Ok, well this webcast was pretty much as I expected with, to be honest, very few surprises. Don't get me wrong, still interesting background listening just...well...missing something.

There was much chat (in the first 3 chapters) of the last few years seeing organisations move from deploying mobile email pilots to mobile email becoming the norm. In the following webcast chapters there was then a discussion of the next couple of years bringing us the move to full blown mobile applications such as mobile CRM. How exciting. Big, expensive projects with lots of consultancy.

Mmm...am I missing something or isn't this the same topic we've been talking about for the last few years? i.e. Full blown mobile projects with lots of consultancy. And I don't see a whole raft of under-budget success stories yet.

Yes, mobile email has now become a standard offering - but moving straight from mobile email to a full blown consultative CRM solution seems a rather large leap to me.

In my experience, organisations seeing a sucessful return in their mobile investment are taking it one step at a time. Sure they start with mobile email. That goes down OK so then they look a little further into mobile PIM (Calendar, Contacts and access to their corporate Global Address List). Then they look at access to their Intranet - tweak a few web pages here and there to optimise access for mobile devices.

It's about now that the organisation starts wanting to do a little more with mobile and it would be easy to charge straight into a fat, juicy mobile CRM project. But I'd suggest shopping around on the Internet to see what productised mobile solutions are out there. There are loads and they're cheap as chips! Grab a couple, plug them in and test them out. You never know, you might find your mobile solution already coded up and ready to buy - much cheaper and quicker than designing it yourself.

And even if the mobile product you've found doesn't do 100% of what you want, have a chat with the software house that coded it and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to make a few changes to suit you. Still cheaper and quicker than doing it yourself.

In my opinion, you should consider a bespoke mobile solution only if you have exhausted all other possibilities. The market is moving on and productised is the way to go!

Oh and one final note: interesting that instant messaging wasn't mentioned in this webcast though texting was... Well if you're interested in an emerging mobile technology that could dominate the mobile scene then watch the IM space. I predict we'll see an even greater leap here than the one to mobile email.

Craig Pay

Slipstream Solutions