Create A Money Winning Business Plan Outline

Create A Money Winning Business Plan Outline

By Darrell Zahorsky, About.com   http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/businessplans/a/bpoutline.htm?nl=1

A business plan outline is the second most important starting point once you’ve pre-determined your audience. The business plan outline should be prepared before the actual research and writing of the business plan. Once your outline has been set; organize your research files around the layout of your plan.

Every business plan follows a generic outline but not every business plan is the same. Business plan outlines differ on 2 factors:

1. Type of Business: Details of critical success factors for businesses in your industry must be included in the plan. Technology companies will discuss R & D, intellectual property, and time to market. A retailer will feature pricing methods, inventory control, merchandising and location. Ensure that your plan is complete by addressing factors important to your industry.

2. Type of Audience: A banker business plan will be different from an investor plan. Bankers like to see risk assessment and planning, loan amounts, repayment terms and collateral. Investors want a return on investment, an exit strategy, and planned growth with the funds. Read more

QuickBase Client Real Examples

QuickBase Client Real Examples

1. Org Name: National Seminars GroupTitle: Director of Digital ContentApplication Type: Content Management System

   I’ve produced over 700 video objects for use in training. These videos have the high-quality master original files, streaming FLV files, and even streaming Windows Media Server versions. I created a content management system in QuickBase that points to our different servers where these are housed. Each QuickBase record stores the key information like topic, length, and talent. Marketing and web designers can search the database and click a preview button to watch the different videos. They can then copy the file’s URL and use it in their code for web pages or downloads.

   This saves me countless hours each day and streamlines our workflow. Without it, we’d probably have to hire someone just to track everything. QuickBase is a godsend.

   Scott Skibell

   Comment by Scott Skibell – January 15, 2009 @ 9:24 am

2. Org name: SAGE Systems Technologies,LLC (SAGE)Application Type: Project ManagementSAGE is a federal services contractor. We recently bid and won a large contract servicing communication sites for the U.S. Coast Guard throughout Alaska. There about 50 sites requiring scheduled preventive maintenance and casualty maintenance as needed. We promoted Quickbase in our proposal as a means to keep numerous stakeholders apprised of the status of all sites. As you can imagine, the state of VHF/UHF/HF and Data Link communications is critical to Coast Guard operations in Alaska.

   My understanding is that the District Commander is receiving a daily briefing on communication readiness on the basis of reports automatically distributed to certain Coast Guard officials.

   The key is that we were able to field an enterprise information system for this effort at zero cost to our client, since we pay for Quickbase from our overhead.

   Kingsley Klosson

   Comment by Kingsley Klosson – January 15, 2009 @ 11:28 am

3. Organization: MEDRAD, Inc.
   Title: Performance Excellence SpecialistApplication type: Employee Recognition SystemWe use QuickBase within our department to allow employees to recognize each other. We call it the BlingBling Thing, a FUN and INFORMAL award program, to reward serious contributions to positive attitude.
   Any employee can nominate any other employee
   Nominations and tracking are done right here in Quickbase
   The reigning Bling-a-Ding gets a traveling trophy
   The reigning Bling-a-Ding selects the next Bling-a-Ding at the end of a two-month long reign.
   Any employee may only reign (win) once every 2 months
   Criteria to be considered for selection include: teamwork, brighten my day, job well done, going the extra mile, & excellent support
   The Bling-a-Ding elect is presented with the award by the reinging Bling-a-Ding and the CFO/FF of the Bling-a-Dings in a creative & memorable manner (i.e. a BlingSing)
   Any individual to get 10 nominations will receive a BlingRing from the BlingKing (by phone).
   Each year, the group will host a fabulous and eventful affair known as the BlingFling with all the year’s winners

   All of the above are tracked and managed in QuickBase.

   This has a great impact on employee satisfaction. It’s easy and fast to nominate someone and it’s fun to watch the chart on the home page change as nominations come in.

   Comment by Marisette Edwards – January 15, 2009 @ 2:51 pm

4. Phil Powis
   Organization: Mangiante Photography
   Title: Account Manager
   application types: project management, human resources, & customer service currently.We use quickbase to manager our photography projects from start to finish, from the date of scheduling, to the final delivery of goods and services. It has helped to eliminate the paper trail and keep everyone on the same page. So far, it has truly revolutionized the way we do business. We are very happy with the product. Recently started using it for human resources and time sheet entry, as well as tracking customer service issues.Thank you QB!

   T-Shirt Size – Medium.

   Comment by Phil Powis – January 16, 2009 @ 12:56 pm

5. Great stories so far! I really like the BlingBling Thing. I’ve also used QuickBase for the same kind of nomination process. It’s a great way to involve the team and recognize the times when people go above and beyond.Comment by Bill – January 16, 2009 @ 5:31 pm
6. As a Healthcare organization we have used Quickbase for a variety of purposes.We have created a Catering request calendar in Quickbase. With the automatic email notifications and the report capabilties, this has helped saved not only money noramlly spent on other types of software but many hours of data entry time.Our Business office has used Quickbase to automate a Daily Posting process. Each clerk saves over 15 minutes a day at the copy machine. Data entry errors are eliminated and calcuations are completed automatically. Paper shuffling from one tray to the next is a thing of the past.

   We also use Quickbase for our Provider recruitment. It is one place where the entire team can reveiw the resume, visit itinerary, search for past applicant’s, orientation,etc.

   Quickbase is also used for our vacation requests, employee recognition, agendas/minutes and our Hazard Material Inventories among many other applications.

   Quickbase has assisted staff with task accountability and projects run smoother when the entire team are aware of the issues and the timelines. The ability to share key data with our vendors has been most helpful. We would be lost without Quickbase!

   T-shirt size – Large

   Comment by Deb – January 19, 2009 @ 12:40 pm

7. We automated our expense reimbursement process with Quickbase. Users complete the forms online and reimbursement rates (for travel) are calculated for them. This process provides great communication between employer, manager and payroll, sending notices as the form moves from phase to phase. Our users are happy because we have reduced turn-around time for reimbursement. Managers are happy because they have easy access to reports that help them stay within their budgets.The system has also helped me as the application administrator because the burden of maintaining users has been given to the department managers. Each manager is responsible for maintaining a QuickBase group for his department. Since the manager knows which employees are transferring in or out before I do, he adds and removes users from his own group, improving security.T-shirt size: Medium

   Comment by Patti Dornacker – January 19, 2009 @ 2:17 pm

8. Insurance Company
   Provider Liaison, working with the provider population and their staffsWe built an application to track our contacts with our provider population. All of our providers and facilities are linked to the application so that as new providers/facilities are contracted they are automatically added to the Quickbase application.We track all of our contacts with our provider population including phone calls, emails, letters and site visits. This allows us to track and trend issues and to keep up with any follow-ups that might be required. We are also able to add in a separate contact list for key staff members at a specific location.

   This also works as a tickler file for us to get back to key people in our own organization. If we did not have the application it would be very difficult for us to keep track of all of our commitments and our follow-ups. We looked into other applications that we could have purchased. With Quickbase we saved a ton-o-money, we created an application specific for our needs, and we can customize the application as our needs change.
   Thanks,
   Lisa

   T-Shirt size small petite

   Comment by Lisa Carpiaux – January 19, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

9. We use quickbase for all our corporate applications in QuickBase and that it is way faster and easier to create, deploy, and manage solutions than any other product that we have come across. Moving to quickbase is one of the smartest move that our firm has ever undetaken. We have successfully integrated our 15 offices in 5 countries and various business groups using workflow applications created in quickbase. I cant think of any other solution that’s as complete as quickbase.Thank you quickbase team for your awesome support!Comment by Prakash Raju – January 20, 2009 @ 1:08 am
10. The name of the organization where you use QuickBase: eModeration Limited and eModeration IncorporatedYour title: Tamara Littleton, CEOWhat you use QuickBase for including the type of application, how it relates to your business, and…

    eModeration (www.emoderation.com) is a specialist outsourced UGC moderation company, ranking some of the biggest brands in the world amongst its clients. Companies like Nokia, Disney, MTV, O2 and Procter & Gamble rely upon eModeration’s round-the-clock vigilance to avoid the legal and moral issues arising from unmonitored, illegal content appearing on an online community or user generated space.

