Mobile App World off to a cracking start in London – with SAP as a Platinum sponsor

SAP at a mobile developers conference – surely some mistake ? But no, SAP today showed their commitment to opening up the mobile app development platform by showcasing the mobile platform, development partnerships, as well as the results of existing internal development.

Mobile App World, one of the leading global multi-platform events in the mobile industry, is currently taking place at the Earls Court 2 conference centre in the heart of London.  Tuesday was the first day of the conference and there was a real buzz about the place.

The day kicked off in the Enterprise track with a panel discussion where I joined the chair, Gareth Mackown of IBM, Ashley George of GlaxoSmithKline, Sergey Zabaluev of Com-Tec-Co, Phil Lenton of Compsoft Plc and Mark Mason from Mubaloo. We had a lively debate on some of the lessons we have learned from real

experience in the mobile area. Everyone contributed to giving away some real golden nuggets of advice on how to approach mobility in the enterprise.

There was a steady stream of people coming to the SAP stand throughout the day as well as speaker slots for Ian Thain on Develop Mobile Apps for Enterprises with SAP Mobile Solutions and Pierre-Alain Bouchard speaking on Developing Enterprise Scale Mobile Apps with SAP Mobile Platform.

As ever at these type of events there is a real mix of people wanting to talk to us about our strategy as well as specific questions on how SAP’s mobility platform can solve real-life customer problems. Perhaps a real difference for a Mobile App World is the number of developers present – and I think they were surprised to see SAP having a strong presence !

Hopefully we were able to get across the message that SAP really is committed to meet the needs of developers with the SAP Mobile Platform, and the new free trial developer license hosted on AWS. And for developers in this space there is a real opportunity to monetize their skills on app development into the SAP Store.

My final observation is on the richness of the ecosystem of companies already partnering with SAP, or looking to understand how they can. A couple of highlights for me are possibilities for further work with the existing partners, such as Sencha, as well as possible partnerships in a multitude of new areas.

Perhaps in-app push notifications is a new area to explore in the enterprise ?