Getting the mobile channel to where enabling CRM through accessing applications or web sites a.k.a. mobile CRM is as seamless from desktops is akin to taking young children on a long ride who then inevitably ask: "are we there yet?"

The answers will depend to some extent on the nature of the journey being taken. If the trip is for work, such for field sales staff and support reps the destination is in sight.

CRM suppliers have been releasing new editions that have been customized to fit hot multichannel smartphones. FrontRange Solutions' GoldMine Mobile 3.0 supports the

BlackBerry platform, is integrated with its e-mail and phone mechanisms, has offline access to data, and has been designed to utilize the popular device's navigation and security management.

There are also tools such as OpenSpan that can mobile-enable legacy CRM solutions like Clarify. Their functionality can be accessed by simple web applications on devices.

Maximizer Software recently launched a mobile CRM brand to strengthen its market presence. Angie Hirata, director of worldwide marketing and business development, says that workforces are now enjoying robust CRM functionality directly on their smartphones. These include opportunity and account management, client e-mail, call logging and mapping.

"The days with a field sales rep or technician having to go back to the office to get on the desktop for updates and additional information, are over," says Hirata.

If the travel is for everyday business, such as banking, buying products, and obtaining service via the Internet or accessing data-rich content like videos, i.e. mobile commerce or "m-commerce" then there is a little more ways to go.

Emmett Higdon is a senior analyst at Forrester Research who wrote a recendy published report on financial services mcommerce. He identified a lack of commerceand-CRM-enabling mobile applications such as user authentication, payment methods for banking, or tools that leverage the GPS units in phones so that retailers can make offers if customers/prospects are in their vicinity.

"Mobile banking especially is waiting for a lot ofthat functionality to take hold before it will be adopted in greater numbers," says Higdon. "Customers are waiting on applications that are timely, secure, location-aware, and transactional."

Asians and Europeans have gotten a head start on mobile CRM, hitting the road as an alternative route to expensive and slow-toinstall landline voice and Internet-delivering networks in those regions' countries. North Americans are now finally catching up. A new report by mobile analytics firm Bango predicts that American mobile web use will soon surpass that in the UK.

"The US share of the browsing market has grown as an increasing number of phones come with bigger screens and service contracts that include unlimited Internet access," explains Adam Kerr, Vice President, Bango North America.

Fast Connections Key

North American wireless carriers are upgrading their networks from 2G or 2.5G to 3G. 3G which makes Internet access, downloading and uploading data and bandwidth-intensive applications like video and conferencing feasible. 3G has also proven popular in other countries that had introduced it on a large scale. In the works is 4G that offers even greater capacity at lower costs.

Danny Locklear, Vice President, Carrier Networks Marketing, Nortel, explains that 3G relies on IP packet switching as compared with circuit switching with 2G and 2.5G. IP architectures offer service providers greater flexibility and lower the cost of carrying traffic. They provide a better experience for users, as well, by making it possible to run more than one application concurrently.

"2G is perfectly good for voice and 3G is what makes mobile broadband data possible, but it doesn't end there," explains Locklear." The next step is 4G with WiMAX and LTE further improving the user experience by bringing wireless broadband closer to what you get with DSL or a cable modem. That's what we see with 3G today and that's what we will see in 4G as users demand an even better wireless broadband experience."

One of those applications is Avaya's new Avaya Voice Portal, an in- . tegrated voice/video application that enables callers to interact with firms using video-based menus and content through 3G mobile devices, as well as via video kiosks or desktop softphonc/videophones.

Instead of just hearing options, customers can see branded menus and options embedded in video, and speak commands to the company's automated system. Visual ads or instructional videos can also be seen while customers wait for agents.

"Initially what we are seeing is that the acceptance of these interactive video solutions is much higher in Asia and Europe due to the high availability of video enabled handsets and high speed carrier networks," says Michael Perry, Director, Avaya Self Service Applications, contact center division. "While to date the US has not adopted some of the standards as quickly but our expectation is that the devices and services will become more readily available here within the next 9-16 months."

Mobile Web issues and solutions

There are other road bumps that are inhibiting getting to a fully functional truly user-friendly desktop-equivalent mobile CRM environment, where service-enhancing and cost-saving tools like Web self-service can be fully applied and utilized.

