“Hertz On Demand members are very comfortable using mobile, internet-enabled technology,” commented Mark P. Frissora, Hertz Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “With approximately 90% of mobile subscribers in the US and Western Europe having an internet-ready phone, the new mobile site is a critical element of Hertz On Demand’s expansion efforts. We are committed to harnessing user-friendly technology to enhance member activities, and we will introduce additional mobile services that facilitate the fastest, simplest and easiest reservation and car sharing experiences in the business.”

Hertz On Demand provides members a quick, easy and convenient option to rent a car spontaneously. Enhanced member benefits offered by the Hertz car sharing club, include:

• Free membership. Hertz On Demand has no enrollment fee or annual membership fee, and offers low hourly and daily rates.
• Rental fleet options. These include the Mercedes C300, Cadillac CTS, Fiat 500, Mitsubishi Endeavor, Nissan Altima, Chevy Cruze, Chevy Malibu, Mazda 2, Mazda 3 and Jeep Patriot.
• 180 miles a day[1], gas and insurance included in rates.
• No late fees. Hertz On Demand members will not receive punitive charges/late fees for the late return of a vehicle.[2]
• Daily rates on Hertz rental car for longer trips.
• Unparalleled member service. Including Hertz NeverLost GPS and 24/7, 365 days-a-year, live, in-car assistance from a team of Hertz Member Care experts, both available free of charge.

Hertz On Demand provides an economical, convenient and socially conscious alternative to car ownership. The pay-as-you-go service, provides members with 24/7 access to vehicles strategically located throughout their city. It has approximately 130,000 members, is available in five countries and on approximately 60 university campuses. Overall, Hertz On Demand offers its members products and services that are unmatched in the car sharing industry, including:

• The elimination of all membership and renewal fees in the U.S. and Europe
• Guaranteed vehicle availability Monday through Thursday in New York City
• One-way car sharing rentals between 85 locations in the Northeast U.S.
• An expansive car sharing fleet with new vehicles added to the service. The U.S. fleet includes luxury cars, including the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia; and cars suitable for moving, including the Ford Transit Connect and the Nissan Titan pick-up truck. Additionally, a variety of electric vehicles are available at select locations, including the Chevy Volt, Nissan LEAF, and smart fortwo electric drive
• Simplified reservation process. HertzOnDemand.com has a simple reservation process, including one way map routing and reservations, enhanced search capabilities, and in-depth details about car makes and models
• Unparalleled Member Service. Hertz On Demand’s industry leading in-car technology provides members with a superior rental experience. Members receive a smart chip enabled membership card for keyless entry to any reserved car. In car, a hands-free audio kit connects to the in-house Member Care Center should members have questions, need assistance or need to extend their reservation. Hertz On Demand “communicates” with its cars enabling representatives to unlock, engage and locate vehicles, and cars are equipped with Hertz NeverLost GPS, iPod and Bluetooth connectivity, for hands free driving, as well as EZ Pass transponders.
• Enrollment in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. Hertz On Demand members are eligible to enroll in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards™, Hertz’s free rewards program that provides customers with a range of flexible rewards including Points that never expire, ‘AnyDay’ reward options with no blackouts, easy online redemption, international point accrual, and a wide variety of car rewards including cars from any of Hertz’s Collections — the Adrenaline, Green Traveler, and Prestige Collections. (Hertz On Demand members must be a member of Hertz Gold to earn Gold Plus Rewards Points).

About Hertz On Demand
Hertz On Demand, Hertz’s global car sharing club, has more than 650 vehicles, 130,000 members and more than 500 locations worldwide, including corporate offices and universities. Hertz On Demand offers a variety of vehicles available at competitive rates. All cars are equipped with Eileo® technology, and benefits covered by the hourly rate include gas, insurance, GPS turn-by-turn navigation, 24/7 roadside assistance, 24-hour in-car Member Care Center communication, and 180 free miles per day.

About Hertz
Hertz is the largest worldwide airport general use car rental brand operating from approximately 8,500 locations in approximately 145 countries worldwide. Hertz is the number one airport car rental brand in the U.S. and at 94 major airports in Europe, operating both corporate and licensee locations in cities and airports in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia,Australia and New Zealand. The Company also operates the Advantage car rental brand. In addition, Hertz operates one of the world’s largest equipment rental businesses, Hertz Equipment Rental Corporation, offering a diverse line of rental equipment, including tools and supplies, and new and used equipment for sale from approximately 320 branches in the United States, Canada, China, France, Italy, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

For more information, visit www.HertzOnDemand.com or www.hertz.com.

