Mobile Enterprise Magazine Report: A Guide/Case Study to Building Mobile Apps with a MEAP

A S u p p l e m e n t t o M o b i l e E n t e r p r i s e Ma g a z i n e

Building a Major Mobile App? • What Exactly is a MEAP?

• SOS International -

Without a MEAP the odds of success Mobility Saves Lives

• Eaton - iPads vs. 30
will spiral rapidly out of control. Pounds of Catalogs

Don’t gamble with your company’s future…Mobile Enterprise Application
Platforms turn the odds for mobile success directly in your favor.

Building a Major Mobile App?

ta b l e o f What Exactly is a MEAP?
contents The Mobile Enterprise Application Platform - your key means
to a sure mobile bet. • By tony rizzo

There is no question that mobil- have tried, and most have failed - at
Cloud-based Services
ity has taken over the enter- significant development and developer
mer
ers
prise. Whether in the office, cost, and in lost time.
Mobile Enterprise Application Platform
out in the field or reaching out When an enterprise sets out to cre-
Native Secure Communications Gateway Databases
to consumers, mobile devices - but ate a strategic new mobile application,
Hybrid Data Encryption App Servers
(Native + HTML5)
more importantly, the mobile apps it simply cannot afford to gamble with
Phone 7 HTML5 User Authentication Web Services
MOBILE APPLICATIONS

I N T R O DEnd C TION
U Data Connectors
that make those devices useful - have the potential for failure. There are too
y OS Web Only
W Back Legacy Apps
ook (Browsers)
become central to all business opera- many stakeholders, many of them with
mbedded
MEAP3 What Exactly
Session Management
Screen and
HTML Scrapers
tions. The device side of the equation CxO titles, who have a great deal on the
hones is a MEAP? Transaction Management
remains a Wild West affair, with BYOD line - failure is not an option, and speed
ets Transaction/App Analytics
continuing without end. Enterprises to market is essential. Without a MEAP
tops

Integrated Design and User Interface Studio
won’t have any luck trying to control you would have better luck and better
Standalone or Eclipse/Windows Plugins
smartphones, though we can anticipate odds of success at the roulette table than
much more control in the long run over succeeding with your mobile project.
emerging tablet environments. Why? Consider the MEAP diagram
Mobile applications, however, are shown on page 20.
another thing entirely. Any business It represents the core features of any
CASE STUDY
can exert complete control over mobile enterprise grade MEAP. On the outside
MEAP7 International SOS apps, especially those large scale mobile edges you have the end user commu-
How to Deliver a Global, Cross-
applications that will - or already do - nity for your mobile app, and you have
Platform Mobile Application
serve as strategic corporate initiatives. all of the back end data and application
We’ll see two very important examples sources those users need secure access
of mobile applications driving strategic to. Security requires many things, but
enterprise initiatives a bit further on in the first line of defense is data encryp-
this story when we turn our attention tion and a 100% secure communication
to Eaton and SOS International, two capability to your end users. Without
large scale organizations that required a MEAP these two issues alone would
two very different approaches to build- present a significant challenge, but the
ing their major mobile applications. greatest challenge - at least in terms of
CASE STUDY Despite their different needs and developer cost and time - is the back
MEAP12 PowerSource business requirements, both companies end connectivity puzzle.
Eaton's Mobile App Takes
had one thing in common - they both An enterprise grade MEAP will re-
iPads Deep into the Field
utilized a “mobile enterprise applica- duce both the time and complexity of
tion platform” - or MEAP - to build their establishing back end connectivity. Typi-
mobile apps. It is not possible to build cally the development resources needed
state of the art mobile enterprise ap- here if an IT team wanted to do a project
plications without the use of one. Many in-house would require significant ex-