These include a lack of mobile-friendly search capabilities, long and complicated URLs that are difficult to enter from wireless devices, and a multitude of mobile browsers and a wide array of handsets requiring CRM and other applications to be specifically written for them.

Vidya Drego, senior analyst with Forrester Research, is author of a wide ranging report, published in early 2007: "What's Wrong With The Mobile Web?"

She identified these issues, along with high data costs, as reasons why Web access via mobile devices have not been popular with users.

Since the report's publication Drego has found that some but not all of the matters have been alleviated. Among them:

* Less costly data access thanks to more flat rate plans that make sense to users and greater competition between carriers

This is good news for marketers. A Direct Marketing Association (DMA) report, Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives found that consumers, especially the young and affluent will respond to offers over their mobile devices, delivered chiefly via SMS.

Yet the study also revealed that usage costs may be inhibiting mobile commerce growth. One third of respondents to a survey that the report centers on cited airtime costs as why they did not reply to marketing pitches. Also, half of those who responded to them and over one quarter of those who did not reported strong interest in not being charged for airtime.

* Google and Yahoo! Now have mobile-enabled sites and have made their searches much easier to use. Searches are now segmented by images, media sites, and sites designed for mobile. The structures behind the links increasingly being grouped together so that users can jump directly down to the type of media they were looking for.

"It wasn't enough to display all the content, which they were doing before," explains Drego. "There had to be different ways to organize and make sense of it. "

There is still work to be done. For example to avoid keying in long URLs handset makers and websites need to have barcodes and applications on phones to permit users to shoot and connect into sites.

* There are now tools being deployed by software developers such as AJAX, which stands for asynchronous JavaScript and XML, to create interactive web and or rich mobile-friendly Internet applications.

AJAX permits data retrieval such as users' identifiers or location from the background of a Web site without interfering with the sites' pages. AJAX-enabled sites are faster loading, which gives users more continuous Web access even when they are in areas with spotty coverage.

* A slow movement towards open platforms such as Apple's iPhone and its apps store and Google's Linux-based Android, now adopted by T-Mobile for its 3G phone expected to be launched this fall.

"While there is inherently no benefit in these platforms themselves to end users, coming to a consensus in the mobile development community does make it easier to develop for these platforms," explains Drego. "That will result in more applications and services on them."

Chuck Dietrich, Vice President, Salesforce Mobile, sees the trend toward, simpler, more full-featured and user-friendlier mobile browsers. A majority of his firm's customers are using a more manageable set of mobile devices with a limited number of browsers.

"Device companies that provide low grade browsers that do not support common standards will likely lose market share by excluding the developer communities that build applications for mobile use," warns Dietrich.

David Trice, Vice President of CRM Strategy at Oracle points out diat software vendors and independent software vendors have been prevented access to some device capabilities such as tighter integration to the phone, better cross application functionality and more efficient data sharing within the devices.

Mobile browsers, which are an alternative to resident/native applications, often require significant user customization to deliver quick and easy Web usage. They also sometime suffer from network-caused delays.

"We see a hybrid approach as offering significant user value," says Trice. "Critical features that are commonly accessed by users must be always available through the use of native applications. Supporting information and additional capabilities can be offered through browsers."

Martin Schneider, SugarCRM director of product marketing and a former CRM analyst says the way forward lies in Web 2.0: open source applications written in XTHML that are Internet-architected that can be integrated with other browsers and applications and which offers other functionality such as mapping the next location and click to call.

Sugar 5.1, the latest version, avoids the need for companies to download, deploy, and maintain separate mobile software applications on their users' handsets. They use the same URLs to access the core products; these applications detects that users are logging in from wireless devices and not a full screen computer and reacts accordingly.

"We saw the answer lying with the browser," explains Schneider. "Mobile browsers have become so much more intelligent to present what is out there to the users, which led us to release XTHML client for web 2.0. Without a web 2.0 framework underneath, such features would be impossible to provide."

One major challenge that is gradually being resolved has been screen size and usability. Small screens and tiny keypads have using wireless devices for anything more than sending or receiving SMS or short e-mails or for quick surface web browsing not practical. In their stead are touchpads like Apple's iPhone and pullout keypads.

"What we're now seeing is a new generation of handsets that is addressing this form factor issue," says Paul Gorman, Ciboodle's product management director. "As their use proliferates there will likely be more of them that begin to effectively and functionally merge the mobile and desktop experiences into portable usable go-anywhere devices."

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