[1] Per 24 hour period
[2] Late returns will only be charged rates for the additional time used in 30 minute intervals (no punitive fees)

Mobile Marketer- Rimma Kats- Article- Tums helps consumers fight heartburn via mobile campaign “In reviewing the Tums ad on mobile, it takes me a click into the banner ad, to a landing page with few questions and an image, to a mobile site and there still wasn’t a promotion,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis.

Tums is using mobile advertising to promote its new product and incorporating social media into the mix to help spread the word.

The company is running mobile ads within Us Magazine’s mobile site. The campaign is part of a bigger push to reach consumers on the go

“The purpose of mobile ads is to gain eyeballs on a brand with a takeaway for the brand of which could be one of the following – a new customer, capturing data or driving consumers to a location for a promotion.

Ms. Troutman is not affiliated with Tums. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

Tums did not respond to press inquiries.

Upping the ante
The Tums mobile ad reads “Are Your Favorite Foods Fighting You?”

When consumers tap on the mobile ad, they are asked if items such as pepperoni give them heartburn and bad breath.

After the series of questions, the company’s Tums Freshers are introduced and encourage fast relief and  fresh breath.

Below the product, there are three icons – Facebook, Twitter and a Try Now button which leads consumers to the company’s mobile site.

Via the mobile site, users are able to learn more about the Tums Freshers and other Tums products.

Additionally, by incorporating social media icons such as Twitter and Facebook, Tums is able to continue building a relationship with the consumers.

Mobile engagement
A mobile ad campaign such as this is a great way for Tums to promote its new products.

Consumers constantly have their mobile devices with them at all times and by running targeted and relevant campaigns, marketers are able to place their products in the hands of new and existing customers.

“The Tums site is mobilized well, the banner is clear, and the landing page is optimized well, the next step is to make sure an action happens to prove an ROI on the mobile marketing campaign dollars spent for the ad,” Ms. Troutman said.

Tim Canada Sr Account Manager SiteMinis Inc.

In the past 18 months QR codes have taken the market by storm.  However, the use of QR codes by consumers has dropped off recently due to one resounding reason.  People have begun to associate QR codes with a poor experience.  While it is wonderful that many companies today are utilizing QR codes in their marketing efforts, there are seven major mistakes they are making when it comes to the use of QR codes. 

These are those mistakes.

Mistake #1: Don’t use a QR code – Many companies are not yet utilizing QR codes in their marketing efforts, needless to say, this is a huge mistake.  QR Codes act as a touch point to get consumers looking at a company’s brand, on their phones.  This means that consumers can effortlessly take information with them, making marketing efforts portable and shareable simply by seeing and scanning a QR code on a physical marketing piece.  This is a huge benefit and should be a no brainer.

Mistake #2: Leads to Full Non Mobilized Website (Or PC site) - This is a poor user experience.  When a consumer is taken to a PC site on their phones, and they have to stretch and pull in order to find what they want, the result is often that consumers will give up.  The goal of a mobile landing page should be robust imagery and ease of use, while maintaining the message of the location the QR Code was scanned on.  Therefore the destination of the QR code should lead to a page that carries through the message of the object the QR code was scanned on.

Mistake #3: Leads to a VCard – This is a great way to use a QR Code to share information.  The problem with it though, is that every phone is not capable of processing the VCard information.  Also, many people do not have the necessary software installed on their phones to see and manage VCard information on their phones.  In addition to all of that, VCard information is not branded with your company. So, by having QR codes lead to a VCard, the audience that is reached is not as large as it could be.  Those people that have a bad experience scanning a QR code going to a VCard, will rarely ever scan a QR code on anything that the same company is branded on again.

Mistake #4: Wrong Landing Page – Many companies are placing QR codes on marketing and merchandise items, but oftentimes the QR code is leading to a company’s full site, which, may even be mobilized.  This is a mistake. If a QR code is placed on a marketing piece or a specific product, the destination of that QR code should be consistent with whatever the QR code is on.  So, for a marketing campaign, if the QR code is placed on a sign for a specific deal, then the QR code should lead the consumer to a landing page that carries through that same message.  This helps to guide the consumer to the ultimate goal of the campaign, which is undoubtedly to get the consumer to take an action.  If the QR is going to a full, albeit mobilized site, then the company is making a mistake in leaving it up to the consumer to search and find the promotion that they have.