MobileEnterpriseMag.com january/february 2012 Mobile Enterprise | MEAP3


What Exactly is a MEAP?
perience (and great cost). A MEAP will
greatly reduce both back end complexity The heart of the MEAP is its application design
and time to execution by approximately
and development capabilities. It is here that the
75% compared to in-house efforts. Wire-
less data encryption is also fully handled end user experience is defined and executed.
by the MEAP - connectivity to and from
your mobile end users when utilizing a
MEAP will be as “state of the art secure” design is) and the ability of the MEAP user interface experience, and whether
as is humanly possible to achieve. to handle that customization and com- the MEAP has the ability to support
The heart of the MEAP is its applica- plexity will typically be a key criteria in HTML5 and hybrid (native + HTML5) ap-
tion design and development capabili- evaluating a MEAP. plications. These, among others, are all
ties. All MEAPs differ in their technical The application design studio is points of evaluation that will depend
approaches - some allow extensive also the component that determines on the requirements of the mobile ap-
visual drag and drop, some employ a a MEAP’s ability to deliver true “write plication being deployed.
table-driven approach, and some re- once, deploy to any” capabilities, Other components of a MEAP in-
quire additional coding. The level of whether the MEAP can easily deliver clude the ability to provide analytics on
customization that an app may require true native (yet highly customizable) app usage, including very granular in-
(depending on how complex its overall code, can deliver a true cross-device formation; some mobile device manage-

Cloud-based Services
Enterprise
and Consumer
Mobile Users

Mobile Enterprise Application Platform

iOS Native Secure Communications Gateway Databases

Hybrid Data Encryption
Android App Servers
(Native + HTML5)

Windows Phone 7 HTML5 User Authentication Web Services
MOBILE APPLICATIONS

BlackBerry OS W
Web Only
Back End Data Connectors Legacy Apps
and PlayBook (Browsers)
Screen and
Win CE Embedded Session Management
HTML Scrapers

Feature Phones Transaction Management

Win 8 Tablets Transaction/App Analytics

Win 7 Laptops

Integrated Design and User Interface Studio
Standalone or Eclipse/Windows Plugins

MEAP4 | Mobile Enterprise january/february 2012 MobileEnterpriseMag.com


What Exactly is a MEAP?
ment services; and the ability to push out Finally, the MEAP's own server and consideration. Businesses looking to mo-
updates and upgrades over the air to the connections it makes to back end bilize internal processes and business
provision or re-provision mobile devices. systems should be able to be based ei- functions may choose to look at a MEAP
There are two additional major ca- ther on-premise behind a corporate that provides pre-built application mod-
pabilities a MEAP must provide. The firewall, or up in the cloud. The cloud ules that can be both quickly assembled
first is a strong session management can be a network operations center as needed yet remain customizable.
capability. Mobile users will not al- - or NOC - that is directly supported Sybase’s Unwired Platform, for ex-
ways find themselves in locations that by the MEAP vendor, or it can be one ample, provides this exact capability.
provide connectivity to their mobile contracted through a wireless services “Mobilizing businesses' processes and
devices. In many cases a user must be provider, such as AT&T or Verizon. tasks has emerged as a top priority on
able to continue to work offline when both business and IT agendas, and mo-
a connection is lost or dropped. And Evaluation Criteria mentum will only accelerate in 2012,”
users should never explicitly know or A key evaluation point depends on notes David Tong, VP of Engineering
be aware that they are, in fact, work- the type of mobile application being for Sybase. “Enterprises are targeting
ing offline. developed. A consumer-facing mobile a broad set of mobile apps, including
feature-rich, full-functioning business
apps, and light-weight, task-based
The first partner that must be considered is the apps. Independent of the scenario, it is
important that the in-house develop-
MEAP vendor that will work closely with you to
ment team is empowered by a robust
deliver your strategic mobile game plans. mobile application platform that com-
plements their skill set, be it in a hybrid
Web container or native application en-
As soon as a connection reappears app will have different requirements vironment. It is also important that the
the application must log itself back on than an app needed out in the field. platform includes both development
to the back ends it was using prior to a As Johann Poppenbeck, VP, Product tools and the run-time capability.”
disconnect, and elegantly re-connect, re- Management for DSI, a veteran MEAP The bottom line is this: When your
establish communications and immedi- vendor, says, “When your mobile app is company - whether a Fortune 500 play-
ately update all services and data on both used out in the field, rather than in an er or a small SMB - decides the time has
the back end and on the mobile user's office environment, it is critical to en- arrived to drive strategic mobile initia-
device. Other data that may be available, sure that your development platform tives, the very first partner that must
such as GPS-driven location information, delivers apps that function regardless be considered is the MEAP vendor that
also needs to be preserved and re-utilized of device, location or network connec- will work with you to create, deliver
once a connection is re-established. tivity. It is also important that your plat- and deploy the mobile apps that are at
An enterprise grade MEAP must also form accommodates situations where the center of your strategic game plans.
deliver a strong transaction manage- a device is used by multiple users who Careful evaluation and consideration
ment capability. A transaction manager serve different roles and potentially of your MEAP partner will turn what
must effectively maintain the integrity of speak different languages. Finally, the would otherwise be an unnecessary
all data that is being consumed and used platform will ideally provide an inter- risky gamble into a sure thing. //
by the mobile app and the mobile user. face that is optimized for the mobile
The transaction manager works hand in device and specific end user workflows, Visit our Web site at www.mobileenter-
hand with the session manager to ensure rather than a browser version of the prisemag.com for additional resources,
that a user's work maintains data integ- interface seen at the desk.” including:
rity across the board - before, during, A MEAP’s “ecosystem” of applica- • The Top Ten Questions a MEAP Ven-
and after a disconnect-reconnect occurs. tion support may also prove to be a key dor Must Answer for You


<< International SOS's Mobile Membership App -
one code base, three major mobile platforms

services - that means, specifically, that
they feel safe and secure.”
For many years the “user interface”
that SOS provided its users was a wal-
let-size card with a collection of phone
numbers a customer would be able to
reliably depend on to call in any emer-
gency and wherever they might be. Ten
years ago the plastic card gave way to an
electronic card, which has been the norm
up until 2011. Daniel points out that “our
user statistics from 2010 showed that 80
percent of our end user customers have

International SOS — smartphones. Given that, we began to
consider the range of service possibilities

Mobility Saves Lives! that putting an SOS mobile application
on those phones would bring to our cus-
International SOS and its MEAP Partner Verivo Software serve tomers and users. Not to mention the
up a global apP • By tony rizzo benefits to SOS in terms of delivering
new service capabilities.”
SOS had “a smart developer in
house who pulled together a team
International SOS is a global illness, accident, or civil unrest. To deliv- of three and built a BlackBerry-based
company with 10,000 employ- er these capabilities International SOS prototype of the mobile app we spec’d
ees that include 970 full-time works in partnership with businesses, out during our mobile brainstorming
physicians and 200 security spe- governments and non-governmental sessions,” Daniel says. As is usually the
cialists. It offers integrated medical, organizations, and offers international case when mobile technology is used
clinical, security, and customer care so- standards of medical care. to deliver a strategic new enterprise
lutions to primarily large organizations Although its customers are Fortune capability, SOS’s CEO, Arnaud Vaissié,
with international operations. It pro- 500 businesses, its “clients” are the mil- immediately became involved with the
vides planning, preventative programs, lions of employees those companies con- project and as soon as the app was on
in-country expertise, and emergency tract with International SOS to protect his BlackBerry he demanded that SOS
response services to 66 percent of For- during their travels. Notes Tim Daniel, immediately get it out to the field.
tune Global 500 companies. Group Executive Vice President for SOS,
The company runs an international “We refer to SOS as a ‘business to busi-
operation spanning 70 countries, and ness to consumer’ organization. Our cus-
a worldwide network of alarm centers, tomers are large global entities, includ- 80% of Inter-
clinics, and health and logistics pro- ing 80 of the Fortune 100, but the actual
national SOS's
viders. A key aspect of the company’s users of our services are the employees
overall services is that it offers local- of our customers, and we treat them as
many users own
ized expertise, preventative advice, and consumers. We need to meet their needs smartphones
emergency assistance during critical and ensure they are satisfied with our



International SOS — Mobility Saves Lives!
As soon as both our customers and had to use a MEAP for development in effective agile development and de-
our users got a look at the new mobile order to be able to easily create, deploy, ployment capabilities, allowing mobile
application they immediately began maintain and deliver across a broad developers to easily build cross-plat-
to ask where the iPhone and Android range of devices (keeping in mind that form apps quickly and push changes to
versions were. “The handwriting was BlackBerry, Apple and Android all come native applications in real-time. Inter-
on the wall as soon as we put the appli- in numerous OS flavors). The company national SOS needs to be able to add
cation into the field,” says Daniel. “Al- also initially wanted native device appli- significant new functionality to new
though the larger population of users cation support (for example, extensive lo- releases of the app quickly - and that is
were on BlackBerry devices, essentially calized services required a tight coupling a direct match for our platform.”
all of our customers knew that iPhone to a device’s GPS capabilities. HTML5 is in
and Android demand would grow at the roadmap for future releases. Great Experiences,
an exponential rate as soon as the app After an initial review of available No Gambles
was discovered. BYOD has everything platforms that met their criteria the SOS had an advantage in building the
to do with this.” team narrowed its choices down to mobile applica-

The overall philosophy of Verivo Software was a
critical intangible for us — when we met with their
management team it quickly became clear that we
had a philosophical meeting of the minds.

