketability!

This prospect was once expensive and cumbersome for mobile software, because of the complexity and unique resources required to develop for these relatively obscure platforms. Navara partners use the Navara Design Center to quickly and visually create and modify interfaces for the most popular mobile platforms, so the interface can easily change as the users’ needs change.  So when the next change comes depend on Navara, and let’s solve the interface puzzle together.

René Zeldenthuis:  Software Developer

De hoeveelheid data neemt steeds maar toe en we willen steeds meer data offline tot onze beschikking. Te denken valt aan het op het mobiele toestel beschikbaar hebben van een postcode database of misschien wel het gehele klantenbestand. Dit heeft automatisch ook tot gevolg dat de hoeveelheid data die wordt overgestuurd groter wordt; dit is eenmalig. Nog interessanter wordt het om de gegevens allemaal actueel te houden en dit op een zo slim mogelijke manier te doen. Het is nu eindelijk zover; alles is doordacht; de specificaties zijn klaar en een compleet nieuw synchronisatieprotocol wordt momenteel geïmplementeerd!

Wat er zo vernieuwend is aan dit nieuwe protocol zijn de volgende vier hoofdbestanddelen:

• Slechts veranderingen worden doorgestuurd. Hierdoor is het niet nodig om bij een wijziging (van bijvoorbeeld één postcode) de gehele database over te sturen. Ook is het niet meer nodig om een referentie van de aanwezige gegevens over te sturen naar de server.
• Bij het verbreken van de verbinding tijdens het synchroniseren kunnen alle gegevens dusver ontvangen toch worden verwerkt; het protocol is geheel ‘restartable’.
• Er wordt gebruik gemaakt van http/https. Hierdoor gaat dit nieuw protocol door de aanwezige proxy servers en deze poorten staan mestal open in de firewall. Verder is het https protocol (dat bijvoorbeeld ook voor telebanking wordt gebruikt) tegenwoordig standaard voor het versturen van gevoelige data.
• De Navara client bilijft altijd verbonden. Indien er gegevens worden ontvangen die relevant zijn voor de client worden deze direct doorgestuurd (push). Ook worden gewijzigde gegevens van de gebruikers direct teruggestuurd. Uiteraard worden deze gegevens opgespaard indien er geen verbinding mogelijk is en deze direct verstuurd zodra dit weer mogelijk is.

Uiteraard is het wel nodig dat er gebruik wordt gemaakt van een nieuwe client en server dit dit protocol kunnen ondersteunen. Dit zal even lastig zijn maar hierdoor wordt Navara nog sneller, veiliger, rubuster en actueler!

In elk software bedrijf waar complexe producten worden ontwikkeld, kom je op een punt dat er een verandering gewenst is om de markt nog beter te kunnen bedienen. Dit kan inhouden dat er nieuwe technologieën op de markt zijn die geïntegreerd moeten worden om toekomstige ontwikkelingen aan te kunnen of nieuwe features implementeren waar de huidige markt op wacht.

Hoe ingewikkelder het product, hoe lastiger het wordt om dit naast het onderhoud en huidige roadmaps in te plannen. Bij dit soort projecten wordt vaak gekeken of er gebruik gemaakt kan worden van tijdelijk extra capaciteit. Mogelijke keuzes zijn dan detachering of outsourcing. In het laatste geval kan er gekozen worden voor nearsourcing, wat inhoudt dat het project geoutsourced wordt maar vaak binnen Europa, in bijvoorbeeld Bulgarije of de Oekraïne.

Nearshoring heeft in ons geval als voordeel dat de ontwikkelaars maar met 1 uur tijdsverschil in een virtueel ontwikkelteam productief kunnen zijn,  het kennis niveau vrij hoog is, Engels op redelijk tot goed niveau is en last but not least er weinig cultuur verschil  is (zeker als je dit vergelijkt met outsourcing naar landen als India).

Het meest uitdagende in een out/nearsourcing project is, naast het project management, kennis overdracht. Hoe maak je duidelijk wat de specificaties van de geplannde taken zijn als je niet ‘face-to-face’ zit. Gelukkig is Oost-Europa maar een paar uur vliegen, dus met meer ingewikkelde specificaties kan het ook echt ‘face-to-face’, maar in de meeste gevallen is het makkelijker om gebruik te maken van hulpmiddelen als GoToMeeting of Skype en een goede projectmanagement methode.

Voor Navara is na onderzoek gekozen voor de projectmanagement methode SCRUM. Door de interactieve manier van werken, in vergelijking met de traditionele software ontwikkeling methodes, is het team enorm betrokken in het planningsproces-

Dit uit zich onder andere in:

• Grooming sessies: feature specificatie rondes voor het definiëren van specifieke features. Op deze manier hoeft de specificatie niet van te voren volledig op papier te staan en kan het gehele team meedenken over de specificatie.
• Sprints: duidelijke, korte implementatie periodes.
• Burndown Chart: duidelijk beeld over de huidige stand van voortgang.
• Backlog: overzicht van alle items die ingepland staan voor het project voorzien van heldere prioriteiten.
• Task Breakdown: Features opgesplitst in taken van 1 tot 2 dagen die zelf door een ontwikkelaar binnen een Sprint opgepakt kunnen worden.
• Daily Standup Meetings: Elke dag een korte meeting met het gehele team (vaak niet groter dan 5 tot 6 mensen) waarbij de vragen, ‘Wat is er gedaan sinds de laatste meeting?’, ‘Zijn er problemen met de taken?’, ‘Wat staat er op de planning tot de volgende meeting?’.