    With offices in London, New York and Los Angeles, and over 65 staff working in different locations – including the UK, the USA, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Australia – and on a variety of systems, eModeration is primarily a virtual organisation.

    We are expanding the applications we use all the time, but currently we use:

    1. ‘Shift Report’ application, moderation teams enter data regarding shift performance . This enables us to check that we are fulfilling contractual obligations, perform quality assurance, provide our clients with reports (complete with drill down facility to each moderation decision). Cross tabular queries provide us with valuable industry insights which we are able to offer back to clients in order to help them develop their moderation systems.

    2. ‘Time Cards’ Application, recording staff working hours. How long is each staff member working and on what? This helps us measure the profitability of different projects and look after staff welfare.

    3. ‘Sales Force Automation’, our database of existing clients and new business leads. We can share sales leads, client contacts, keep on top of contract renewals and enable budget forecasting.

    4. ‘Project Tracking’ application, our database of each project’s rota and staffing requirements and contractual end dates. From this information we compile the work rota.

    5. ‘New Starter Manager’ Application, this project management system is designed to steer us through the processes required when new members join the company, sending out reminders to key staff to fulfil their admin tasks and tracking progress.

    6. ‘Staff Profiles’ Application, this is a database of staff experience, knowledge and preferences, allowing us to uniquely match staff skills to projects and staff up contracts rapidly.

    7. ´Project Status´ Application, this application allows us to track the progress of projects during the start up phase and on an ongoing basis.

    How QuickBase has made a difference in your business. Has it helped you save money? Make money? Make better decisions?

     

    • QuickBase has allowed us to expand both in terms of numbers of staff and volume of work we are able to handle concurrently
    • QuickBase has enhanced our professionalism, giving Clients an accurate, timely and well-presented view of their service offering
    • QuickBase has improved our accuracy and information for internal forward-planning
    • QuickBase has increased the visibility of, and ability to share, data within our company, which has no physical shared network
    • QuickBase has improved the stability and reliability of (in particular) our reporting and shift tracking systems
    • QuickBase has enabled us to drill data for industry learnings, invaluable for consultation work, training and PR
    • QuickBase has given us the potential to save money through increased efficiency and shared access

    • QuickBase is increasing the efficiency of our sales team through improved sales tracking 

    Comment by Tamara Littleton – January 20, 2009 @ 6:06 am

11. In 2002, our firm began to use QuickBase to help us manage the real estate development process and schedules of over 200 projects. We quickly learned that QuickBase is an amazing application and also realized the added value it would bring to the services we provide our clients. Since then we have developed numerous applications to help nationwide retailers track various aspects of their design, development and construction processes. Because of its flexibility, ease of use and customization, our clients quickly adopted and expanded their use of QuickBase to teams across their enterprises. QuickBase has measurably impacted their businesses by improving inter-departmental communication, workflow, work effort and fosters broader communication with external teams. The results of implementing QuickBase are immediate and our clients are very pleased with the time and cost savings it provides.Comment by Aurora Flores – January 20, 2009 @ 8:19 pm

QuickBase Full Review

QuickBase Full Review

REVIEW DATE:01.12.09     http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338774,00.asp

Ratings:Editor-Very Good  – by Edward Mendelson

QuickBase puts your company’s database applications online, so that anyone in your organization can get customized, secure Web access to anything from inventory to contact lists to product management. You probably won’t want to use it as an enterprise-scaled database, but for almost anything else, it’s an impressive Web-based substitute for a server in your office. Unlike many current cloud-computing services offered by no-name vendors, QuickBase is a product of the long-established financial-software giant Intuit. It gets our Editors’ Choice rating partly because it’s actually what our editors chose: PCMag.com uses it to keep track of previews, reviews, and other features.

		SLIDESHOW (14)
		Slideshow | All Shots

You can try QuickBase free for 30 days; after that, you have to spring for a subscription. Pricing starts at $250 per month and scales upward from there. That’s not cheap, but those businesses that can meet the price can have access to a surprisingly simple and elegant application. This simplicity becomes manifest within your first few minutes of using the online app. The straightforward, no-clutter Web-based interface has helpful prompts and explanations everywhere. I found it easy to get started either by using one of more than 300 prebuilt database templates-many contributed by real-world users-or by building a simple database from scratch. From there I found it simple to perform all the sorts of tasks the average user will desire from an online database, including adding multiple tables, setting up tabular and graphic reports, and fine-tuning access permissions for users.