“Yes,” Daniel says, “we did initially three finalists and then proceeded to >> Tim Daniel,
attempt to port the BlackBerry app over put each through a rigorous evaluation Group Executive Vice
President, International SOS - "Our mobile app
to the iPhone with our team. It became process. After a three month evalua-
has had a major impact on our business."
immediately clear - crystal clear in fact tion process the team ended up select-
- that this would be a very painful pro- ing Verivo Software, formerly known
cess and was not going to work. We as Pyxis Mobile, for a combination of tion in that it had the BlackBerry pro-
needed to move the app from essential- reasons, key among them: full cross- totype and user feedback in hand to
ly a prototype to what we knew would platform capability, full native device guide the application design process.
become a sophisticated and complex capability, the cost model and structure Back end connectivity was easily estab-
mobile application. We brought in an involved, and the ability to bring the lished, freeing the development team
experienced mobile development man- platform in-house and wean SOS fully to focus on the end user experience and
ager and set him the task of solving our off of any professional services devel- to ultimately design an application that
need for a write once and easily deploy opment assistance in the long term. works extremely well across all three
to many solution.” Arnaud Vaissié, the Daniel adds, “The overall philosophy platforms. The original internal Black-
CEO, made moving ahead quickly easy of Verivo was also a critical intangible Berry team had already created a set of
by being highly supportive but also for us - when we met with their man- Web services to use with their original
through approving significant funding agement team it was clear we had a BlackBerry application. Once Verivo
for the project, which Vaissié sees as a philosophical meeting of the minds.” came on board it was a simple process
vital investment for SOS’s future. Todd Christy, a Verivo founder and to upgrade the Web services to deliver
The mobile team quickly narrowed its CTO adds, “Our philosophy has the performance required by the app to
the solution set down - it was clear they always been to deliver a highly cost- ensure a crisp user experience.



International SOS — Mobility Saves Lives!
The new application, simply called wherever our users happen to be and application has been enormously well-
Membership App, is shown running who are extraordinarily knowledge- received, and I can say with a great
on each platform on page 23. Aside able of that local landscape.” That deal of confidence that mobility really
from a few minor mobile operating said, it is already becoming quite clear does save lives!”
system-specific issues, it is clearly the to Daniel and his business and technol- Discovery by the largest number of
same application - and the same look, ogy teams that they will need to make users possible is important because the
feel and functionality - running on all the move to developing tablet-based International SOS mobile application
three mobile devices. mobile applications. will be sending back critical applica-
Daniel points out that through the Tablets open up more opportunities. tion information behind the scenes
use of Verivo’s platform, “develop- Daniel's teams made the decision to fo- from users out in the field - commu-
ment proved quick and efficient. We cus specifically on native mobile phone nication is bi-directional, and being
did make use of Verivo’s professional applications in order to take advantage able to easily set this up is a primary
services team - but that was our choice of all available features at the deepest MEAP requirement (and a key evalu-
as we needed to have the application possible level. With tablets however, ation criteria). SOS will be investing
out the door in November. From start the dynamics change. First, the need for more heavily in back end Web services
to finish, from our initial search for the native apps is far less important, and it design as the app evolves and sends
right mobile development platform, to opens the door to using HTML5. Tablet more data back and forth. The Verivo
our formal engagement with Verivo, to applications will likely be used by SOS's platform makes this process relatively
a finished mobile app whose simplicity workforce, and their needs are likely easy, though there is no way to com-
of operation masks a complex piece going to be centered more directly on pletely avoid a fair amount of complex
of software, that was deployed across Web-based applications. Says Daniels, design effort. The key is to be able to
three distinct mobile platforms was ap- “When we are ready to take the next eliminate 80% of the effort so that
proximately a seven month project.” step and begin adding HTML5-based the remaining 20% gets the necessary
Daniel adds, “We made our CEO tablet apps, we already know that Ve- quality attention from the develop-
happy and met our deadlines, but most rivo will be there to provide the MEAP ment teams - which SOS will draw from
significantly we met them without hav- support we'll need. Eventually we'll its in-house resources.
ing to cut a single corner - Verivo’s MEAP also look at building additional smart- Finally, as the app is discovered
took all the risks out of a development phone applications that will probably not only by end users, but as well by
process that would otherwise have prov- end up as hybrid HTML5 plus native SOS’s business customers, partners,
en a significant gamble for us.” mobile apps. Verivo will be there for and its own internal workforce, there
that as well.” is already a “significant rising demand
Next Steps As the application is discovered SOS for more mobile apps of every sort,
“International SOS developed the has seen its use grow exponentially. So including mobile apps on tablets,”
Membership App specifically for the far the ability of the app to scale on says Daniel. “With our Verivo rela-
smartphone environment. The reason the back end to support those users tionship firmly cemented, and with
we focused religiously on the smart- has been a non-issue. Daniel does say our own in-house expertise quickly
phone is something that is often for- that even with hundreds of thousands growing in maturity, I believe we are
gotten in the great rush to build mo- of downloads there is much deploy- in a great place - we’re ready to ex-
bile applications - the second word in ment left to deliver on - when mem- ecute on our mobile road map, and
smartphone is…phone!” says Daniel. berships and total users push into the we’re confident we’ll continue to get
“The ability to make a call still remains seven figure range as they do with our mobile apps done on time, on
the number one most effective means International SOS, making sure that all budget and with great user interface
for any of our end users, no matter users find the application sooner than experiences. But there is no doubt
where they are, to reach a safety net later is an exercise SOS is now pushing. that it is the MEAP that is, ultimately,
- our operators, who are both local to Nevertheless, Daniel says that, “the the great enabler here.” //