We zijn nu een jaar bezig, en de keuze voor nearsourcing en de SCRUM methode Blijkt een hele goede te zijn. Wij zijn uitermate tevreden.

Over SCRUM

SAP.  No three letters command such a wide range of emotion in the enterprise.  Well, in the late 90’s perhaps CRM came close.  Large-scale enterprise-wide systems are incredibly complex.  It’s a major investment not only financially but emotionally.  For those who have lived through an SAP implementation, the aftermath is varied:  Some are delighted, some frustrated, and everyone can agree that it’s a long, long road.

As far as installations go, SAP may be one of the most costly and complex systems in the world.  Multi-year installations are common.  SAP is so complex that many consulting businesses focus exclusively on the system.  Teams of dozens of engineers and analysts working around the clock and around the globe provide customization and integration services while project managers attempt to keep their schedules on track.  As with any long-term systems project, extensions are also common – and therefore frustration and confusion are common as well.

The roller coaster ride of emotions is understandable.  SAP often replaces many home-grown systems and affects the very heart of every business that adopts it.  Often a complete overhaul of the core systems that control every unique aspect of a business are collaborated into one system for the whole of the business. This big of a change does not come without stress for those who will use it.

Specialized Solutions

With such a wide range of customizations available, SAP can be considered a blank canvas.  This is fantastic for allowing a customer the ability to design their dream-system; and a nightmare for those who could use a little suggestion.  Of course, infinite customization takes (infinite) time and money – and when some specific system needs are identified, it can take an extremely long time and a large amount of resources to implement them.  For some businesses, searching for a third-party to provide additional specialized functionality has proven to be a great decision.

Both the strength and the weakness of wide-scope systems like SAP is in its flexibility and complexity.  Wide-scope systems are so flexible that they introduce a high level of complexity.  Enter third-party solutions which provide very specialized functionality, such as Mobility in a relatively simple product.  These solutions focus on a much more narrow set of functionality and work in conjunction with many different types of large-scale systems such as SAP.  Because they are so narrow in focus, these specialized solutions can provide increased functional and technical capabilities without increased complexity.  Over the course of the systems life cycle, the benefits of using a specialized solution increase even more as change control and enhancements are much easier and quicker to implement than with a more complex wide-scale system. The flexibility: complexity relationship changes dramatically and the customer gets the best of both worlds – a capable solution that is quick to implement and change.

Increased Functionality without Complexity

By using third-party products for specialized functionality, suddenly we don’t need teams of dozens of people.  We don’t need years to develop and implement.  By focusing on one specific functional need, specialized third-party solutions eliminate much of the complexity that would be required to configure a wide-scale system to perform the same tasks.  The resources required to use a specialized product are drastically reduced which translates into a quicker and greater ROI, and much less stress for everyone.

Hardware manufacturers have been keen to find the next evolution beyond the phone and PDA. It’s ironic that it took Apple’s iPhone to renew interest in a segment that was hyped as far back as 2004 by Bill Gates who famously evangelized the platform. You might recall a variety of hardware partners such as HP and Toshiba launching tablet PCs. Unfortunately, reception was lukewarm at best due. Whether it was due to an OS that wasn’t optimized for tablets or the high prices, the segment never took off. Today, it’s a different story.

The rumor mill is abuzz about Apple coming out with their own tablet and each day there are more fantastic rumors which are creating such a frenzy that mainstream media has picked up on them. The iPad / iTablet is joining the ranks of the Lock Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

Whereas in 2004 Bill Gates had to educate and promote the tablet concept, five years later, people are fascinated with the platform and its potential. Let’s take a collective deep breath however and get past the quest for gadget nirvana. What is the use case for a tablet beyond?

Where the Smartphone or PDA is the digital equivalent of a Post-it note, the tablet replaces the paper-forms of a field-worker. Big enough to show relevant information in a convenient lay-out; mobile enough to carry around.

Important questions of course are how the devices will deal with Battery life, connectivity, if they offer instant–on, cost, etc… If this all is better than the Phones that we currently use, tablets might have a future. It is good to know that Navara not only works on all important PDA platforms, it also runs on tablets.

My Mobile Work Order will bring your office into the 21st century. Powered by Navara, the leader in mobilized workflow solutions, it is now possible eliminate paper work orders by having them delivered electronically to your employees on their PDA or Smartphone*.
 
It couldn’t be easier. Your work orders are created at the My Mobile Work Order website and transmitted wirelessly to your employees where they are completed on their mobile device. You simply check the website for the status of the work orders. No expensive back-office system, no paper trail, no hassles. It’s that easy! See how it works: