CHICAGO – Model Metrics, the leader in cloud computing services for the enterprise, today announced that John Barnes, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, will present at Kaufman Bros.’ Cloud Computing II Conference on May 26 in New York City…

<Link to pdf version>

Unless you live in a technology cave you have probably noticed the discussion in the industry around Flash and HTML 5 that has been started by the Apple controversy.  My goal here isn’t to rehash what has been said around using Flash or HTML 5 in a browser or on a mobile device, but to share my thoughts around this debate as it applies to Enterprise Business applications.

There is valid debate occurring around the pro’s and con’s of using Flash to serve a banner ad, or a video, or if the <canvas> tag or <audio> tag are a viable alternative.  However this is a minor point when you are considering which platform to use to create a business application or a consumer facing RIA (Rich Internet Application).

First, let’s look at where the HTML 5 spec currently sits.  It is a much-needed refresh of the current HTML 4 spec and has some great features such as support for video, audio and offline data storage using SQL Lite.  The W3C HTML 5 specification is currently in “Working Draft” status and is not expected to be finalized until 2012 or later.  The other current issue with HTML 5 is that is only supported in varying degrees by the major Internet browsers and some of its features may never be supported by some browsers (such as an offline data store).

We do a lot of work for Fortune 500 clients and have used both Adobe Flex and HTML 5 on projects.  Currently HTML 5 is an option if you have full control over which browsers will be used to run an application (which is frequently not the case, even in the Enterprise).  In contrast, Adobe Flex is a great platform to build business applications and can run in virtually all desktop browsers. 

Flex is a rich platform that has complex UI elements (data grids, tabbed navigators, menus, etc.) built directly into the Flex SDK (now called Flashbuilder).  It allows you to take your application and easily run them in Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) on the desktop (outside of the browser) or on a mobile device*. 

As a company we are generally technology agnostic and try to bring the best options to the table to meet client needs.  Although our focus is around deploying Cloud based solutions we have found that user interface or taking the Cloud offline is important to our clients.  The question of Flex vs. HTML 5 for a business application is an easy one to answer today and will likely be so for the next couple of years.  The promise of HTML 5 is great, but until the specification is finalized and it is widely supported by all major browsers it can only be used in limited ways and it doesn’t have the developer productivity tools that are inherent in Flex. 

Here is a real world example.  One of our early iPhone products on the iTunes AppStore was Search2GO, a simple search tool for Salesforce.com.  This was built in Objective C and it took approximately 8 weeks to develop.  Yesterday I watched two developers create over half of this same functionality using Flex/AIR and had it running on an Android phone in a day.  Granted there are still things that could be added, but this was a great illustration of why Flex/AIR is a great toolset.

So while the debate rages on about HTML 5 vs Flash in the consumer market I’d recommend taking a hard look at Flex for business applications.

* Except the iPhone or iPad of course…

One of my favorite parts of being a marketer is how naturally social and outgoing the marketing lot tends to be. It’s why we in particular take to social media so easily. There are a lot of mediums out there, but thankfully there are a few great tools to make it all a bit more manageable. Below are a few of my favorites, grouped into categories.

Twitter Management

Hootsuite: the definitive package for managing your corporate and personall Twitter accounts. Users can add, update, and monitor multiple Twitter accounts (and now, even Facebook) from a single browser window. Hootsuite makes managing a corporate Twitter account easy by granting access to as many (or as few) people as you’d like.

Since Twitter is limited to 140 character updates, you have to make the most of each character. Hootsuite features a built-in URL shortener which also tracks clickthroughs for you, no matter where you post them.

Don’t have time to update Twitter all day? No problem. Hootsuite lets you schedule tweets in advance, so you can continually update your feed with things your followers find useful.

In addition to their website, Hootsuite also has a desktop application and a new iPhone app.

Social Media News

Mashable: without a doubt the best source for Social Media news on the Internet. It’s updated constantly by a number of bloggers and is a treasure chest of information.