Eaton's PowerSource — all of those materials in a clean and visu-
ally strong manner; it needed to ensure
Taking iPads into the Field that all information on over 200,000
hydraulic products - especially pricing
Eaton figured its field sales teams would prefer iPads to lugging information - was entirely up to date;
30 pounds of manuals around. It was right. • By tony rizzo it needed to allow sales reps to craft
proposals and notes and to capture
all required data for simple back end
download at the point of sales contact;
Industrial manufacturer Eaton Says Stager, “We knew we needed it needed to allow easy order entry;
Corporation had an interest- to significantly reduce the entire sales and the app had to work under a true
ing problem. The company cycle. The only way to do so was to anytime, anywhere set of conditions.
produces state of the art indus- put all the information the Eaton field Uninterrupted anywhere, anytime
trial equipment, but also has an exten- teams require at their fingertips at the access is critical. The field reps typically
sive overall product line that includes immediate point of contact for any sales operate in environments with unstable
countless products that have been opportunity - no matter how complex or and unreliable 3G services and little
around for many years. involved that information might be. The or no WIFi access, meaning that the
For as long as anyone can remem- goal was to reduce the sales cycle from ability to transparently work offline
ber Eaton’s distributors and field sales what had been ‘days and sometimes would be essential to the design of
representatives have been using exten- weeks’ to, ideally, the day of initial en- the mobile app. A field rep needed to
sive collections of printed manuals that gagement with a customer or prospect.” have access to the entire working app
they’ve lugged around in the trunks of It was clear to Stager that the com- at every point in the sales process, from
their cars forever. In addition to carry- pany had to take a major mobile leap initial contact, through all discussions,
ing around printed manuals, the typical and needed to completely automate its to the end of a meeting, and needed
sales process included taking extensive entire field sales process for its more than to be able to capture all data whether
notes, then heading back to the office 400 sales representatives and network of wirelessly connected or not.
to carry out typically extensive data en- distributors and channel partners. From With these initial parameters in mind,
try into Eaton’s back end systems. From his position - which bridges between and Stager and his team pulled together an
the time an Eaton field representative encompasses the viewpoints of both the initial prototype for a mobile app, run-
made initial contact with either an exist- business and technology sides of Eaton’s ning on an iPad, and targeted showing
ing customer or a prospect, many days industrial sector teams - Stager put to- this prototype at the company’s Fall 2010
would then elapse before the rep would gether an initial early game plan in mid- Eaton Distributor Meeting (EDM) event
be ready to reconnect with a proposal 2010 to tackle the problem. in September 2010 - a large scale affair
for a deal or to actually close a sale. The basic parameters that needed with large numbers of participants. Stag-
Eaton’s competitors are in the same to be met are as follows: the mobile er recalls, “There were over a thousand
boat, and in 2010 Eaton realized that application had to be able to deliver the global Eaton channel partners and repre-
there were two possible roads to its entire Eaton collection of catalogs and sentatives and our simple and relatively
field sales future: either Eaton could manuals; it had to allow easy access to crude mobile prototype captured their
take a strategic leap to gain a strong
competitive advantage, or it could let
a competitor do so instead. Eric Stager,
If you don’t know it’s an iPad you are looking
Program Manager, Web and Mobile,
Industrial Sector for Eaton, knew the at you would easily be fooled into thinking that
answer to which road Eaton needed to PowerSource is a substantial laptop application.
take - it was, in fact, a no-brainer.


