Also, you can get a $100 discount for All About Mobile by entering the following promotional code during registration: “PRMSS”

Note: The discount applies to the “current non-member/customer registration price (individual rate only)”

Software Shortlist is proud to be an Industry Partner of All About Mobile 2011.

Since Software Shortlist is an industry partner for the event, they’ve kindly given us a handy $100 discount code (PRMSWSL) you can use when you register online. (valid off the individual SIIA non-member rate).

For more details, visit www.AllAboutMobile.net. While you’re there, you can read our recent interview with Rhianna Collier (also on our blog here) about how enterprises are using mobile software (plus have a chance to win a free pass!)

1. Let’s start with the basics. What is mobile business?  Can you paint a picture for us of what it means for people within a company: how does it affect their day-to-day lives?

Mobile business today is the ability to carry out all aspects of your business regardless of your location.  Individuals have access to all needed services and information via a mobile device, whether it be email, CRM, workflow management, online collaboration, or even financial transactions, just to name a few.  As a remote worker myself, it is imperative that I have access to the necessary applications 24/7. It allows me to be in constant touch with our members and ultimately better serve their needs.

2. To what extent are companies taking advantage of the possibilities offered by “anywhere, anytime” access to business applications and services?  How fast is it growing?

We see more and more companies supporting increased mobile device usage with business applications. Most companies have some type of mobile based business accessibility today. We are seeing the depth and bread of services available expand within the enterprise and will continue to expand.  Mobile Office is still probably the most commonly used mobile business application suite. With IT departments now being able to customize mobile devices to run their business/industry specific software I believe we will see mobile business increasing at a faster rate than we have ever seen.

3. What do you think is driving this uptake of mobile business?

The growing virtualized workforce who travel and work from home is a prominent driver in the adoption of mobile business. Having all of your business applications on your smartphone allows employees to maintain business while not in their primary workspace. The flexibility of having business access on mobile devices increases user productivity and customer contact and satisfaction (because you are readily available to your customer base). As more and more enterprises are mobilizing their workforces it has become a critical component to staying competitive in the industry.  A secondary trend that will accelerate uptake is the native adoption of mobile as the platform of choice among students and new entrants into the workforce.

4. What are some of the concerns and challenges facing ISVs when selling mobile business applications to enterprises?  How can they overcome these?

The biggest ongoing concern from the enterprise perspective is security. Any cloud or mobile application is still seen as a giant security risk for enterprise IT. There is a fear of data leaks, what if the mobile devices are stolen or lost? There is also user misuse of the device.  A lot of the security concerns could be alleviated within the enterprise themselves by governance and employee training; policy development, enforcing things like device timeouts, using passcodes, and device locking. ISVs selling mobile business applications to the enterprises need to understand the security concerns of enterprise IT and make sure the implementation and integration processes are seamless.

5. And lastly, what sort of impact is mobile business having on the performance of companies that embrace it? Are they seeing a clear ROI from investing in mobile applications?

Mobile business improves communication within a company and allows for real-time access to information.  Anytime, anywhere increases profitability by allowing real-time business decisions. Mobile business reduces costs, boosts user productivity, and increases customer service, which, ultimately, leads to profit.  That in itself is clear ROI for the movement towards mobile business adoption.

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The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is hosting a major ISV conference, All About Mobile, in San Jose on November 16-17.

WIN A FREE PASS: Here at Software Shortlist, we have one (1) complimentary pass to the conference to give away. For you chance to win, leave a comment below (or send us an email) and share some of your thoughts about how mobile applications will change the way we do business.  The comment we consider most interesting and insightful will win its author a free pass.

After reviewing the completed entries, our judges have awarded the prizes to J.Sutton and P.Rountree. Congratulations to you both! You should already have received an email from us with your complimentary copies of the Email Marketing Review Packs (valued at US$149).

For those of you who missed out on winning this time, keep an eye out for our future survey contests or simply go buy yourself a copy of the review pack. You won’t regret it!

We’ve just had our expert reviewers look at 19 leading web-based email marketing systems, and give us their judgement on each. But we’d like to extend this by finding out what YOU think about your email marketing software. Once we get enough responses, we’ll build this customer feedback into our email marketing review pack as additional information to help people make the right buying decision.

So, we’re running a short survey on email marketing software to collect your feedback. And to make it worth your while, there are two free review packs (valued at US$149 each) up for grabs. Simply complete the survey by the end of March and you’re in the running. Plus you’ll have the nice glowing feeling that comes from helping another business make the right choice (or avoid the wrong one!)

Take the survey now…

Yes, you heard right. The higher the rating, the lower the price …even though price was just one of ten factors we considered. See the graph below for a summary of average price by star rating for the solutions reviewed.

This finding is great news for small and mid-sized businesses who want to get started with (or ramp up) their permission-based email marketing. You can rest assured that there are great solutions out there at a very affordable price. However, it also means you need to choose carefully as price, functionality & usability vary considerably.

For example, looking at the scenario of a business sending 5000 emails per month to a list of 2500 subscribers, the products given five-star ratings cost an average of $31 per month, compared to over $166 per month for the two-star products. The most expensive solution in our list cost a remarkable 17 times more than the most affordable, but was actually much less useful. Ouch!

Launch of our Email Marketing Software Review Pack

The findings above are based on the reviews in our new Email Marketing Software Review Pack, which we’re pleased to officially launch today.

This comprehensive 33 page report contains detailed independent reviews of 19 leading web-based email marketing solutions, including AWeber, Benchmark, Campaign Monitor, Campaigner, Constant Contact, Email Brain, Ennect Mail, GetResponse, GraphicMail, iContact, inwise, JangoMail, MailChimp, newzapp, Savicom, SimplyCast, Streamsend, Vertical Response, and Vision 6.

Buy the Review Pack

You can purchase the Review Pack on Software Shortlist and download the report immediately.

Win a Review Pack!

To celebrate the launch of the Review Pack, we will be giving away 2 free copies.

For your chance to win, simply complete our email marketing software survey, including the final question about the challenges you’ve faced in choosing email marketing software and why you want to win the Review Pack.  We’ll choose two (2) winners based on how interesting & insightful your answers are. Entries close 31st March 2010. For full terms & conditions, see the survey.

Enter now!

Previous Winner: Congratulations to David M. from Australia. He completed our February survey about email marketing software and his answer was judged to be the best by Software Shortlist staff. David will be receiving his free copy of the Email Marketing Software Review Pack today.