Business Decision-makers are playing key role in mobile solutions purchasing.

Based on a recent Compass Intelligence survey, line-of-business decision-makers are becoming more influential on IT purchasing across industries  These IT purchasing decisions, generally made by directors, managers, or executive levels, are finding that employees of all ranks are becoming more influential on purchasing mobile and wireless devices and solutions.  Some recent research finding are presented below: 

• 58% of the 1,382 IT Decision-makers interviewed claim Line-of-Business decision-makers are becoming critical influencers on mobile solutions purchasing. Business Decision-makers from large enterprises are leading the trend.
• 70% of the 209 IT Decision Makers from large enterprises (those with more than 1,000 employees) interviewed claim Line-of-Business decision-makers are becoming critical influencers in mobile solutions procurement, 
• Only 55% of the IT Decision-makers from small businesses (<100 employees) claimed they are critical influencers, about 15 percent lower than enterprise business responses. 
• These decision-makers interviewed are randomly selected from 10 major industry verticals.

  Prepared By Nian Cheng

http://www.compassintelligence.com/

Touchscreen Smartphone Update 

Really cool news.  I always like competition and it is about time there are more devices entering into the smartphone market.  Now this may not be good for Blackberry (RIM) and iPhone (Apple), but competitive devices will only make these devices better and customer friendly.  And, eventually these devices will have more business functionality and applications, which I believe is going to really put competitive pressure on the entire smartphone market.

This week T-Mobile announced the upcoming launch of their new Google Android phone coming out in October.  The official announcement of this new device called the "Dream" manufacturered by HTC and also called the G1, is expected to happen in New York at a press conference on September 23rd.  If T-Mobile and Google can leverage its existing client base and information resources to garner as much attention on this new device coming out as iApple did with the iPhone, then this could really impact the market.  Now this phone is targeted towards consumers, so I am waiting to see more business-oriented announcements coming soon as well.

In addition, there are a number of other phones that may not be as popular as the iPhone, but have many of the same features and functionality (touchscreen).  Some of these include:

• Sprint's Touch Diamond and Touch Pro designed by HTC
• AT&T's Touch Pro called "Fuze" designed by HTC
• Sprint's "Instinct" designed by Samsung
• Others, we will mention those as they roll out

What do you think about any of these phones?  Are you ready to adopt one of these touch-screen smartphones?  Please share your thoughts...

Written by Stephanie Atkinson (http://www.compassintelligence.com/)

Mobile POS and Mobile CRM

I am always interested in any new mobile applications making their way into the business world.  There were a few that caught my eye this morning.  The first is Mobile Point-of-Sale and the second is Mobile CRM.  Mobile point-of-sale can be great for a number of industries and especially retailers, street vendors, sports venue vendors, conference vendors, and yes even taxi drivers.  Sprint and VeriFone just announced a collaboration to equip over 6,000 NYC taxis with a real-time integrated payment and information system so that passengers can enjoy secure credit card payments, GPS-based location and mapping, weather updates, as well as national and local entertainment and news.  This is extremely cool and allows passengers to use a touch screen to swipe their card and even add tips.  In the past, taxi drivers would write down your credit card information and run the card later that day, which could be a huge security risk for the traveler and time-consuming for the taxi driver.

In addition, I also read that the company PipelineDeals just launched an iPhone addition of its mobile CRM or customer relationship management Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.  This would allow sales people to perform contact management, calendar schedule updates, track sales activities and prospects and more anywhere and anytime.  This allows them to shed that heavy laptop and just bring the iPhone or Blackberry with them to do sales business activities.  The Blackberry will also have this capability since PipelineDeals plans to rollout this solution next for Blackberry users.

Two cool examples of how Mobile Applications is making an entrance into the Business and Professional World!  I would to learn more about anything you are seeing in the professional or business mobile application world.  If you have any you would like to share, please send me a comment.

Stephanie

http://www.compassintelligence.com/

Who does online shopping for business purposes?

The answer is everyone, from self employed professionals to employees of multinational enterprises, from school teachers to utility workers. Recently we surveyed over 20,000 US professionals on their internet usage, 48% of the professionals we surveyed claimed that they purchased products and services online monthly or more frequently for business purposes. The following chart shows the survey results segmented by the size of business. 68% of the professionals from SOHO* businesses are frequent online purchasers, while only 40% of professionals from enterprises* claimed so. The smaller the size of the business, the higher percentage of the professionals shop online to purchase products and services for business purposes.

