The results were illuminating. There were well over 300 users of the application, on just the iPhone alone – with a small number of iPad and Blackberry users. This represents nearly half of the attendees of the event. And the app was accessed nearly 3,000 times. Pretty nice numbers for a little free app focused on a single three day event.

Ok, apart from bragging about the awesome job my team did in working with CrowdCompass to create a great mobile app – I do have a point. It is this…

The iPhone has made mobile a must have. As more businesses adopt iPhone and iPad devices (and Droids as well) – we are going to see more and more demand – from END USERS – for great mobile experiences. SugarCRM for example is answering the call with a resident iPad app and better iPhone and Droid support through partner Appcelerator.

But forget about the vendor side – the user side as I note is very important. Does your current CRM implementation support mobile usage in any way? Can you customize it? And, if you have yet to deploy a mobile CRM strategy, will that involve an additional learning curve?

These are important questions – and if you haven’t answered them (or at least started asking them) – you may be in danger of seeing an end user revolt. There are a lot of methods for managing data on mobile devices that can sync to online or other data repositories that are NOT managed by your organization. Organizations without a strong mobile strategy run the risk of falling back into the “data silo” crises that nudged them into a central CRM in the first place.

I am almost of the mind that as we look at new trends like social CRM – they should be secondary to a strong internal mobile initiative for many organizations. Think of it this way – mobile is less about traveling salesmen these days and more about taking your iPhone to a lunch meeting, or meeting on the other side of the office, and not dragging your laptop.

Simply put, the notion of “connected” has changed in profound ways. And we should all be doing our best to keep our associates connected – to their CRM, to their prospects and customers, and to each other – as much as possible.

Sugar on the iPad

Think about it, we have our data, our applications and our infrastructures in the cloud – why would be need anything but a thin client laptop and a browser? (After all, isn’t this what the hype around Apple’s tablet/netbook is pointing towards?).

Esteban had an interesting response – essentially pointing out that with RESTful web services – the desktop can become the browser, and thus application development is all about total desktop mashups. Developers need not write to support IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc. – just keep the APIs simple and open. So, Esteban went in another, very profound direction here.

An interesting post I read today at Mashable posits four (really three if you split hairs) identifying trends of the web of the future: ubiquity (from both an access point and device front), a rich media focus, and social networks owning the web.

I think if we look at this more realistic near-term prediction (Esteban’s makes more sense from an interoperability standpoint – but in my opinion too many players on the apps, web and OS level stand to lose control and dollars, so I think roadblocks would be thrown up at Esteban’s vision at every turn.) and place it next to the evolution of CRM, some interesting things pop up.

First, both the Web and CRM are becoming more media-rich and more social. Greater mobile access, embedded Youtube videos in home screens, myPortal dashlets exposing external content, and social media integration – and I’m just talking about what SugarCRM alone has done in the last couple years – clearly mimics these trends.

But what is the next stage? Does the “ubiquity” concept merge with CRM data access (and social/media saturation) to involve a new look to CRM? One that is less about logging in to a browser screen and more about accessing data and automating processes in a more seamless, natural manner?

Perhaps both the Mashable article and Esteban are correct. While “the web” is evolving – that does not mean the way we think about accessing the web – the browser – has to follow along. The web-based interactivity of social features like iPhone games, has proven that the web has – and will – deliver a lot of data, applications and value in general without the involvement of a traditional browser.

Sugar 5.5 has a lot of the typical “cool stuff” one expects for a major product release. The Mobile Studio Editor may be my favorite. SugarCRM has made mobile apps a simple decision for businesses for a while now – we simply allow users to extend to mobile for free. Now, with the Mobile Studio – users can create more customized mobile experiences for either streamlined or other purpose-built mobile use.

The Dynamic Teams are great – giving greater sales, marketing and support collaboration capabilities to Sugar users. And the new password management features make it easier for users to manage their passwords, and eases the burden on admins (oh, and increases the security of the app as well).

From a deeper infrastructure level – Sugar has updated its SOAP APIs and is now supporting REST. So, the integration story around Sugar is better than ever – easier and more powerful integrations. Nice. I am already dreaming up some big e-commerce ideas for the RESTful services.

Perhaps the best part of Sugar 5.5. is what you can’t see, or use as a feature. The Sugar engineering team took a long time to inspect the existing Sugar product and simple “make it better” in a lot of ways…this relates to features but also the user experience in general.  And this is just the start of some really great product news and developments coming in 2010, stay tuned…

Apple makes a slew of announcements out of its developer conference this week surrounding the upcoming iPhone 3G S and AT&T turns right around and drops a bombshell by announcing a hefty upgrade fee and lack of support for MMS and tethering.

As I’ve said before, service will always get the nod over functionality in the mobility market. AT&T and Apple has done a great job of locking themselves, and their customers, down and undermining the latest and greatest the iPhone has to offer.

Now companies such as AT&T and Sprint Nextel are attempting to improve access to these services by integrating new Web-based applications in an effort to improve usability. I couldn’t help but notice how we’re seeing the same trend playing out within the CRM market among mobile capabilities, which is one of the main reasons why Mobile Studio Editor was the crux of our announcement on Wednesday.

