At work we are in the process of evaluating enterprise mobility platforms. An unified platform that help make enterprise data available to mobile devices or computers. When i evaluate candidates begin to have a look at the integration engine. How will the integration engine help me get hold of the data i require. At a minimum the engine must have connectors to the most common back-end systems like SAP, Dynamics, Agresso, Siebel and/or Oracle and also provide ways of more generic connectors through web services, XML etc. If you don´t have this; you´ve failed!
If you got step one – integration, you´ve come a very long way! You now need to make sure that the system is capable og keeping the flow of data to and from the devices. Handle distribution of software and updates, Manage the devices within the enterprise and keep it secure in an integrated manner. Oh, software..That is important! The software must be possible to develop without too much of a hassle. Don´t constrain the possibilities within an already constrained mobile platform (ie javaME or .NET Compact Framework). Don´t force the look and feel.
A few days ago i picked up a tweet by Rob Tiffany at Microsoft, he blogged about Microsoft MEAP – Mobile Enerprise Application Platform. MEAP is a platform where you design toghether a set of well known Microsoft technologies, and together they make up a unified mobile application platform.
The integration engine is SSIS – Sql Server Integration Services and it has a wide range of connectors. It gives you access to your back-end data. Through IIS 7 and the SSCE Server Agent out to a Windows Phone device running an application built around the Sync Framework. That is the basic small scale mobility platform needed by organizations from one to twenty, twenty five (guesstimate). A small size company could easily integrate a their Active Directory or other LDAP system for user management without to much of a cost.
What for me looks like a beauty is the scalability of this. It will work from small size to large enterprise systems.
I am really looking forward to having a closer look at this.
July 28th, 2010 at 19:04
Hey Alexander, I just ran across your post and I wonder if you made any decisions about a mobility platform.
Anyone interested in mobile enterprise application platforms but who finds MEAP too heavy, costly and difficult to implement should check out Formotus:
http://www.formotus.com/DesignOnce.html
Formotus has a nimble cross-platform solution for custom mobile business applications on smartphones that is quick, easy and inexpensive compared to most MEAP architectures. We connect to data using XML Web services, but we also connect directly to SharePoint, which you can use as your ‘integration engine’ to to other business systems. No mobile browser, no server install, no coding, no big initial investment, and it runs natively and works offline on many kinds of mobile devices.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
-Glen
July 28th, 2010 at 19:16
A couple more links to Formotus for anyone interested:
Cloud-based mobile enterprise application
management
Mobile work order dispatch systems using
SharePoint
Cross-platform mobile application design
for Android and Windows Mobile, with iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone 7 coming
soon