Seems like everyone is carrying some kind of mobile device these days. And enterprise applications are “mobilizing” to take advantage of the convenience. Research from Compass Intelligence found that mobile apps are the second highest IT category of spending, and that U.S. business will spend nearly $12 billion on mobile apps by 2012, up from about $5 billion in 2008.
Now Salesforce.com is going after this growing market, sort of. The company has offered a full featured add-on mobile option for the past 3 years and seen good acceptance. But they just released a lighter weight, but free, “Mobile Lite” option to give everyone access to commonly used sales/service features.
Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Mobile devices are supported.
So, how do you make money on free, you ask? Well, Salesforce.com does hope that some “lite” users will upgrade to their full mobile solution. But after talking with marketing honchos Kraig Swensrud and Chuck Dietrich, I learned that increasing user adoption is the big goal.
You see, if mobile makes it easier to use their sales and service apps, then users are happier, increase their usage and expand to other areas. Very smart.
For more info, visit http://www.salesforce.com/mobile/lite/.
