Since the iPad was announced to much fanfare last month, the Internet is abuzz with some people decrying it as a "larger iPhone" (what's wrong with that?) and others announcing it as the next shift in computing.
Personally, I stand between both viewpoints. I agree that it is indeed a larger iPhone, but I also see the potential a large touch-screen device provides. A majority of the current discussion around the pros of the iPad are based around how this is a consumer computing device for "your mum and your grandparents" but fails to see the larger picture around what this might mean for business and work in general.
There has been very little debate surrounding the potential of the iPad as a business device. I admit it might not work in an organisation like ours (although we still have ideas that would work perfectly on an iPad) but there are many organisations where geeks, technology, and code are a means to an end and just support tools for the core business.
The problem with imagining the iPad as a business computer arises from the instant reaction most people will have. The inevitable, "it's not a real computer" argument will be thrown about. "It can't multi-task!" "It doesn't have a real keyboard." Yet, there are so many real-world scenarios I face in daily life where an iPad would have greatly diminished the pain and improved the job a person does.
Mobile Workers
We recently had a Central Heating Sales engineer come out to give us a quote to install new boiler. I felt fairly sorry for him due to the amount of baggage he had to move around with him to do a fairly simple task of filling in a few forms (in response to a set of questions) and generate a quote document.
The process involved what must be the heaviest laptop, and stone-age wireless connectivity that took a set of rituals and prayers to set-up. He had to spend a major part of the call joking about "IT" and apologising profusely for "problems with the Internet."
I could not help wondering how the iPad could have made this entire process (which he probably repeats many times a day) much easier and more interactive for the customer and the sales person. You could get rid of all the brochures in the briefcase and convert these into electronic brochures for display on an iPad. Typing would not be much of an issue as most of the form fields were designed to be choices and number entry. Even if data entry involved a fair amount of textual data, an external keyboard would have instantly solved this problem.
The only flaw in the process as far as the iPad goes, was the ability of the existing laptop to connect to a small printer via USB to print a quote. This could be a stumbling block unless Apple allows easy Bluetooth printing or someone comes up with a printer interface to the iPad.
Data Entry in the field
A while ago, I worked on an R & D product prototype for a FTSE client in the property business, who was looking to cut their costs in relation to the time-consuming process of data-entry by skilled staff. They had highly-paid property managers who would go out to inspect properties in their portfolio, whose job it was to ensure the properties were maintained and managed to standards. However, it was clear that it was very inefficient for these property managers to go out with paper forms, fill them out in the field, and return to their desks only to type out these forms into a computer.
The solution (at the time) was to use existing smartphone technology to build mobile apps that would facilitate data entry in the field. This would allow a "single" point of data entry and cut the time spent duplicating this information on paper and on the computer.
The only real problem was that mobile phones (the iPhone specifically) were too small to really enable the interactions that we had in mind for really quick data-entry. Although the iPhone was leagues ahead of other mobile technologies, it just didn't allows us screen real-estate to build the kind of user experience we wanted. I remember thinking "I wish Apple made a bigger iPhone!" Yet, ironically, it seems like this is what makes the iPad underwhelming.
The Sky's the Limit
The interesting thing about what iPad means for computing in general and for business in specific has very little to do with the hardware and all to do with the potential of software that could be built to allow multi-touch interactions on a well developed platform like the iPhone OS. In this sense, the hardware is not really important at all. Lack of USB, camera, screen size etc. are all trivial points that might or might not have implications in very specific circumstances.
The real question to be asked is, "What kind of software is going to be built for this thing?" Then, you can start seeing the potential an iPad brings for not just e-mail and the web for mum, but how it could greatly simplify the lives of people who are forced to use computers for their daily job but don't enjoy it at all. I believe the iPad has immense potential in areas like business intelligence, publishing, medicine, education, retail, and other sectors I can't even begin to imagine. I don't know about you, but that's pretty exciting!
Last month, BlackBerry announced the PlayBook to much fanfare and press coverage. I managed to catch the live announcement and demo from the Developer Conference, and I must say it was a pretty interesting demo. Of all the tablets announced (iPad included), the PlayBook is probably the most exciting for us as far as our work with Enterprise software is concerned.
