Going Mobile: Building the Real-Time Enterprise with Mobile Applications that Work

I am part of an enteprise sales team and new to the wireless mobility space. I was looking for a good book to bring me up to speed on what our customers are thinking and to find where the business value is. This book is a great unbiased primer IMHO.

Envision a world where cell phones are everywhere, turning our civilization into an always-available, anytime, anywhere communicators. This is the world of mobility that is coming of age. Authors Keri Hayes and Susan Kuchinskas have done an outstanding job of presenting this wonderful technology at our doorstep. Hayes and Kuchinskas begin by mapping the decision process necessary to proceed from developing a strategic vision for mobile data in the enterprise down to tactical questions such as what kinds of vendors to work with. Next, the authors offer a market-focused view of wireless, broken into the categories of mobile/wireless implementations. Within each category, they provide an overview explaining how a particular service is being used by various industries, and how an industry is leading the way in using mobile or wireless applications. Then, the authors provide relevant case studies that demonstrate how a particular company or agency has saved time, money, or labor by implementing the project. With the preceding in mind, the authors do an excellent job of making you, the reader, understand the vocabulary and concepts of the mobile milieu. You'll know whether mobile is right for your company and whether it's right, right now. If you do decide to move forward, you'll be armed with a battle plan that will help you become your company's mobile hero.

Too often technology is the tail that wags the dog, and this now can be clearly seen in mobile technology. The authors work to bring together an introduction and discussion of the different flavors of mobile applications. But first, they bring you through the discussion "Are mobile applications right for my organization?" and talk about the pros and cons of the technology. And do you need always on connections or can you sync your data? Then if you say "yes" they start to walk through the technologies, capacities and problems. But it's one thing to talk about the facts, the implementation is another thing. And here the book liberally includes case studies for the technology in action. While they are great, and illuminating, I wish there were a couple of failures in the lot instead of uniformly positive studies. One aspect I particularly appreciated was the breadth of uses of mobile applications presented. Initially it seemed to focus on the sales and service forces almost exclusively, but as we moved into other technologies and case studies, a well rounded picture began to emerge as to how going mobile can be useful in many enterprises. This book is a good primer and introduction to where this technology stands. It is especially good for the decision maker to understand the truth and fallacy of the technology in order to make more informed decisions. Worth the read in this fast paced world.