With the iPhone is leading its place in the consumer market, it is now also making inroads within enterprises. Especially with OS 3.0 iPhone have made great strides in adding security features geared specifically for the enterprise. Many believe that the iPhone will be the most adopted enterprise device in 2009-10. So the next time you see the iPhone/iPod touch around, it may be in the hands of your competitors, clients, partners, or colleagues.  iPhone is becoming hottest device for the mobile Enterprise & mobile workforce. Business users are actively embracing iPhone and bringing it into the mainstream enterprise.

After success of salesforce.com, Quickbooks, Zoho, Oracle on iPhone, most of the enterprise application / software developers (enterprise ISVs) are seriously planning & working on launching their products or its interfaces on iPhone. Early adopters are mostly Enterprise SaaS (Software As a Service)/On-Demand providers focusing on online CRM, PM, ERP, BI solutions.

Major Challenges of designing & developing iPhone Enterprise apps development are:

• Keeping your enterprise iPhone app extremely user-friendly. Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology.
• Keeping enterprise iPhone app agile to enable high performance accessibility by short listing key functionalities & making them only available on iPhone/iPod
• Ability to push software/application updates automatically
• Control to install and uninstall/logoff applications remotely
• Deciding right commercial model. Most of the companies are offering Enterprise iPhone Apps as a free download from Apple App store but charges additional monthly cost.

e-Zest actively help its Enterprise ISV customer's to make their products available on iPhone/iPod Touch. Interesting Enterprise apps on iPhone : http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/enterprise-apps-iphone-879 & http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100911

From IT industry perspective & from my perspective, as an IT entrepreneur, this budget is average one.

Especially STPI scheme is extended only for 1 year, expectations were for min. extension for next 3 year. In absence of long term policy, many SME's cannot plan for strategic initiatives. Larger IT companies already opting for SEZ. MAT increase by 5% also will put additional stress on liquidity.

A) Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) abolishment B) Exempt value attributable to the transfer of the right to use packaged software from excise duty and CVD  C) Service tax refund mechanism based on self-certification or by a Chartered Accountant. D) LCD panel custom duty reduction E) Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism for resolution of transfer pricing disputes and CBDT to formulate `safe harbour’ rules : are definitely positive developments for IT industry.

This budget has definitely not done enough to incentivize investment in economy. Still measures to speed-up infrastructure development are positive for overall development of economy.
 
As a 'Aam Aadmi', its definitely welcome budget & quite a few good incentives for individuals.

Recently, there is substantial surge in usage of mobile internet.  Mobile Internet growth is the growth of the Internet when accessed via a mobile phone, laptop, etc. (Wikipedia) 

Thanks to wide range of new Smartphone’s who are significantly capable to display full websites on small screens than ever before. iPhone & Android stands out more than others. eg. The iPhone OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, but generated 43 percent of mobile Web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage. Obvious reason is more stable & better internet enabled mobile applications & games. Downloading apps/games & advertised enabled apps contribute substantially to mobile internet usage.

Another interesting contributing factor is rise of social networks sites & their mobile alteregos & apps. More people are using their mobile phones to update their status/profiles remotely and blog on the move. Also better mobile networks & 3G technologies played key role.

Key impacts on mobile & web application development:

• Mobile Internet usage makes mobile phones a media like radio or television. This is giving rise to increase in building mobie advertising applications & platform. New advertising strategies need to develop to address mobile audience.
• Demand for development of location based mobile internet advertising will grow. The key to success will be to incorporate a multimedia and multi-platform approach to ensure that it becomes a natural and valuable extension of the consumer needs.
• Focus on identifying insights into mobile web browsing. Mobile internet analytics are definitely challenging than PC based browsing.  Its going critical to analyze the size and characteristics of your mobile audience compared to your competitors.
• Focus on mobile security application increases as more & more consumers using mobile internet for online transcations & e-payments.
• Focus on improving the user experience of the Web when accessed from mobile devices. Mobile Web Application Best Practices gain importance.

Hello from New York! We have completed almost a month of UK & US tour. We left India on 8th Sep.  Its tiring but exciting tour.

While discussing with our clients & prospects, to my surprise most of them were discussing Indian economy, Indian companies as prospective customers to them & how we can help them in this India endeavor.  Most of business professionals & entrepreneurs expressed their faith in Indian economy, potential of India market & revealed their future key strategy to look into & develop products for growing markets like India. Quality products, world class technology & domain expertise will definitely help to uplift standards of Indian businesses, infrastructure & social environment.

So, its great news for corporate & political India. Government need to continue pace of reforms & provide conducive as well as  safe business environment. Corporate Indian organizations like FICCI, CII, NASSCOM also need ensure that these international companies who are looking at India as a key market should not get duped by fly by night operators.

Regular violence & bomb blast news from India scare many here. But that's big topic!

Salute to India & her Mahatma on this occasion of 2nd October.

Everest Research Institute released the first issue of Market Vista “Global Sourcing—Market Vista Q1 2008” , which is a robust quarterly report on global outsourcing, offshoring activity, and trend insights. The quarterly Market Vista report provides data and analysis across multiple dimensions, including deal trends in the outsourcing, offshoring market, captive model analysis including new center announcements, expansion and divesture, current and emerging location analysis including risks and opportunities, etc.

In this report, India has emerged as the most matured location for offshored IT and BPO services, though this dominance might be chipping away given the rising costs.  The cost inflation in Indian cities is exceeding the 2007 levels and this has increased the risk of labor arbitrage closing very rapidly.

Report further says, India, Philippines and Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic and Romania have experienced substantial offshore activity. New locations are emerging as potential offshore options such as Thailand, El Salvador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. The appreciation of the Brazilian Real is likely to reduce Brazil's cost arbitrage from about 35 to 25 percent. Wage inflation in Argentina is likely to spike due to the increase of minimum wages by 10 percent in Q4 2007. In some Central American cities, particularly Monterrey, increase in player activity has fueled concerns around labor pool pressures in the medium term.

Overall India still able to managed its leadership position due to matured outsourcing processes, bandwidth of quality talent, adoption of industry best practices & English language advantage. To maintain this lead, Indian IT & BPO industry need to work on future talent availability, leadership development, increasing productivity, agile processes adoption & effective cost containment.