It's not Android/Chrome OS
In a world where everything that is not an iOS tablet is an Android/Chrome OS tablet, the BlackBerry OS introduces a refreshing and all-important third alternative. Yes, it is very similar to iOS (the Mail app on the PlayBook is a striking resemblance of Mail on the iPad) but a first look at the demo reminded me more of WebOS than anything else.
QNX seems to have been a very capable company and it appears that not only does the BlackBerry Tablet OS look great, it has a solid mobile platform underpinning it.
Size
Steve Jobs beat me to it but I think a 7-inch tablet just doesn't seem like a great fit for a tablet. Having owned an iPad for a while, I think that a 10-inch screen offers the optimum tablet experience for me. If I need anything smaller, then I would rather drop down to a smartphone screen size rather than anything intermediate.
However, I have not yet held an actual 7-inch tablet in my hands, so I will reserve judgement until I use one.
Who is this aimed at?
I guess that is more of a rhetorical question, as the answer is clearly (from PlayBook's micro-site and spiel) the Enterprise. Therefore, I find it curious that they chose a name like PlayBook for their flagship product in the Enterprise Tablet market.
I will go out on a limb and say that the PlayBook will be an easy sell to Enterprises who have invested hugely in BlackBerry infrastructure with it's immediate integration with BlackBerry servers. I see this spreading quickly in the Enterprise.
It is clear from the demo that BlackBerry wants to pitch this as both a great Enterprise tablet and a cool consumer tablet. A lot of the demo focuses on how "cool" the media capabilities are and a lot of the benefits are squarely aimed at the "iPad crowd". Flash, for example.
I could not help laughing when one of the much-taunted features at the live announcement was "full POSIX support". I know the conference was aimed at developers but clearly BlackBerry is in 2 minds here about it's target market.
The iPad Killer
Like it or not, the inevitable comparisons with the iPad have already started doing the rounds. I personally will not be swapping my iPad for a PlayBook anytime soon but I did notice that with the device not coming out until early to late 2011, it will effectively be competing with a 2nd Generation iPad that could address most of the current differences.
To me, the PlayBook is a credible alternative to the iPad and it's great to see competition heating up in this space with the Samsung Galaxy Tab adding an Android alternative to the mix.
I am more excited about the PlayBook (for selfish reasons) due to the penetration potential it has in the Enterprise and the business opportunities it presents. However, what is more exciting, is that tablets are here to stay and ready to change the mobile computing landscape.
With the exponential growth of smartphone sales pioneered by Apple's iOS platform and Google's Android platform, a lot of brands and businesses are starting to factor mobile apps and a mobile strategy into their marketing and operational activities.
In this mobile app gold rush, there is a general (and false) perception that the best way to reach the largest number of customers is to target every major mobile platform out there. On the surface, it seems like a good strategy to ensure your app is available to a wide array of users but fails to take into account the Pareto Principle (or the 80-20 rule). Applied to mobile apps, the Pareto principle would translate into "80% of your customers/engagement comes from 20% of the market". In this case, the 20% being Apple's iOS platform.
Finally, an often overlooked fact remains that Apple's iOS environment is a great test-bed for any innovative app concept you have. If your app is a success on Apple's platform, then it is very likely it is a good candidate to be ported to other platforms (as is the case with hugely successful games like Angry Birds).
With development budgets heavily restricted and the nascent stage of the mobile apps market, my advice to our customers is always to start where you will see the most ROI than invest large sums of money on a multi-platform strategy and realise that 80% of your efforts (i.e. developing for platforms other than Apple's) only return 20% benefits. Thankfully for us, it's a strategy that seems to be working.
Nokia has had a pretty bad decade at the start of this millennium. Declining smartphone sales, abysmal reviews for their latest phones and general apathy from the developer community have reduced Nokia to nearly irrelevant in the smartphone community. Although Nokia is still a dominant force in the mobile market in general, very few people are excited at anything the company has to say.
Given this climate, I am not surprised that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has published the now famous "burning platform" memo that is doing the rounds in the press this morning. I doubt anyone who follows the mobile market would be surprised at the observations that Elop makes in his memo but it is fascinating watching how honest he is about Nokia's shortcomings.
The most interesting bit to come out of this memo is Elop's hint at an upcoming announcement this Friday that promises to reveal the way forward for Nokia at the company's Capital Markets Day event. What is interesting and worth watching about this event is the wild speculation that Nokia might announce that they are going to adopt Windows Phone 7.