imaginations entirely. We received over- tire catalog base and other print-based platform due to its level of maturity in
whelming ‘Voice of Customer’ feedback collateral, a database team, and an inter- the space, its ability to initially deliver
at the event from a variety of channels - nal Eaton team of 40 coming together to on iPad and be able to deploy easily to
one-on-one discussions, surveys, and col- deliver the mobile app, which eventually other versions when user demand dic-
laborative workshops - demanding that became known as PowerSource. At this tates that need in the future, the ability
Eaton make the app an urgent priority.” point in time Stager’s rapidly growing to effectively translate the defined user
Stager continues, “The Eaton team knew it also needed to bring in a interface (a key component of the app
leadership team saw this feedback in major MEAP vendor. for Eaton), the ability to help Eaton de-

< Sophisticatedamong many
capabilities,
video

other features, deliver
a powerful competitive
edge directly at the point
of customer contact.

> PowerSource application
great deal of
puts a

power in the hands of
Eaton’s field sales teams
and distributors.

person, and the idea sold itself - with The mobile app, in Eaton’s case, was ploy the app’s enormous store of data
overwhelming user demand, and our defined not by an immediate need for in the cloud, and for its professional
management team instantly coming on cross mobile platform development or services team, which demonstrated it
board and adding their own demands the need to write once and deploy to could deliver a complex mobile app
for delivery as well as the necessary fi- many - a typical MEAP requirement (al- within an aggressive timeline.
nancial resources, we suddenly found though this is a key requirement for next Jim Somers, CMO at Antenna, notes,
ourselves in full production mode - with versions of PowerSource), but was rather "When Eaton first asked us to look at
the only question remaining to be an- defined by a great deal of both back end their mobile app idea it was instantly
swered being: how the heck were we and user interface complexity. The ver- clear to us that professional services
actually going to do this?” sion of PowerSource that would repre- would play a significant role because
sent its initial deployment was massive what they were attempting to do with
A Substantial in scope in terms of its mobile ambitions, PowerSource is ground-breaking - and
Mobile App and the Eaton team knew it was going candidly pushed the envelope of what
The project quickly grew into a signifi- to initially be an iPad app that needed to is truly possible with the technology.
cant effort. Stager counts 10 external take full advantage of iPad’s capabilities. The amount of product data and up-
partners - including user design teams, Stager says that Eaton did a deep dates - including interactive 3-D prod-
an external testing team, a validation dive with four MEAP vendors and ulti- uct demos - being pushed from the
and QoS team, a team to digitize its en- mately chose Antenna Software and its cloud to the device was unprecedented.



Eaton's PowerSource — Taking iPads into the Field
They had an aggressive vision and very and that team’s ability to effectively de- The app takes advantage of the
aggressive timeline for completion, and liver the app as specified by both back iPad’s mobile strengths - easy portability,
mobile experts were required to make end and user interface requirements portrait and landscape viewing modes,
that vision a reality.” defined outside of Antenna itself, were and multi-pane touch navigation. In par-
When PowerSource is deployed to a critical to Eaton’s ability to deliver the ticular, user adoption - a specific goal
user, there is a data store of over 6 GB app on a timely basis.” for Stager and his team, is not an issue.
of data that is also downloaded with Says Stager, “If you didn’t know Both Apple’s and the iPad’s popularity
the application. Every week Antenna’s you were looking at an iPad screen you and cachet ensure user adoption. “What
server pushes gigabytes of updates to would easily be fooled into thinking this would you rather have,” asks Stager,
every user of PowerSource over the air was a substantial desktop application “thirty pounds of catalogs in your trunk
- a critical piece of the app. As Stager - and that, in a nutshell, was the real or a cool iPad 2 running PowerSource?”

