SAP and Sybase have unveiled the next wave of mobile apps for business, and announced the introduction of an SAP Store for mobile apps, at SAPPHIRE NOW and SAP TechEd in Madrid.
Among the new apps are the SAP Electronic Medical Record mobile app, which provides instant access to patient records in the healthcare environment; 2.0 versions of the SAP Field Service, CRM Sales and Retail Execution apps; SAP Citizen Connect, for communication between citizens and government; SAP Strategy Management mobile app and SAP BusinessObjects Mobile software for mobile analytics; and for mobile workers, the SAP Transport Notification and Status, Transport Tendering, GRC Access Approver and GRC Policy Survey mobile apps.
The app store, to be accessible via a website and initially through an on-device app for iOS, with versions for Blackberry, Android and other operating systems to follow, will make it easy for enterprise-based customers to access apps quickly. With SAP apps and certified apps built by the broad SAP partner ecosystems available through the app store, customers will initially be able to download and evaluate the apps before they buy, with plans for SAP to enable direct purchase via the SAP Store soon.
Moving forward, SAP expects its partners to contribute 80 per cent of mobile application development in support of SAP solutions, according to Dr Raj Nathan, executive vice president, Sybase, and head of mobile applications for SAP.
Analyst firm IDC has spoken in support of the strategy.
“The integrated platform and application story of SAP and Sybase is strong with the delivery of apps to market -in the past, 3- to 6-month development cycles would be unheard of with companies of this size; this speaks to SAP’s commitment to speed innovation,” said Nick McQuire, research director, enterprise mobility strategies EMEA, IDC. “Companies are seeking the productivity and process improvements, cost reduction and business transformation opportunities that mobile applications can provide. This perfect storm of mobile device proliferation, 3G adoption, employee mobility and consumer app demand is propelling mobile enterprise applications up the CIO agenda.”