Mistake #5: Wrong Placement – People often make mistakes when placing QR Codes.  QR codes need to be placed on mediums that are accessible to consumers and allow the consumer enough time to pull out their phone and scan the code.  This can take anywhere from five seconds to a full two minutes.  So, QR codes on mediums like commercials and billboards can sometimes be ineffective if they are not also accompanied with an SMS text code option.  (ex. Text SWIFT to 313131)  An SMS text code function allows someone to see an opportunity but also provides them with something that they may be able to remember after they are done looking at it.

Mistake #6: Leads to APP Download – This is a huge mistake, simply for the reason that you are alienating anyone scanning your QR Code that doesn’t have the phone that your APP is available on.  By utilizing the mobile web for the QR code destination, the consumer base that can be reached is much broader.

Mistake #7: Leads to Email – In many cases QR codes are leading to an option to email a company/person.  This loses the brand message that should be maintained.  There is no engagement for the brand, and ultimately, no path for the consumer to follow to get to an actual action.  QR codes should facilitate the action of the marketing object the QR code is placed on.

“We are looking at better than 20 percent of digital orders on mobile.” - Patrick Doyle, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, Ann Arbor, MI.

Mobile a hero

“Domino’s has done a great job in mobile across mobile Web for smartphones, and apps – the QSR space is such a great opportunity for mobile, and is just now starting to show growth, with the percentage that Dominos is reporting on mobile now, while it is a good number as consumer adaption to smart phones grows exponentially it is only the starting point, and over the next two to five years will be a much larger percentage of their overall sales,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

“Continuing to R&D the mobile space and their strategy as this grows will be critical to keep the momentum up with the ever growing demands of the consumer market,” she said. “The consumers are what is driving mobile growth in the U.S. much more so than businesses.”

For the first quarter ended March 25, 2012, Domino’s posted domestic same-store sales growth of 2 percent while international same-store sales increased 4.7 percent. Revenues were down 1.2 percent for the quarter.

Domino’s has also seen success with its iPhone and iPod touch app, which achieved $1 million in total sales in just 28 days. Just three months after its release, the app achieved more than $1 million in sales in a single week.

In the first quarter, Domino’s launched its new Android app and it already accounts for 1 percent of sales, Domino’s executives reported yesterday. The company previously noted that the app exceeded 140,000 downloads in its first two weeks of availability.

During the conference call, Domino’s executives pointed to other ways that the company is innovating with mobile such as its new Pizza Hero iPad game. The app, which was launched a year ago, enables fans to create virtual pizzas.

A recent update to the game encourages players who make it through several pizza-making challenges to apply for a job at the chain. While Mr. Doyle said he not expect a significant number of employees to be hired from the app, it shows how mobile is at the core of much that the company is doing these days.

Domino’s Pizza was quick to embrace mobile as a way to enable customers to place orders and the numbers speak to the company’s success, with 7 percent of total U.S. sales and more than 20 percent of digital orders now taking place via the company’s mobile site and apps.

The pizza delivery and restaurant chain reported its first quarter results yesterday and pointed to its significant success in mobile in a conference call with analysts to discuss the results, including that mobile is helping Domino’s extend its brand internationally. Domino’s launched its iPhone app in Britain in September 2011 and mobile now accounts for 16 percent of total digital orders there.

“We’re north of 30 percent in online orders,” said Patrick Doyle, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, Ann Arbor, MI.  “A year ago, we were 5 points lower than that in the 25 percent range.

“The other thing that has moved along briskly, is the mobile side of this,” he said. “Seven percent of total orders are on mobile.

 Mobile strategyThe pizza chain is embracing mobile in other ways, too. In January, Domino’s teamed up with the Blippar app to create an augmented reality experience at various locations across Britain (see story).

Other quick-service restaurants have also been actively embracing mobile to drive orders and engagement, including Papa John’s and Pizza Hut.

“Domino’s is not only capturing their loyal customers with an app and a fun experience, but it is also paying attention to those customers that haven’t yet become their loyal customers – which is a larger pool of consumers - with the mobile web experience, making sure that they are paying attention to these customers will allow them to transition more of the mobile web consumers to their loyal customer base,” Ms. Troutman said.