Next Steps
From concept to completed mobile proj-
The MEAP is the key mobile ect, PowerSource required just a little
tool for keeping the odds of over a year to spec out, design, build,
mobile app success at Eaton test and deploy. Antenna’s development
resources were critical to PowerSource
squarely in our favor. launching under such a timeframe. A
next step for Eaton - which has a sub-
stantial IT team in-house - is to start
puts it, “Antenna demonstrated to us a >> Eric Stager, Program Manager, Web and learning the ropes of mobile applica-
Mobile, Industrial Sector for Eaton
maturity that other MEAP vendors lack tion development. Stager believes that
relative to our ability to deliver both “this goal is clearly a long term project.
a complex mobile app and the huge challenge for us - because ultimately we It won’t happen overnight by any stretch
amount of data that is part and parcel and our partners have in fact developed of the imagination. But it will happen
of the mobile app.” a substantial and strategic application over the course of the next 24 months.”
Somers adds, “Antenna’s ability to that is inherently mobile. Its mobility is As with any project that meets its
run Eaton’s app in our cloud is vital to what provides the strategic and com- goals and demonstrates a clear strate-
the success of the Eaton deployment petitive advantage.” That the app was gic advantage, not only is the hydrau-
because Eaton doesn’t have to worry completed in a year is remarkable. lics division of Eaton already looking
about standing up and maintaining the PowerSource was formally launched ahead to its next mobile applications,
mobile operating environment. Rather in November 2011. Incidental to Pow- but other major divisions of Eaton have
than worrying about these infrastruc- erSource’s creation, it also turns out also taken notice of PowerSource’s suc-
ture issues Eaton can focus instead on that PowerSource is also one of the cess and are lining up their own mo-
what is strategic to their business.” first to be included in Apple’s new Vol- bile strategies. Mobile development
With user interface specifications ume Purchasing Program (VPP) for B2B will eventually become a core Eaton IT
and database and back end connectiv- apps. PowerSource delivers 3-D parts competency. But as Stager also points
ity requirements in hand as developed modeling, promotional and training out, “whether it is Antenna or anoth-
through Eaton’s other vendor partner- videos, pricing configurations, tech- er MEAP partner down the road, the
ships for the project, Antenna then pro- nical specifications, competitor cross MEAP will continue to play a key and
ceeded to write the entire application references, and much more. All of this is central role in all of our mobile devel-
for Eaton. Says Stager, “Antenna’s ability handled through a set of sophisticated opment efforts. It is the key mobile tool
to make the necessary mobile app de- user interfaces, each designed to serve for keeping the odds of mobile app
velopment resources available to Eaton, a particular type of data requirement. success squarely in our favor.” //



We would like to thank our sponsors:
Antenna provides a complete solution for businesses to build, manage
and measure a unified mobile strategy across all devices. Only Antenna
delivers mobile experiences that range from native and HTML 5 apps to
mobile-optimized websites while making all the hard stuff like security,
integration, and management look easy (even though it's not). Find us at
antennasoftware.com.

Data Systems International® improves enterprise productivity and profit-
ability through mobile technologies. Our portfolio of solutions, which
includes the dcLINK® Mobile Application Platform™, prebuilt MOBILE-
Apps™ and Unibar® Enterprise Labeling Software™, can mobilize an entire
organization—regardless of data source, device type, operating system or
network connectivity. Learn more at www.DSIonline.com.

MobileIron was founded in 2007 to securely manage apps, multi-OS
and BYOD enterprise mobility needs. MobileIron’s software actively
manages intelligent tablets and smartphones — the primary personal
communications and computing platform for business. Today, more than
1,300 global customers leverage MobileIron’s software to reduce cost,
risk, and usability challenges.

Sybase, an SAP company, is an industry leader in delivering enterprise and
mobile software to manage, analyze and mobilize information. We are
recognized globally as a performance leader, proven in the most data-
intensive industries and across all major systems, networks and devices.
Sybase enables customers to unwire their enterprises, where business-critical
information can be securely moved back and forth from the data center
to the end device, and delivered to the right person, any time, anywhere.

A leading provider of enterprise mobility software, Verivo helps companies
accelerate their business results. Its unique technology empowers teams to
build, deploy, manage and update their mobile apps — rapidly and securely.
Verivo’s mobility platform is used by hundreds of companies in numerous
industries, worldwide. To learn more, visit www.verivo.com.


Mobile Enterprise Magazine Report: A Guide/Case Study to Building Mobile Apps with a MEAP

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Mobile Enterprise Magazine Report: A Guide/Case Study to Building Mobile Apps with a MEAP