What I like most about QuickBase is its clear interface, obviously the result of years of experience with consumer-level products like Intuit’s QuickBooks. When I first logged in, I clicked on the “Create a new application” icon and was taken to a screen that listed prebuilt applications in a dozen different categories. The Legal category, for example, offered applications for time and billing, multi-party litigation, contract management, and a document library. The document library app is impressive, thanks to a built-in revision-tracking feature that can store multiple versions of the same document. I especially liked the option to lock the document so that other people can’t upload new versions while I had the document open. All these prebuilt applications come with sample data, but it was easy enough to clear this out by clicking on a “Delete Sample Data Now” link at the top of any view that included such boilerplate.

You’re certainly not obligated to stick to templates, however. The “Create a New Application” screen lets you create an app from scratch or by uploading data. It took me about 5 minutes to create a database of my recent and pending assignments from PCMag, complete with an option to display overdue items with special color-coding. I also tried creating a database by exporting data from an Excel worksheet. The time-honored method for importing data into a database app is to export data from a worksheet into a comma-separated values (CSV) file and then import that file into the database. That method worked just fine with QuickBase-the app let me select the CSV file on my disk and imported it instantly-but I preferred an alternate method that spared me the trouble of creating a CSV file.

In this alternate method, I simply opened an Excel worksheet, selected the data that I wanted to put into QuickBase, pressed Ctrl-C to copy it to the Windows clipboard, and then pasted that same data into a large window in the QuickBase screen. I was also able to perform the same copy-and-paste feat with data in a Word document. In case you’re wondering, the reason QuickBase doesn’t directly import Excel or Word documents is that these files are likely to contain titles and other text that aren’t part of a table of data. You’re far more likely to get the results you want by copying and pasting.-Next: Data Analyzation

Data Analysis

Regardless of the import method I chose, QuickBase analyzed the data and did an impressive job of translating it into the correct field types-text, date, number, URL, and so forth. After one click on the OK button I had a bare-bones database application consisting of a tabular view of my data. From there, I proceeded to customize the view by modifying the default “dashboard” page, assigning permissions to different users, importing or creating additional tables, and setting up parent-child or other links between tables. Every step was refreshingly lucid. Even when I got into depths that database beginners normally avoid-like parent-child relations between tables-QuickBase kept the complex options hidden until I needed them and always gave a clear explanation of how to do what I wanted.

In fact, what impressed me most about QuickBase-in addition to its fleet-footed performance-was its terrifically clear and easy way of proceeding from simple to complex features. The dialogs for creating or modifying a report view, for example, begin by displaying a set of basic choices, but I needed only to click on a menu in the upper right-hand corner of any window to edit whatever view I was using. For example, when viewing a form, I could click on a “Customize This Form” link to open a multi-tabbed editor that let me modify the content and layout of the form or add or refine rules that control what gets displayed on the form.

These rules can include complex conditions, which I added and refined by choosing options from drop-down lists. Best of all, when I finished choosing these options, the software displayed my application’s resulting rule listing in plain English. For example, in a database that kept track of job contracts, I could set up a rule that said, in effect, that when the “Contract Status” was marked as Open, then the form would display fields labeled “Minimum Fee” and “Maximum Fee,” but when “Contract Status” was marked as Closed, those two fields would disappear and be replaced by a field labeled “Final Fee.”

Another feature I liked was the e-mail reporting system, which can manually send a record to any e-mail address, or which can be set up to run automatically. It would be easy, for example, to have an expenses database send an e-mail to an administrator anytime an employee’s meal-expense bill exceeded a specified amount-or to send a congratulatory e-mail when someone accomplished a scheduled task.