Some Pizza Hero players are being encouraged to apply for a job

Mobile Marketer- David Spear – All too often we allow the euphoria of the launch of a campaign to distract us from what lays beneath the campaign – incredibly powerful and meaningful data.

Believe me, having helped many clients strategize and implement mobile marketing campaigns over the last five years, I have found that there is a disproportionate amount of time and money placed on the front end of these programs and significantly fewer resources dedicated to the back-end data analysis.

Agent of change

Case in point, I was at an agency – and I am not agency-bashing, just using it as an example, so stay with me – the other day listening in on the strategic pieces of agency “value-add” and the conversation focused on the typical stuff such as strategy, creative, advertising, content and public relations, but nothing to do with data, especially, mining the data and strategically weaving together a powerful story that demonstrates how the data is moving the business forward.

There was no mention of this and, yet, one of the most important pieces of the equation is the data.

It is perfectly understandable why people get excited about the start of a mobile program/campaign.

The client is excited. You are excited. Your fellow team mates are excited. Hey, mobile is cool. The program has hype, maybe even a little PR, and everyone’s expectations are high.

Then after a few days or weeks, that buzz wears off while the program settles in, and if you are not careful, everyone loses sight of the data that is being produced by the program. Why? Because it is data, which feels eerily close to “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Data is data. It is not strategic. It is difficult to connect the dots. It is dirty and messy. And for some obtuse thinkers, it is a job for lower level associates, right?

Whoa! That is just not right. The data collected is incredibly powerful and, in nearly every customer relationship I have worked, mobile marketing data provides tremendous insights to shift and course-correct business decisions.

So, what to do? Here is one simple tip – take a leadership role, yes, that means roll up your sleeves, and have your team develop a digital dashboard that is highly relevant and demonstrates how the data is actually moving the business.

On the level
Now, if I can indulge you for a second, step back and think about how the dull, boring, dirty and complex data affects relationships on two levels:

1.  The relationship between you and your customer/client?
2.  The relationship between your client’s brand and their consumers?

On the first level – you and your client – you have a terrific opportunity to make yourself even more valuable in the client’s eyes by providing meaningful analysis.  This requires a fair amount of strategic thinking and deep knowledge about your client and the vertical in which they compete, but if you do this right, it will pay big dividends in terms relationship capital.

On the second level – your client’s brand and their consumers – you can help your client more than you realize.

Your insights on the data can help clear a path for better decision-making, i.e. in areas such as marketing spend, mediums and modalities to use, future marketing programming, which translates into a smarter, more agile client.

Be assured, when you are presenting data in this fashion and receiving positive signals from your client, you have allocated the right amount of time and budget on the front and back-end data analysis of your mobile programs.

While over two-thirds of the retailers have iPhone apps, only half offer the ability to purchase via the app, according to Zmags.
“In most situations, it is far easier to develop an app that does not incorporate the commerce portion of the PC site than to deploy a basic product information (app,) which does allow companies to get into the space with something to start vs. waiting until everything is included to start,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of Siteminis. “In most cases, a company stages deployment apps to get to the market quickly and then adds on specific functionality (such as commerce, order tracking, pickup in store, account management and editing, etc.). Getting to the mobile customer information such as click to call, store locator, ads and coupons, product pricing and information is more important for speed-to-market with a mobile engagement than waiting to give a customer the ability to purchase and delaying the release of a mobile product. Believe me, any company that has an app that does not have commerce currently, definitely has this functionality on the release schedule. It just takes time and money to deploy. It’s better to start as quickly as possible to engage your customers on mobile.”

Pinterest referrals spend 70 percent more than visitors referred from non-social channels, including search, according to industry reports.
“As a brand, there is enormous potential for using Pinterest to engage customers and drive sales,” said Kim Williams-Czopek, managing director at Fry Design. “In fact, I think it might be a superior tool to Facebook for driving customer engagement and loyalty and maybe even driving sales. A brand’s efforts to gain impressions across a person’s group on Facebook based on the assumption one person’s likes may translate across their group might not be as successful as originally thought. What a brand really wants is a captive group of like-minded individuals who share the same passions and interests. Pinterest is exactly that. So the potential for engagement is great, but is there opportunity for real social commerce here? I think so. There just isn’t a natural intent to buy when using Facebook, whereas there may be more of an inclination to actually click through and buy that cute dress pinned by someone you’re following. Given the pinning patterns shown thus far, with a good portion of pinners seemingly planning for an ultimate purchase, Pinterest may represent a new step in social commerce compliance laddering and the customer purchase lifecycle.”

