P R O G R E S S P E R S P E C T I V E

How to extend the reach of current business applications

EXTEND YOUR BUSINESS APPLICATION BEYOND THE DESKTOP: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Use case: Empowering the mobile worker— an example from the utilities industry 4

Use case: Enhancing the buying experience— an example from the home improvement industry 5

Getting there: A look at the underlying technology requirements 6

Structuring the effort: Mobilizing resources 7

A step-by-step guide to success 8

Case study: Mobility pioneer— Bluebee stays one step ahead with Progress OpenEdge 13

For more information 14

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INTRODUCTION

Mobility is more than just a trend; it has evolved into a revolution that has transformed the way we do business…and quickened the pace of change for Application Developers Today’s workforce is demanding mobile applications to get their work done And the majority of organizations are responding to that demand, allowing their employees to bring their own devices (BYOD) to work Application Partners are being asked to extend their solutions to encompass this increasingly mobile end user community across all industries, from Healthcare/Patient care to Construction to ERP End users expect to be able to access core business solutions from their mobile phones and tablets, be they iOS, Android or Windows 8 devices And given the variety of ergonomics and features of today’s mobile devices, there is tremendous pressure on Application Partners to refocus their efforts on the importance and value of the user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX)

The urgency for Application Partners to quickly chart out a mobile strategy can’t be overstated Gartner1 projects over one billion smart phones and tablets will be purchased globally in 2013 And the analyst firm is predicting tablet purchases by businesses will grow by a factor of three by 2016 to reach 53 million units 2 The firm also predicted3 earlier this year that mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4:1 by 2015 Financial giant Barclay’s has already made such a commitment to mobility, purchasing 8,500 iPads for its branch employees to use with customers, aimed at improving the customer experience 4

While mobility may have begun as a consumer-driven trend, it has evolved into a revolution that will soon be driven and shaped by the global business economy Today’s Application Partners have a short window of opportunity to determine the value of mobility extensions to their current

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1 Josette Rigsby , “Gartner Reveals Enterprise Mobility is Surging,” CMSWire, Nov 7, 2012, http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/gartner-reveals-enterprise-mobility-is-surging-018138.php

2 Natasha Lomas, “ Gartner: 1.2 Billion Smartphones, Tablets To Be Bought Worldwide In 2013; 821 Million This Year: 70% Of Total Device Sale,” TechCrunch, November 6th, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/06/gartner-1-2-billion-smartphones-tablets-to-be-bought-worldwide-in-2013-821-million-this-year-70-of-total-device-sales/

3 “Gartner Says Cloud, Mobility and Open Source Will Drive Application Development Market to Exceed $9 Billion in 2012.” Web. August 22, 2012. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2131115

4 Paul Kunert, “Barclays Bank buys 8,500 Apple iPads in one go,” The Channel, November 23, 2012, http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/11/23/barclays_insight/

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business solutions and chart out a path to delivery Failure to execute on a mobile strategy will inevitably impact their market position and long-term viability Those Application Partners that do effectively integrate mobility into their business strategy can empower and transform their business and relationship with their customers

USE CASE: EMPOWERING THE MOBILE WORKER— AN EXAMPLE FROM THE UTILITIES INDUSTRY

Whether they are reading a meter, collecting process quality information, addressing a customer service request or responding to an emergency situation, the efficiency of field service technicians is a top priority for utility companies Mobility is playing an increasingly important role in driving that efficiency and ensuring quality customer service

For example, imagine a repair technician for a large cable company is equipped with a tablet device that includes a custom application After logging in, the mobile application presents the technician with a personalized “task list” of assignments based on his location and his skill profile By utilizing his current location, the system can optimize the technician’s route The ability to do this for all of its technicians ensures the company is matching technicians with assignments that are both appropriate for their skill level and closest in proximately to their locations The results are improved customer service and significant cost savings

Now imagine this technician has identified a problem with a customer’s cable box, but he is not sure how to proceed Cases requiring additional information can be augmented with intelligent access to a “knowledge base” In this case, the technician photographs the 2D barcode on the appliance and receives detailed repair notes He also has the option to download an instructional video

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“Mobile is the innovative

frontier when it comes to

developing applications

that will serve your

customers and drive

business growth…it is

a critical channel that

your business can use to

differentiate itself from

competitors…”5

Thomas Husson

Forrester Research, Inc

“[Vendors] that will be

able to serve consumers’

situations, preferences,

and attitudes in real time

on mobile devices will

be able to leapfrog the

competition and, more

importantly, provide their

services at a premium.”