QuickBase also provides low-frills charting, limited to basic area, line, pie, and bar charts. I like the way I was able to set rules that controlled which items would appear on the chart. I even like the fact that QuickBase didn’t let me create bandwidth-hogging three-dimensional charts or charts with shadows or other razzle-dazzle effects. When I display a chart online, I want it to load as quickly as possible, and QuickBase’s charts do exactly that. As I see it, high-glitz graphics are more suited to PowerPoint presentations, and a database should be designed for getting work done, with essential information displayed quickly and efficiently. But if you want to use QuickBase data for high-glitz graphics, just export a table from your database to your hard drive, import the table into Excel or PowerPoint, and apply all the glitz you want.

For Web developers, QuickBase provides an HTTP API (application programming interface) that lets you link live data to Web applications or legacy data systems. I didn’t try to test this feature, but Intuit provides downloadable software development kits for getting started in Visual Basic, Perl, and Java, the QuickBase forums include lively discussions of tips and tricks.-Next: QuickBase’s Imperfections

QuickBase’s Imperfections

Impressive as it is, QuickBase isn’t perfect. When I tried to display a chart based on one of the data tables in PCMag’s database, I got only the unhelpful error message “Unable to display chart, it has too many subdivisions.” The help system had no further explanation, but I figured out that I needed to tighten the filters that we had used to select data to display in the chart. If you bump into an equally obscure problem, ask for help in the QuickBase user forums, where you’re likely to get a quick and highly detailed answer from the developers or other users.

One limitation to keep in mind when using the document-storage system is that QuickBase doesn’t work like “live” Web services, in which you can open an attached file in the browser and save it again directly to the Web. When you open a file attached to a database and make revisions, you have to save it to your local disk first before uploading the new version to QuickBase.

Though I was glad that I could easily export data into CSV or tab-delimited formats for local storage or other purposes, the feature has a major drawback: It works with just one table or attachment at a time. So two tables that each has three attachments require eight exports. While I’d like to have all my tables in a local database, that’s impractical if I have more than a few. The limitation is especially serious if you use your database as a storage area for documents. You can’t easily transfer files to any other storage system. You’re effectively locked into QuickBase until the end of time.

If you don’t use QuickBase to store file attachments, it seems to me close to ideal as an online corporate database application. For lighter-weight, personal databases, try the free blist, the graphics-rich database that we reviewed in 2008. But for serious, business-class databases, Intuit’s QuickBase is the one we recommend-and the one we ourselves use. It’s literally our Editors’ Choice for online database, and one of the best examples out there of the potential that cloud computing holds.

QuickBase Quick Review

QuickBase Review -  DATE:01.12.09

Ratings – Very Good… Read Editor Review — By Edward Mendelson

QuickBase puts your company’s database applications online, so that anyone in your organization can get customized, secure Web access to anything from inventory to contact lists to product management. You probably won’t want to use it as an enterprise-scaled database, but for almost anything else, it’s an impressive Web-based substitute for a server in your office. Unlike many current cloud-computing services offered by no-name vendors, QuickBase is a product of the long-established financial-software giant Intuit. It gets our Editors’ Choice rating partly because it’s actually what our editors chose: PCMag.com uses it to keep track of previews, reviews, and other features.

Intuit Inc-http://www.intuit.com

• Price as Tested: $250.00
• Type: Business, Enterprise, Professional
• OS Compatibility: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS
• Tech Support: email
• Notes: Price is monthly

Bottom Line

Ultra-customizable, fast, and easy, Intuit’s QuickBase is the only business-class online database to come from a long-established vendor that a cautious company can trust.

Pros

Powerful, fast, reliable online database, extremely easy to use, but with elaborate options for user permissions, document storage, automated e-mail notifications, multiple tables, customized reports, and charting. Rich selection of prebuilt applications.

Cons

Attached document files can be exported only one by one. Charting can’t handle some complex data.