The idea is to allow users and developers to have pre-built layouts and fields for the wireless client within Sugar Studio, allowing them to design purpose built mobile views. For road warriors in the field, that means the ability to more easily manage customer data and provide services more quickly.

As one example, telecom companies whose CRM initiatives revolve strongly around order and service delivery could leverage capabilities such as these to customize their mobile devices to more effectively communicate data between field service forces and CSRs back home.

Just how some media companies, mobile carriers and software developers are struggling with the challenge of delivering the best possible experience across all platforms for sites such as Facebook or MySpace (much to the determent of the customer), the same can be said of providing customer data into a mobile CRM platform. With Mobile Studio Editor, we hoped we’ve solved that problem by putting the power into the customer’s hands.

Whether you’re a believer that Blackberries are better than iPhones, or visa versa, is a matter of personal choice, but RIM clearly holds an advantage in that four major carriers sell the Curve, while AT&T holds exclusive rights with the iPhone.

In the past year, wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless have made much of the notion that they are willing to embrace a more open attitude toward consumers, promising to allow them to buy full-priced mobile phones and use them on the network of their choosing. But AT&T and Apple’s decision to lock the iPhone down undermines progress towards an open network future…and is clearly hurting iPhone sales in the process.

It’s a business model where phones are subsidized by service providers, customers are locked into long-term contracts and subject to stiff penalties for cancelling early.

That said, there are rumors circulating that Apple is cooking up a deal to bring the iPhone to Verizon Wireless. It that comes to pass, iPhone sales could get a big boost and would be a big step in the right direction.

In the end, the good thing is that consumers and businesses have choice when it comes to expanding into mobile.

But if the consumer wins (and of course Apple and RIM both win in their own right), then who loses? I’d argue the mobile application developer. While Apple and Blackberry make it great for the consumer to access and consume cool apps with ease – the developer still (for the most part) is stuck with writing different versions of his application for these disparate platforms. That is why I have become increasingly interested in new mobile platform plays like Rhombile. These guys take the neutrality of the web (with HTML coding) to the resident or native mobile app game. Being able to write an application once, and run it on any platform was the goal with traditional apps a while ago. And it seems that web applications proved to be the right way to win that battle.

So, it only seems fit that it becomes possible to write mobile applications with the same freedom that we write their traditional app counterparts.

But it was a meeting with a SugarCRM user that turned out to be the best experience of the day for me. Adam Blum, CEO and founder of Rhomobile actually spoke at our SugarCon event last month, but we did not get a chance to talk at length. I am glad we talked yesterday. Adam’s vision is perhaps the perfect example of how the next generation of companies is driving value into the development and deployment of applications in ways that would not have been possible years ago.

In a nutshell, Rhomobile offers a mobile framework called Rhodes. But its model is really where the cool factor lies. Developers can easily create either native mobile apps from scratch, using simple HTML, or port existing web applications with ease to the Rhomobile platform (and the company even has a data synch tool called RhoSynch to bridge the gap between the core enterprise applications and their mobile counterparts). The best part – the newly created mobile app runs on nearly any device – iPhones, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile devices, Symbian and even the Google Android phone.

What this model does is break down the time and cost of development for those looking to build mobile applications – this could be developers looking to bring new products to market, existing application vendors looking to extend their solutions, or even large organizations seeking purpose built solutions for their mobile sales or field service teams. I can see a lot of possibilities for using this platform.

Rhomobile has a very open model, and the framework is highly accessible to developers.  I really like the concept – and the value proposition is huge. Rhomobile is the kind of entity that really proves the benefits of an open cloud. I mean, a developer could develop cool tools via the web, which can be used on any device, sold via online models like Apple’s AppStore – essentially building a business without any real assets or big upfront investment.

Very cool. I will definitely be keeping tabs on Adam and Rhombile going forward…

Enjoy!

It was an experiment – the first, and probably last, time that I travel without my laptop.

First off, during the trip I got some good updates and alerts on my Blackberry (I didn’t go completely gadget cold turkey…I’m not crazy) and would have loved to blog about them…but the Blackberry browser, even the Opera mini – made it kind of a pain. So I sent some Twitter updates, but frankly felt a little disconnected from the blogosphere.

The real issue came when I was flying home. Due to the less than perfect weather around SFO, we made an unplanned stop in Kansas City. The extra time on the ground would have been a nice chance to catch up on some work, considering the weekend was over and I was already getting some European emails I could have attended to had my laptop been handy. Also, the way in which US Air handled the situation would have made for a nice blog about customer service (let’s just say they continue to disappoint) – but alas, by the time I was near my laptop, my annoyance had subsided.

I thought to myself, “Would all this be moot if I had an iPhone?” And ultimately – I think not. While the Safari browser is far superior in my opinion to those on other devices, my horrible vision and the touchpad of the iPhone would make blogging a nightmare for me.

But really, it all comes down to comfort. Simply put, to date I have very limited experience blogging from a mobile device. I expect to look back on this post a year from now and laugh at my naivete’.