The hype has been substantiated. Over the past week or two, a number of significant studies, from varying sources and industry authorities, have confirmed that Mobile Business Intelligence (BI) really is making the leap from talked-about-thing-of-the-future, to must-have-technology-of-the-present.
IBM research
A new international survey of more than 4,000 IT professionals by IBM – The 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report – revealed that over 85 percent of respondents are or will receive critical business information via enterprise mobile applications within the next 24 months. Survey participants listed enterprise applications and industry-specific applications as the top two adoption areas within enterprise mobile technology.
General Manager ISV and Developer Relations at IBM, Jim Corgel, said that the survey showed that enterprise mobile applications have “gone beyond niche status and are now part of any modern organization’s core IT focus.”
IDC research
Another recent study by analyst firm IDC has stated that the adoption of Mobile BI functionality is driving strong growth in global document solutions software revenues. The report expects global revenues to increase from around $3.6 billion in 2010 to $5.5 billion by 2015. The study claims that the substantial forecasted rise is principally due to new content management solutions for Mobile BI devices.
According to Research Director for Document Solutions and Services at IDC, Ron Glaz: “businesses of all sizes are combing through business processes searching for cost-effective solutions that will streamline and reduce cost to their current processes [and] support this up-and-coming [mobile] workforce.”
DAS Mobile BI market study October 2011
Respondents to Dresner Advisory Services’ (DAS) latest Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study (October 2011) ranked BI as the third most in-demand enterprise mobile application – out of 11 options – after email and personal information management systems (calendar, etc).
Sixty-eight percent of survey participants listed Mobile BI as ‘critical’ or ‘very important’, compared to 52 percent from the original 2010 study. The number of respondents listing Mobile BI as ‘unimportant’ dropped from 11 to two percent over the same period. Seventy-five percent of respondents to the October 2011 version stated that 21 – 81 percent of BI users within their organization will consume reporting and analytics exclusively via mobile devices by 2013.
Report author, former Gartner Research Fellow and President and Founder of DAS, Howard Dresner, stated in the report that he expects Mobile BI to revolutionize the way people use and consume business information.
“This latest findings report shows strong evidence that Mobile BI is taking hold – broadly,” said Dresner. “We believe that we’re in the midst of a profound shift toward Mobile BI (and mobile computing). We believe this paradigm shift will affect everyone and have as much impact as the Internet did, over time.
“The impact of Mobile BI… will change the way that we work, our ability to respond more quickly and to align towards common purpose. This notion of pervasiveness has always been the mission of BI, which may now finally be realized with the catalyst of mobile computing.”