Published on the 23/05/2013 | Written by Newsdesk

Gen-i reinvents itself with a software partnership in the mobility space…

SAP and Gen-i have signed a partnership agreement which will see them offer Mobile-as-a-Service, offering more than 300 SAP and SAP partner-built apps through a Gen-i hosted cloud. And you don’t have to be an SAP user to access it. This is the first strategic mobile management partnership for SAP in the Asia Pacific Region.

Speaking at a press briefing in the Auckland Gen-i offices, its CEO Tim Miles said that customers want flexibility, speed to market and control over costs and Gen-i believes that this new partnership represents the new era of “truly converged ICT”.

Mobile applications play a critical role in enabling users, even at the government and enterprise level, to work, conduct business, socialise, shop and play seamlessly across their devices anytime and anywhere. When combined with high speed networks, mobile service management, and cloud infrastructure, mobile applications can truly mobilise an organisation, delivering greater customer insight, engagement, collaboration and productivity.

Andrew Barkla, president and managing director of SAP Australia and New Zealand said: “The agreement reflects the quantum leap of change we are experiencing in the marketplace. Mobile technology is one of the most transformational of our time and the partnership with Gen-i allows us to accelerate the improvements that our customers can get from the cloud and from applications.

“Our aim is to lead the adoption of mobile applications for government and the enterprise.”

Miles added that “In today’s increasingly mobile and data centric environment, our clients are looking seriously at mobility solutions and the benefits they can deliver to their organisations. This new partnership will enable us to leverage SAP’s expertise in applications technology and integration alongside our Smartphone Network and Cloud capabilities, to offer end-to-end mobility solutions that are relevant to our market, and deliver real value to our clients.”

Miles said that mobile networks have “really come of age and the environment is absolutely rocking”. With this and the ability to add “a hang of a lot more” added value to its customers through application offerings, he said it is time for Gen-i as a telco to do things differently. “Being a telco, we like to do things ourselves, but that’s the old way,” he said, “now we are talking about partnering.”

Available on a subscription basis and hosted in high resiliency, in-country data centres, the new MaaS service will provide Gen-i clients with ready access to about 300 mobile applications on the iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry platforms.

Gen-i will also provide a custom application service through the wider mobile applications development community, deploying comprehensive solutions quickly and inexpensively while integrating with clients’ enterprise systems. Gen-i partner Infosys will provide specialist support for installation of SAP’s managed mobile services into the Gen-i cloud, and systems integration where required.

The MaaS platform itself features a library of apps from shopping environments to SAP’s HANA, SAP HR approvals, Business One apps and even a wind-farm management system called M2M Windfarm Energy. They say the reason they chose to deliver apps in this manner is because it offers greater security than traditional consumer-facing mechanisms; it also offers easy integration with different platforms; it has a machine-to-machine component and keeps provisioning simple.

Added to this, the platform will customise the applications for each mobile operating system, cutting out the requirement for developers who can program specifically for each OS. And the price is small per person – less than $10 in some cases.

Barkla said: “Together we are unwiring business and empowering entire organisations to reach new consumers, improve core business processes and boost employee productivity.”