More than 104 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in February, up 14 percent versus November, according to ComScore.
“I think it’s safe to say that the majority of U.S. brands are at the back of the adoption curve when it comes to building a true brand focus around mobile and smartphones,” said Cass Baker, evp of Leapfrog Online. “Many brands are still deliberating how they want mobile to be part of their overall strategies while a vast number of consumers have already decided what they expect from a brand in a mobile experience. The smartphone is today’s best, most ubiquitous way for consumers to communicate on, research, receive personalized messages about, locate and buy products — all in one channel. The majority of today’s users have their devices affixed to them all day, every day and with instant access to these devices comes expectations from consumers around the immediacy and personalization of inputs coming to them from their phones.

According to Mediabistro, 30 percent of B2B marketers are spending millions of dollars each year on social media marketing.
“Social media has become mainstream, and most businesses and industries need to incorporate this in order to sustain and innovate what they do,” said Beatrice Villamor, social marketing manager at Cake Group. “That said, it’s important to have a clear understanding of social media, so this is leveraged effectively for the specific business/industry you’re in — the way a small, local business uses social media is very different from how a large financial services firm would use it.”

Pricegrabber found that 77 percent of consumers who own a tablet use a tablet or a smartphone to shop.
“Consumer studies are starting to come out showing that tablet shoppers are even more affluent than shoppers in other channels and that they spend more – both frequency and basket size,” said Nikki Baird, managing partner at RSR Research. “So especially for retailers, targeting a higher-end market, but increasingly for all market segments, having a tablet strategy is becoming critical. Also, now that we’re in the third generation of the iPad, I’m seeing a trickle-down phenomenon among some of my friends and family, which is that first generation iPads that are getting replaced with third-gen iPads are making their way into children’s hands. That’s a new and interesting twist in the tablet saga too.”

Sixty hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second, and over 4 billion videos are viewed a day, according to YouTube.
“YouTube is doing for the democratization of video and film-making what the Web has done for publishing,” said Scott Symonds, general manager of media at AKQA. ”And the result of it is more than just a glut of video content, but a rethinking of what easier content creation and social sharing is and can do. YouTube is the obvious tip of the spear for the content and sharing revolution and will redefine how we think of an incredible range of things in the near future — like television, movie-making, education, politics, and much more.”

Why? Well for a few reasons. To simplify the answer, we looked at it this way-

First- No Hardware required on my part- reduces my cost! Using our partner Savvis as our cloud computing partner, we do not have to invest in hardware and the associated hassles that come with that investment. Additionally, we are software people, it only makes sense to have Hardware experts handling those system requirements. Plus, our hardware never gets old and we have an extra set of eyes and hands on the system architecture itself. We can stay at 4 9′s on uptime and SLA’s are kept up with! Who could ask for more.

Second- Scalable, flexible, secure and monitored Architecture. Cloud environments are, by design, scalable and flexible. In the world of mobile, that is critical. I can move from 10MM hits a minute to 100MM on the fly and with a bit of planning, I can ramp up to any required pipeline at an incredibly efficient cost structure. Oh, I can still maintain a 4 9 environment. I also have accessible redundancy and the ability to add locations for service for any variety of reasons. Cloud environments are not only scalable, but monitored and secure.

Third- Cloud environments reduce my customers cost. Companies don’t have to invest in new equipment, software and upkeep. Cloud computing not only helps lower client costs for engagement as a SaaS model, on the customer end, my cloud can handle multiple mobile environments hitting the APP’s created. It also allows a more effective dev/ test/ QA/ Prod environment for smooth upgrades, troubleshooting and overall software implementation.

Fourth- Peace of Mind!- Partners on the hardware side let us focus on what our company does best- Mobile Web Software!

Here is an article that prompted me to write this-

Cloud Times- If a survey will be conducted on the most glorified technology trends of the year, there are only two answers most people will say; it’s eitherr cloud computing or smartphones and tablets. It’s everywhere on wall discussions of most IT forums and communities. While some vendors are busy slapping these products, the trend is still up for these two giants. And millions of dollars on investment continue to flood into cloud computing and mobile applications. Major companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and IBM are only a few of the major investors who are willing to empty their pockets for it.