I know the mobile pundits will laugh at how futile and ridiculous this move would be. On the face of it, it seems like Nokia is giving up even without trying. Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering for Google, tweeted "#feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle", alluding to the fact that a Nokia and Windows Phone 7 is both possible and doomed to failure.
However, I strongly believe that abandoning their "burning" platforms like Symbian and adopting Windows Phone 7 could be the smart move Nokia makes this decade.
Nokia has always been great at making good hardware. The Nokia 6310i is still the best business phone I have ever used and that is saying something considering I am a staunch iPhone user and Apple fanboy. Where Nokia has failed is in putting together a great software platform and integrating it into an ecosystem that worked seamlessly with the hardware for customers and developers alike.
Developing software for Nokia phones has always been a difficult path for developers that many took while Nokia held market dominance. However, Apple and Google have shown that there is a better way when it comes to smart phones. It would take a monumental effort on Nokia's part to make Symbian and/or MeeGo into real competitors to iOS and Android.
Why not just adopt Android then? Isn't it open, innovative and market leading? This would seem to be a safe choice given the liberal Android terms but the risks Nokia runs is that it will have no advantages against the hundred other manufacturers developing Android phones. Android just won't give Nokia the competitive difference in the market and I doubt Nokia wants to become "just another Android manufacturer".
Windows Phone 7, although very late to the market, is generally accepted as a great technical platforms. By not copying iOS and Android, Windows Phone 7 has provided a credible user experience alternative to people who want to use smart phones. It has even been pitched as the platform "for normal people who aren't addicted to their phones". Reviews across the board agree that the platform is sound and has lots of positives.
What Windows Phone 7 is lacking is a credible manufacturer who can put their efforts behind producing excellent hardware that complements the platform while pushing the devices as flagship products. If Microsoft can accommodate Nokia by relaxing it's licensing terms and strike an agreement, I think we can look forward to seeing a third credible alternative to the iPhone and Android-based devices. Nokia and Microsoft could well be onto something great here.
Can someone just tell that to Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop?
The world-wide web has had an amazing and sometimes hardly believable effect on our everyday lives whether we are in business or as consumers. One of the major changes has been in the transparency of pricing. Of course this has been a huge benefit to the web-browsing consumer and presents a real challenge to the online shop as to how to catch and keep the price researching consumer.
Take, for instance, a big name UK brand like Halfords selling a multitude of consumable and other products. They are big enough to “own brand” much of their range making it marginally more difficult to shop around for the exact price comparison.
Halfords have a very respectable free iPhone app which is bright, quick and very informative right down to customer reviews of particular products. In fact, in the writer’s humble opinion, in almost all areas it’s as good as Halfords' “desktop” website. Halfords do not say what percentage of sales they take through their mobile app and I can only assume it’s a fairly small part of their direct income, however the app must do a power of good when it comes to product and price research. Once the prospective shopper has done their research online they can, if they choose, go to Halfords network of stores across the country where they can see, touch and try the product. The app does offer reserve and collect and home delivery too.
This sort of app is going to grow in importance as we see the number of smartphones in use increase (currently there are over 17 million in use) together with the use of mobiles (both smartphones and tablets) for shopping processes growing exponentially. In fact it is estimated that web traffic from mobiles will grow up to 8 times faster than from PCs. One retail strategist estimates that nearly 2/3rds of UK shoppers will be using their mobiles for shopping in the near future!
So the answer for any pro-active seller online is to consider carefully their mobile commerce strategy - it is not going to go away. As illustrated by Halfords it is even possible to “app-sell” a huge and diverse product range. Whether your offer is small or big the advantages of selling through the mobile route is manifold. However there is one simple rule – be focussed on ease of use and retaining your customers details and you’ll capture customers.
Our own investigations have shown clearly that consumers tend to became frustrated as each time they purchased from a new website they have to establish a new account together with payment details. They felt this was a time consuming and did not always justify the small amount they may have saved by choosing the cheapest. They also felt that they were maybe increasing risk by using a new supplier with such concerns as payment security, reliable delivery, unknown quality etc. The answer then, is clearly to design and build a mobile app which allows for the simplest possible purchasing process, ideally at the touch of as few buttons as possible.
One doesn’t have to look far to see how mobiles are changing the way we think and act. Look around you next time you are in a busy public area, how many people will you see using their mobiles?
