True Cross-Platform Customizable Applications

When the iPad was introduced many people labeled it as a device looking for a need.  Today it is clearly leading the tablet charge in the Enterprise and has been so successful for Apple it is even taking some marketshare from Apple's laptop sales.  However as more tablets come to market, many companies are also looking at Android options to lower costs or at the RIM Playbook.  

The platform is optimized for tablets and is designed from the ground up to be used with a touch interface.  We now have tablet support for the following customizalbe applications:

• Account and Contact Management
• Call Planning/Call Reporting
• Order Entry
• Digital Sales Aid
• Route Planning
• Field Service
• Inventory Management
• Bar Code Scanning
• Signature Capture
• Social Enterprise (Salesforce.com Chatter)

Cloud access even when you can't access the Cloud

What I'm really proud of is the fact that 2GO provides access to back-end cloud data whether or not you have internet connectivity.  Even in this day and age there are many places where we don't have connectivity (basements, office buildings, remote customer sites) and still need access to critical business information.  Offline synchronization is core to the platform and all information is stored locally in an encrypted database to provide safe and secure access to key information regardless of internet connectivity.

Simplifies Maintenance 

Applications rarely are static, business processes evolve and it is a struggle for most mobile applications to keep up with the speed of business.  The 2GO Platform helps applications to easily grow and change without any code changes.  It leverages something called meta-data (data about data) to make this magic happen.  What this means to a business user is when they add a field to a back-end Cloud application, that field is immediately accessible in their 2GO mobile application.

Cross-platform Tablet2GO running on multiple tablets

Here is a brief video that shows the Accounts, Contacts and Social Enterprise modules running on an Apple iPad, a Motorola Xoom and a RIM Playbook.

One of the most popular applications we have delivered is using a tablet as a Digital Sales Aid.  Essentially using a tablet as a replacement for a paper brochure, or one-sheet and presenting content about products and services in a very engaging way. 

Cross-Platform Digital Sales Aid

Here is an example of the Digital Sales Aid application configured for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) vertical that shows products on a virtual store shelf.

Cross-Platform Tablet2GO on an iPad

Here is a brief video showing how Tablet2GO looks and feels on an iPad

Cross-Platform Tablet2GO on an RIM Playbook (running QNX)

Here is a brief video showing how Tablet2GO looks and feels on a Playbook

Cross-Platform Tablet2GO on a Motorola Xoom (running Honeycomb)

Here is a brief video showing how Tablet2GO looks and feels on a Xoom

The above videos showed 2GO running on a variety of tablets with the same codebase.  However we haven't forgotten about the original mobile form-factor, the smartphone.  The same codebase is smart enough to know whether or not it is running on a tablet or a smartphone and the user interface is adjusted accordingly.

Here is an example of 2GO running on a Motorola Droid.  This is the same application that was shown in the tablet videos, however the interface is optimized for the smartphone (one column of data instead of two, and more of a wizard like interface).

The mobile team is still hard at work and there is more to come.  I will keep you posted on our progress as we make a few more announcements in the coming weeks that will make it even easier for you to access these and other 2GO applications and easily roll them out to your organization.

Today, Marc Benioff, the ever-vocal CEO of salesforce.com made a blog post over at Fortune on the end of Microsoft. In his post he outlines Microsoft’s latest ad campaigns, the ones spouting off about Windows 7 being "my idea." He pokes fun at one in particular where Windows no longer crashing was somehow deemed a feature.

Is that how low our expectations are these days? Certainly not in general, and it is a sad state of affairs for Microsoft that crashing is one of the expected behaviors of a Windows device.

He goes on further to point out the explosive growth and success of sites like Facebook and YouTube. These consumer websites have absolutely changed people’s expectations of what a web experience should be like: engaging, easy to navigate and providing loads of value.

Here at Model Metrics those themes ring true for everything we build. We do nothing but cloud computing, which is really what Facebook and YouTube are all about. Computing in the workplace has historically lagged behind what’s available at home. That’s no longer true. With technology from salesforce.com, Google, Adobe and Apple getting things done at the office is as easy as using your favorite personal websites.

While Microsoft isn’t leaving any time soon, newer technologies are showing better promise than the failed paradigm of machines prone to crashing.

Follow ReidCarlberg on Twitter or contact him at rcarlberg@modelmetrics.com.

Hey Stumbleupon — welcome!  You might also enjoy "Import Your App from Excel".

Gmail experienced an outage in Europe overnight.  There’s some handwringing and frustration about it.  But you know what? I don’t care.  Here’s why.

1. The last significant Gmail outage looks to have been in August.  Four months ago.  My old email provider, which cost about $25,000 more per year than our enterprise Google account (which includes a whole lot more), used to “have some issues” (as we put it) about once every four weeks. 

2. Google’s Gmail ops team is working on this.   Correct that – they worked on it and it’s already fixed.  I didn’t have to do anything.  I didn’t have to submit a ticket.  I didn’t have to call.  I didn’t have wonder if anyone else was having the problem.  It’s fixed.

3. No matter what the problem was, I’m not going to have to go out and buy a new server or install a patch.  I’m not going to have to do anything other than wait a few minutes and try again.  Awesome.

4. No matter what the problem was, I’ll bet you $100 I didn’t lose any data and that you didn’t either.  The sum total cost of the problem was inconvenience.  Although that can feel significant, it’s so much better than incurring substantial actual real dollar costs.

So that’s it.  Gmail is back up and all that’s left to do is complain.  But I’m going to ignore the complainers on this one.  This is definitely no big deal.

It’s the time of year for predictions.  Everyone has their prognostication hat on. My thoughts?  We’ll need a buzzword for all those servers we’re killing.  It should be slightly negative.

I call dibs on "dirt computing". 

From what I can tell, 2009 is not likely to be a good year for dirt computing.