What is so interesting is the intersection happening between cloud computing and mobile computing, giving rise to the new trend in the “Mobile Cloud”. Although mobile cloud and the Cloud may seem to be interchanged and viewed as one and the same, they are actually different with regard to security, platform infrastructure, design and many others. Other differences will be noticeable as the new “mobile cloud” continues to evolve.

Mobile cloud in its infancy has very strong major trends to look out for:

1. Acceleration in the “Consumerization” of IT through Mobile Computing

The increase in demand from workers to access non-PC devices and be able to work everywhere on smartphones and tablet PC’s speeds up the consumerization of mobile computing.

David Link, CEO and co-founder of ScienceLogic says about IT operations and cloud solutions, “IT can’t think about things on a node-by-node basis anymore. They must think of resources as aggregate services that they must make securely available to a number of devices, including phones and tablets.”

As social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin continues to be popular and convenient for users, they have now become a place to do business and work using mobile gadgets. The tremendous increase in demand for smartphones and tablets has a parallel demand for IT solutions to speed up applications development for mobile computing while ensuring security is in place.

2. Risk Challenges are Evolving

The issue of security vulnerability in mobile computing increases the risk more than double and has caught the attention of hackers to invade smartphones and tablets. This has been examined and authentication verification was strengthened. Certain security protocols have also been established like limitations to access and data modification from end-users. However, this may only work for awhile because IT people will either find a way to work around these restrictions that are often a less secure platform.

Custie Crampton, VP of Mobile Device Management Technology at Tangoe, said, “There is risk with everything. The risks are double edged, you run the risk of having your system hacked or you also run the risk of losing key and talented people for not putting up with the technology demands.” Crampton believes that there is no way, but to move forward with mobile computing, “If you create different categories of data, you can then define what each level means and how to control it,” he said.

3. Mobile Computing will Revolutionize How Work is Done

When mobile computing entered the cloud, one of the first applications that got the highest demand was email access; whether it was for personal or business use. That is why Microsoft, Google and Salesforce.com laid out immediately their cloud – based email platforms.

A recent Frost & Sullivan report summarized in this statement the company demand for email to be on the cloud:

“After years of uncertainty, the North American hosted enterprise email markets have finally taken off. As businesses perceive email as mission-critical, they were skeptical about email applications residing outside the enterprise in a third-party data center in the past. However, the entry of large cloud-based providers and on-premise email vendors has lent credibility to the software as a service (SaaS) delivery model. In addition, technology maturity and cost advantages have helped spur the growth of hosted email services among enterprise users.”

Mobile cloud computing will change and speed up how work is done especially for those in sales and marketing. This trend is a welcome paradigm shift for mobile users, but will put a tremendous pressure with IT solutions providers.

4. Mobile Computing will Become the “Internet of Things”

Joy Weiss, President and CEO of Dust Networks says about Internet getting everywhere, “If you can put a sensor and a network anywhere, then think of all of the places you might want to monitor and all of the data you’d like to collect. Today, with sensors running on batteries or harvested energy, you already have the ability to get information from anywhere or connect to anything – anywhere.”

This is where mobile computing will cross the threshold; while everyone else are busy managing and building the cloud platform and infrastructure, network servicing companies are getting their devices ready to mix everything together, making it the “Internet of Things.”

Projections made by IBM, Cisco and Ericsson that there will be 1 trillion Internets connected to mobile phones by 2015 was moved up by IBM to 2013. Network companies and mobile computing will be the cornerstone for end users and service providers such as: sensor networks, smart grids and smart buildings.

5. Mobile Computing is Here to Stay Whether People or IT are Prepared or Not

David Link of ScienceLogic who tagged mobile computing as the “Internet of Things” and “Device-aggedon,” referred to this even in the early adoption of cloud computing. In fact, many people are unaware that smart grid and smart parking meters they now use are all cloud-based applications.

Even business owners who are firm about their stand not to move their core applications to the cloud, are also unaware that while they are using Salesforce.com, OpenAir and other SaaS applications, they are already in the cloud.

Social media monitoring company NetBase analyzed a year’s worth of online conversations — 27 billion- give or take a few! NetBase then parsed English grammar and gender voice in search of phrases like “I want X.” The data was then analyzed for sentiment, and condensed into a top 10 list for each sex.