Download your free QuickBooks EasyStart2

Download your free QuickBooks EasyStart2 http://quickbooks.intuit.ca/accounting-software/quickbooks-freestarter.jsp?src=bnr&bnr=728x90_trbl The best things in life are free. Enter a few details about yourself, and we’ll email you a link to begin downloading your free QuickBooks. The QuickBooks EasyStart Free Starter Edition includes the essential accounting tools for new and home-based businesses. Plus: Accurately track your sales and expenses Easy to learn & use – no accounting knowledge required Manage your first 20 customers and vendors for free! Please provide an accurate email address as we will send the download link to the address you provide here. Note that, because we value & respect your privacy, we will not release your contact information

A blazing venture

A blazing venture Surely this will be the dot-com business plan to end all dot-coms? First published in MicroScope March 27th, 2000 I shall have to nip down to First Tuesday one of these days to find a backer for a business idea I’ve been mulling over. I gather that, at First Tuesday events, all you have to do is put on one of those green badges that says you’re a budding entrepreneur with a fantastic new idea to make money on the Internet, and venture capitalists with pots of money swarm all over you. Or have I got it wrong and it’s the other way around? Anyway, I just know that my idea is a surefire winner, because it encapsulates in one simple idea the fundamental concept that lies behind every highly-rated Internet investment opportunity. My business plan is for an Internet site that gives away dollar bills. The economics are compelling. Internet users will flock to the site, attracted by the promise of free money. The enormous volume of traffic will make the site a mecca for Internet advertisers — everyone will want to run their banner ads there. Naturally, visitors will be required to view a certain number of pages before ‘earning’ their dollar bill, thus generating the ad revenues to fund the giveaway. No tomorrow Initially of course, we would give away our dollars without completely earning them back through advertising. It is a central tenet of any sound Internet business that your first priority is gaining market share rather than generating revenues, which are bound to follow later on. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that venture capitalists tend to look askance at business plans that break even within the first year or two. This is seen as a sign of not investing sufficiently in building up the business to establish that vital market dominance. So to make absolutely certain that our business is a sure-fire success with the VCs, we plan to give away our dollar bills like there is no tomorrow. Our venture will become the undisputed 100-pound gorilla at distributing free cash. It is the only way we can be sure of commanding the funding necessary to establish this leadership position. Any plan that was less aggressive would expose us to competitive threat from others attempting to steal our market position by giving their money away more rapidly. The only way we can convince the VCs to fund our business sufficiently to guarantee success is to make sure they know we will give away their money faster and more ruthlessly than any other comparable venture. Price explosion Having become the primary source of free money on the Internet, the business plan really starts to kick in. We will be able to charge premium rates for advertising, since our users will be the same people who form the core of every Internet venture’s customer base — people who want something for nothing. We will add ecommerce capabilities, enabling people to spend the free dollars they’ve earned buying products from selected partners. This will not only save us the cost of physically distributing dollars to our users, we will also earn commission on the sales thus generated. We will reward frequent users with loyalty bonuses, offering them additional dollars as a reward for reaching certain free dollar thresholds. For the lucky few, there will be the opportunity to exchange their free dollars for share options, giving them the chance to participate in the inevitable stock price explosion once our much-watched venture finally goes forward with its Nasdaq IPO. Fantastic prospects I know the naysayers will say, “This is ridiculous. How can you possibly make money by giving it away?” I can understand their confusion. In the old economy, you earned income by making products and selling them. But in the new economy, it is the ability to communicate a message that is most highly valued. Our dollar bills purchase access to consumers on behalf of our advertisers and ecommerce partners. They can only sell their products by spending their dollars with us, and we pass their dollars on to our visitors to ensure they keep coming back to us rather than to other sites. And the more they come back, the more dollars we are able to give them to spend with our partners and advertisers, who in turn generate even more income to spend on advertising with us. Ultimately, this can’t fail to be a money-spinner. This is such a very modern, Net-generation business, you may be surprised to discover that it has a historical precedent. I didn’t know this myself until the other day, when I was explaining my business plan to an old friend who’s something of a financial guru. “You know what you’ve created?” he said. “It’s a modern-day version of the eighteenth-century ‘Undertaking Which Shall in Due Time be Revealed.’” Apparently, there have been similar ideas during economic booms all the way through history — or bubbles, as they used to call them. “But this one really caps them all,” he said. “It’s an absolute fantasy.” And thinking about the fantastic prospects for the business, we both laughed until we cried. more columns

 

Copyright © 1992-2008, Phil Wainewright. All Rights Reserved.

