Mobilizing the Enterprise

Seeking Alpha’s Transcript of Apple’s Earnings Announcement

On April 20^th, 2011, Apple announced their Q2 earnings.  They blew us away with 18.65 million new iPhones sold (vs 8.8 million same quarter last year).  This is over 110% growth and exceeds the overall smartphone growth of 74%.   All these new iPhone users will begin searching for new applications and services to become more productive.

Apple announced 88% of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying the iPhone. Some examples include Cisco, Prudential, Boston Scientific, General Motors, American Airlines, Deloitte, Yum! Brands and Xerox.

Apple announced they were selling all the iPad 2 devices they could make with 4.7 million sold during Q2.  iPad 2 seems to be sold out and people who walk away empty handed from an Apple Store, return again when new shipments arrive.  Quite simply, it is the best tablet available.  Luckily, Tim Cook announced the iPad 2 supply problems will be solved this quarter.

In just over a year since its debut, 75% of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying iPad within their enterprises. Some recent examples of enterprises that are deploying iPad include FORTUNE 500 companies such as Xerox, AutoNation, Yum! Brands, ADP, Boston Scientific, Estée Lauder, Disney, Stryker, Prudential Financial, Rite Aid and USAA.

iOS 4.3.1 was released today.  At Moprise, we couldn’t be happier.  I installed it on my iPad and iPhone and the NTLM fixes worked great. Once again, authentication with Windows Servers from Safari and native applications worked like a charm and our SharePoint for iPad and SharePoint for iPhone applications worked properly again.

Security and authentication are incredibly critical and fragile areas and we’re incredibly impressed with how quickly Apple identified and fixed this problem.   Nothing is perfect but the goal needs to be intelligent triage and quick iteration with fixes.  From the enterprise perspective, Apple nailed both.

Having worked on Microsoft Windows (2.10, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, NT, XP, & Vista) for years, I know first hand the agony of triaging the final 5 fixes from all the possible bugs that should be fixed in a .1 release. One year of testing occurs on an operating system before it is released. During that year, we’ve discovered bugs that were introduced two or more years ago and were never hit before. Once you release, every bug fixed in an update could seriously undo years of development and testing.  Picking the final 5 bugs that are worthy of fixing and risking regressions is a true art and more than anything else, telegraphs a company’s priorities.

Apple is often pegged as a consumer company but even within the limited development budget of a .1 release, they fixed a core enterprise bug around NTLM authentication.

Is Apple gunning for the enterprise? I think so. In a big way.

We’re the app with the bright orange icon: Moprise: SharePoint Documents for iPad.  Thanks Apple!  We’re really thrilled to be in such company!

http://m.bgr.com/2011/03/21/apple-ios-4-3-1-coming-within-one-to-two-weeks/

BGR reports that Apple’s iOS 4.3.1 release will contain a fix for the following item:

• Fixed problem with NTLM authentication in apps and on websites

NTLM is the protocol used to send and validate user names and passwords with Microsoft web servers and web applications.  When this doesn’t work, you may not be able to access your line of business web application via Safari web browser or your SharePoint server via Moprise’s native applications.  Without the iOS 4.3 fix, you will experience a hang of a couple minutes and then an error that the web server doesn’t exist.

We’re excited to see this bug fixed in the next update. If you are lucky enough to use one of Apple’s beautiful new iPad2′s in the enterprise, we’re sure you will be excited too.

Update 3/21/2011: BGR reports the NTLM authentication issue will be fixed in Apple iOS 4.3.1. Woot!  Keep on SharePointing!

We’ve noticed a new hang with our Moprise and Moshare applications when connecting to an NTLM authenticated SharePoint server. This problem does not expose itself under all configurations but occurs all the time when it does. A fix is in progress.

Connect with us at feedback at Moprise.com or follow & DM us @moprise if you are encountering this and require assistance.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/profiles/ge/

Apple has posted a remarkable video of GE’s usage of iPad through out their enterprise.  They surface the custom, GE branded applications that connect people & iPads to GE’s data center allowing them to be productive anywhere, anytime.  The video demonstrates the usefulness of mobile devices inside and outside the office.  ”It’s like living in the future.”

http://www.marioarmstrong.com/2011/01/25/mobilize-sharepoint-with-moprise-for-iphone/

Thanks, Mario, for your post on both our iPhone & iPad apps for SharePoint.

Welcome to 2011 and a new year for Moprise and our blog.  The latest version of our Moprise iPad application for SharePoint has been in Apple’s app store since just before the holidays and we’ve been seeing huge demand and great feedback from our users.

There are a number of updates in the latest version of Moprise for iPad:

1) Configuring your SharePoint URLs was difficult. Typos, incorrectly spelled subsites, and general complexity entering in long URLs confounded our users.  Now you can simply cut/copy/paste a url from your browser into Moprise’s configuration screen. We use that to find the root of your SharePoint and configure it appropriately.

2) Viewing pictures (jpegs) turned out to be especially important for multiple companies needing iPad access to their SharePoint servers.  Faxes, medical images, team events, and  images for product catalogs were stored in picture libraries so we quickly added support for it.  You will see previews of your images along with the file details to make selection and viewing easier.

3) iPads and SharePoint are being used by field service representatives where offline access was important.  Multiple companies have reference manuals or price lists on SharePoint and use iPads to access them in the field.  In certain situations, connectivity was poor so we had requests for offline access to key files.  Hence the new version supports file favorites which are cached on the iPad and available for offline access.  When you move online, we will synchronize the latest files back to the iPad.  The size of the offline cache is also adjustable in the settings menu.

4) Airprint support is now available in the business edition.  This works with the latest HP Photosmart ePrint enabled printers.  Apple and HP have done a really slick job making printing easy without installing and configuring printer drivers. Our customers can easily move between locations and print on their nearest printer.  Earlier blog posts contain more details on Airprint.

I hope you enjoy using Moprise for iPad and iPhone. Please keep the feedback coming.  And we’re wishing you all a great 2011.

Our next version of our Moprise SharePoint client for iPad now works with AirPrint.  Alan, a new senior developer on the team, had it working in the iPad simulator save for a strange bug where some pages were printing twice.  After reviewing, he knew the code was correct and it was confirmed once we ran against our real HP AirPrint printer. Screen shots of the print dialogs from my iPad are below.  Look for an update soon.

Thanks for sending us feedback and requests. We appreciate hearing the good and bad.

We’ve had many requests from enterprise customers for a printing solution for our mobile apps - they wanted to capture a signature on a paper contract, leave a document with a customer, or take a paper ticket & itinerary to a venue.   Having to boot up a PC just to print seemed as old fashioned as using a typewriter.

So we’re excited about AirPrint in the new iOS 4.2 release as it finally allows applications on the iPhone and iPad to commit their content to paper. Currently AirPrint only works with HP ePrint enabled printers. Eventually, Apple will make available software that AirPrint-enables any printer plugged into a Mac or Windows PC but for now, HP is the sole supplier.   Being on the bleeding edge, we purchased a new HP PhotoSmart multifunction printer (model C410a) for use at the office and to test our AirPrint code.  While things are working in the new iOS 4.2 SDK & simulator, we’re finally able to perform some real world tests and release an updated version of our Moprise apps soon.