Mashable covers Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, mobile, and anything else social/techy that you can imagine. It’s easy to navigate and the articles are all written with the modern attention span in mind. Get in, get your info, get out. Awesome.

Digg: the original (and still the best) social networking and news site. The concept is simple – users submit stories, and other users either digg a story up or bury it. The cream rises to the top. Hate mainstream media? Here’s your reprieve.

When I’m looking for content that tends to be cutting edge or obscure, I usually check with Digg. Of course there’s trolls and fanboys, but those are easy enough to avoid.

 Podcasts

Marketing Over Coffee. Yeah, their logo sucks – who cares?? This weekly podcast by Christopher Penn and John Wall is witty, humorous, and full of can’t-miss content for marketers.

Each week they bring you best practices for both B2B and B2C marketers, covering covering everything from SEO/SEM to social media monitoring and marketing. If you’re looking for a place to learn how to make nice mailers this is not it.

These guys are all about metrics and measurements. If you can’t measure the lift, they’re not interested and neither should you be.

 
This Week in Tech. Leo Laporte is an old-school broadcaster with plenty of new-school ideas. He was one of the very first to eschew traditional terrestrial radio and move into podcasting. I believe this show began in 2006, so you know he’s way ahead of the curve.

Each weekly installment is about an hour long and brings me up to speed on the week’s updates in technology, both consumer and enterprise. If you are a marketer you absolutely, positively cannot let technology pass you by. This is a good arrow to have in the quiver.

 These are just a few of my favorites. Got some of your own that you’d like to add? I’d love to see them in the comments.

A few weeks ago we (Model Metrics) entered a competition in Washington DC sponsored by Adobe.  Specifically, this event was  a partner solution showcase specifically for Adobe’s LiveCycle product.  We haven’t done a lot LiveCycle development, but if you follow us you know we have done tons and tons of Cloud Computing implementations, including Amazon Web Services, salesforce.com, and Google.  As a result, our approach was to focus on using LiveCycle in the Cloud. We focused on two cloud platforms – Amazon Web Services and salesforce.com.

Ironically, this showcase took place a few days after the first Apple iPad’s came out.  More ironically, the solution we intended to demo was an integration between LiveCycle and our Pharma2GO solution, which takes salesforce.com offline for Life Sciences companies using Adobe Flex and AIR.  Naturally, we decided we’d take advantage of the timing and show Pharma2GO and the LiveCycle integration on the new iPad.  

In just a few days we able to export our offline app in a build specifically for the iPad using the new CS5 suite.  Simple to do and looks fantastic:

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re aware this approach is now a questionable practice according to Apple.  Of course you can build in Objective C.  That is doable and we’ve done it countless times for the iPhone, but that is not a build once deploy anywhere methodology.   We were looking forward to that.

Obviously, look out for an Android version of Pharma2GO shortly.

Full release below that we posted this morning:

• A pharmaceutical sales representative runs Pharma2GO on his laptop or mobile computing device to access and modify records in Salesforce CRM online or offline. 2GO uses Adobe Flex and AIR technology to extend offline access to Salesforce CRM on various mobile devices.
• The sales rep meets with a physician, drops off drug samples, electronically captures the doctor’s signature and enters the results of the sales call in Pharma2GO, which updates his Salesforce CRM record.
• With the signature capture, an Adobe LiveCycle workflow process is invoked. It automatically sends an acknowledgement email to the doctor, who clicks to confirm that he met with the sales rep and received the pharmaceutical samples.
• The acknowledgement is captured in the sales representative’s Salesforce CRM.

CHICAGO – Model Metrics, the leader in cloud computing services and solutions for the enterprise, today announced the company’s demonstration of Pharma2GO was selected as a winner of the April 2010 Adobe Partner Solution Showcase in Washington DC. Model Metrics demonstrated an innovative use of Adobe® LiveCycle® Enterprise Suite 2 software running on Amazon Web Services and integrated with salesforce.com…