2008: the year of the smartphone

2008: the year of the smartphone

Published:12-January-2009 -By Daniel Okubo

Following the emergence of smartphones, Datamonitor assesses their potential to become the mobile professionals’ device of choice, given their potential as enterprise computing terminals, and the support of major players such as Nokia, Apple and Google. However, despite the apparent dominance of smartphones, netbooks are differentiated sufficiently to complement rather than compete in the market.

The release of Apple’s iPhone 3G in June 2008 ignited the smartphone market. Although the device has its flaws, the product brought together telephony, internet access and multimedia experience in a manner that other vendors had not managed. The success of the iPhone helped to convince large enterprise application vendors that the enterprise mobility market may be worth investing in. For example, in 2008 Oracle released a range of business process approval applications for the iPhone, which allow mobile workers to act on simple business processes tasks, such as approving expense claims or signing-off sales proposals.

Google’s entry into the smartphone market during 2008 is also significant. In October 2008, HTC’s G1 became the first smartphone available in the market to run Android, Google’s open-source mobile operating system. Android is of interest to enterprises due to its tight integration with Google’s collaboration and office productivity suite, Google Apps. In 2009, Datamonitor expects to see other enterprise applications available for Android. Given the close relationship between Salesforce.com and Google, which includes a ‘Salesforce for Google Apps’ offering, the enterprise applications built on Salesforce.com’s platform appear to be the most likely candidates. Expanding the availability of enterprise applications for Android will boost the appeal, to enterprises, of devices running Google’s mobile platform.

The unprecedented interest in smartphones and the rise of netbooks has led media commentators to question which product category will emerge as the end-point of choice for mobile professionals. In Datamonitor’s opinion, the two product categories can co-exist. Some prosumers, that is professionals who use consumer technologies for business purposes, may deliberate over whether to invest in a smartphone or a netbook. Yet the majority of professionals will have a clear choice.

Datamonitor does not believe that smartphones are a viable option for roles that require document editing or heavy use of applications. Smartphone screens may be adequate for web browsing but they are unsuitable for editing documents. Precisely for that reason, Oracle is focusing on business process approval applications, in which only a small amount of relevant information is presented to the mobile worker, allowing him or her to act on the workflow action required. Datamonitor is convinced that porting large amounts of data or functionality to a mobile device is impractical and inefficient.

By contrast, netbooks are better equipped for document manipulation and the use of enterprise applications, combining much of the portability of a smartphone with the functionality of a laptop. Netbooks are suitable for professionals who work in remote locations and set up transient offices. However, for mobile professionals such as sales and service workers who are constantly on the move and do not require heavy use of enterprise applications, a smartphone will clearly emerge as the end-point device of choice.

In 2009 Datamonitor expects the expansion of netbook and smartphone sales alike, which it does not believe should be in direct competition. Indeed, Datamonitor advises hardware vendors to keep the two product categories separate, as this may be the only way to avoid mutual cannibalization of the overlapping product lines. The separation should also help hardware vendors to manage customer expectations and avoid disenchantment, which could arise due to misinformed purchases. Meanwhile, enterprise application vendors need to understand the distinct characteristics and use-patterns associated with netbook and smartphone devices in order to develop applications suitable for each terminal. For enterprise IT decision makers, it will be vital to realize the strengths and weaknesses of each device category, and make informed purchasing decisions that are appropriate for specific types of mobile workers.

Beware the Hype for Software as a Service

Viewpoint July 24, 2008, 12:01AM EST text size: TT

The Future: Big Corporations Become Distributors for Small Business Apps

The Future: Big Corporations Become Distributors for Small Business Apps

by Anita Campbell – January 21, 2009 at 1:20 am · Filed under Information Architecture, Web 2.0

We’ve seen the future for small business developers of software apps – and it’s having the big guys distribute your app on their platform.

What Wal-Mart did for entrepreneurial inventors of new consumer products … what Amazon did for authors of new books …  and what eBay did for antiques dealers and other small etailers – various companies are now doing for developers of software and media applications.

We are seeing large popular products become distribution channels for smaller “satellite” products, through an associated marketplace.  These are places where small developers of products can go and more easily find customers and distribute their apps without the costs of developing market channels on their own.

Perhaps the highest profile apps distribution platform is Apple with its Apps Store. Read more

Next Page »