SOHO and Small businesses are very active in online purchasing and also key players in our economy. Compass Intelligence Inc. estimates that there are total of 59.7 million people employed by SOHO and small businesses firms in the US in year 2008. That accounts for more than 40 percent of nonfarm employment.  What a huge market for online vendors!  

We also surveyed how professionals use other online resources and features, such as webinar, blog, online training and online support tools. If you want to learn more, please drop us a line at http://blog.compassintelligence.com/contact.aspx

* Definitions of size of business  

SOHO Business - A firm with <5 employees, full and part-time, including business owner.

Small Business - A firm with 5-99 employees across all locations.

Mid-sized Business - A firm with 100-999 employees across all locations.

Enterprise Business - A firm with 1000+ employees across all locations.  

Written By Nian Cheng, Quantitative Analyst

Compass Intelligence, www.compassintelligence.com

Social Networking at Compass Intelligence

We here at Compass Intelligence have been thinking about social networking for quite some time.  We all personally have been doing it for a while, but now it is time for us to act from a professional or business social networking standpoint.  After going to a free website review site to analyze our websites http://www.compassintelligence.com/ and http://www.compass-intelligence.com/, it really opened our eyes to what some of these social networking sites can do for us.  Here are just a few ways these tools and sites can help our firm:

• The more places we are, the more likely we will be found at the top of the list on Google
• We can use these social networking tools to promote our business, press releases, podcasts, and more
• We get more traffic on our website, which may lead to more business
• Our blog is being recognized by other blogs sites and links
• Our overall exposure on the web is increasing to a much higher degree now

Now you may ask, what are some of the things we have been doing from a social networking standpoint.  I will not let you know everything, because some of it is top secret, but here are a few things that may help you:

• Start Digging http://www.digg.com/
• Start Twittering and Twhirling, even AT&T and a few other vendors are already starting to get in the game, check out CompassIntel on twitter (http://www.twitter.com/)
• Join Technorati, list your website and more
• Do more with your blog and link to all the tools that spread the word
• Get to know del.icio.us, linkedin, facebook, myspace, stumbleupon, and the others out there
• Get your blog listed on all the free blog sites
• Get your company listed on all the free business directories
• Get your company listed on the top fee-based directories
• Integrate and tie together press releases, blogs, free downloads, podcasts, and other forms of communications

What do you think about businesses and social networking?  I would love to learn what you are doing.

Stephanie Atkinson

U.S. BUSINESSES EXPECTED TO SPEND $11.6 BILLION ON MOBILE APPLICATIONS BY 2012, SAYS COMPASS INTELLIGENCE

 According to new research from CompassIntelligence.com, businesses in the US will spend roughly $11.6 billion on mobile applications by 2012. This year US businesses are expected to spend an estimated $4.9 billion on mobile applications. These applications include mobile and wireless-based custom-coded and packaged applications, including productivity, contact management, GPS/Navigation, Email, security, file sharing, collaboration and others. This market is poised for double-digit annual growth over the next 5 years, driven by the growth in remote and telecommuting employees, the movement in “Open Mobile Devices,” and the explosion of new and emerging free and fee-based mobile applications available for download.  Apple and Google are both leading vendors in promoting this last driving trend and this is expected to open up a whole new world of business access and productivity over the next decade.    

This research is part of Compass Intelligence’s Applications and Business Wireless research.  A few highlights of our mobile application research are shown below:   

§  The highly mobile Healthcare industry is expected to spend an estimated $1.1 billion on mobile applications by 2012, although the Government and Services industries are expected to be the top spenders on mobile applications. 

§  Roughly $6.3 billion will be spent on mobile applications by the Small and Mid-sized business market by 2012. 

§  Based on a Compass Intelligence recent survey of 1300+ IT-decision makers, Collaboration (Shared Calendars, contacts), Business or Company Instant Messaging, CRM, and applications specific to the company or industry ranked among the top applications planned to be rolled out to employees on mobile devices within the next 6 months.