Thomas Husson

Forrester Research, Inc

5 Thomas Husson. “The Mobile Revolution will Extend your Business Model More Quickly Than the Web Did.” Forrester Research Inc., November 19, 2012. http://blogs.forrester.com/thomas_husson/12-11-19-the_mobile_revolution_will_extend_your_business_model_more_quickly_than_the_web_did

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Once the job is complete, the technician is able to record the customer’s signature using the mobile device and sign-off on the “state” of the assignment as “closed ” The closed status of the job is then automatically transferred to the back-end-system-of-record application and the technician is off to his next call

USE CASE: ENHANCING THE BUYING EXPERIENCE—AN EXAMPLE FROM THE HOME IMPROVEMENT INDUSTRY

The retail industry is fast paced and constantly changing To stay competitive, vendors need to provide value added services that both meet and exceed customer expectations Mobility has given retailers a tremendous opportunity to connect with customers in ways never before possible— providing new levels of service and information and innovative and creative methods for driving revenue

For example, imagine a woman has just moved into a new apartment She has almost everything in place—the furniture, the rugs, the curtains, etc , but some of the rooms could use new paint Rather than driving to the local do-it-yourself store to pick out paint samples and then driving back home to hold them up to the walls, she opens an app on her smartphone, developed by a leading national paint manufacturer & retailer

As soon as she opens the app, it launches the camera feature on her iPhone Looking to match the exact color of a chair, she snaps a photo of the chair through the app The app then automatically detects the exact color of the blue chair, matching it to the closest available paint and providing her with details like the name of the color and available finishes (i e interior, exterior, eggshell, gloss, etc )

The woman then has the option to adjust the color lighter or darker, view coordinating colors, save the colors, and even share the colors with others directly via the app through email or Facebook Because the app supports a location-based capability, she is able to locate the closest store with the paint colors she needs and place her order online She can then go to the store and pick up exactly what she needs that very same day

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GETTING THERE: A LOOK AT THE UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

Your business may not cater to the utilities or retail industries, but the use cases described above can certainly be extrapolated into any industry Mobility is changing everything; your customers undoubtedly have business challenges that can and need to be addressed through a mobile application As you chart out your course to mobility, it is important that you first identify the underlying technology requirements necessary to ensure your success

Delivering a Valuable User Experience (UX)One of the most important aspects of any mobile application is the UX

The UX needs to be thoughtfully engineered, leveraging both the ergonomics and capabilities of the mobile device and the available back-end services

PrototypingThe UX will need to be prototyped quickly by specialists using state-

of–the-art modeling and prototyping software And based on feedback and usage from your customers/control group, these same specialists will need to revise and evolve the prototype quickly Ideally, the prototype should be cloud-based for ease of collaboration This is key By enabling a higher degree of collaboration with stake holders early in the development cycle, you can effectively pre-empt a potential lack of user acceptance in the future

Connecting to business servicesYour new mobile app will need to connect to business services on the

back-end, which would ideally be located in the cloud as a managed service With the right architecture, back-end business services can be leveraged by different classes of client, both traditional desktop UI’s and mobile UI’s

Supporting an end2end integrated experienceThe underlying platform for your mobile app needs to support an

end2end integrated experience for architects and developers Expect mobile apps to have aggressive requirements for upgrades and evolution—this is where the cloud can be of tremendous value, enabling easier and faster rollouts and improved agility

The following sections will provide deeper insight into what you will need to chart your path to mobility, including developing an effective UX;

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investing in skill-building or third-party expertise and a rock-solid back end; and accelerating your move to the cloud

STRUCTURING THE EFFORT: MOBILIZING RESOURCES

The UX is key to user adoption. One of the pitfalls many mobile application development projects fall

into is a failure to take into account the value of the mobile user experience A mobile app is very different from a traditional app designed for the desktop or laptop and, consequently, you need to take a very different approach when it comes to UX design

To create a mobile application your users will want to use—and one that will differentiate you from the competition—it is vital that you take into account a number of contextual factors:

> Who will be using your application (an executive, a sales representative, a marketer, etc )?

> How will they be using your application (to capture a sales order, to track a shipment, to interface with customers etc ; will the person be driving, walking, running, exercising, etc while using your app)?

> Where will they be using the application (in a noisy warehouse, walking around a customer site, outside at night, on a train, etc )?

> What are the ergonomics of the mobile device and what features will your customers use with your application (i e will it be for a tablet or smartphone and, if so, which models; will it use a camera, scanner, voice recognition, image recognition, GPS, etc )?

Understanding all of these factors is critical to designing a user experience that is optimized for your specific customer and how they will use the app

Invest in skill-building and infrastructure updatesIt is important to recognize that developing for mobile devices requires

a fresh approach to application development Plan on making investments up front to either re-skill your developers or enlist help from experienced third-party experts to identify how the UX will leverage the device ergonomics and the associated sensors (gyroscope, camera, GPS, scanner, etc )

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“In a world with hundreds

of thousands of mobile

apps to choose from,

indifference is failure.

To make your app

lovable, you must design

a compelling mobile

app user experience.”

Mike Gualtieri,

“Design Mobile Apps

From The Outside In”

Forrester Research

August 7, 2012

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Recognize that the development and coding on the client side is JavaScript, so you will again need to enhance your internal skills in this area or consider outsourcing this effort to a third-party expert

And if you have not yet done so, invest in refactoring the mid-tier This will pay dividends over time and enable the reuse of existing business services across different classes of UI

Accelerate the move to the cloudGone are the days of spending six months on a development

project, rolling it out and making minor updates a few times a year Mobile applications are far more dynamic and mobile users are far more demanding You should expect to revise and evolve your applications quickly based on end user feedback and usage Moving to the cloud will give you the agility to rapidly evolve your offerings and meet customer needs and requirements Agility will be a massive differentiator in the market

Being too slow risks being left behind

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO SUCCESS

Progress understands that our Application Partners want the ability to build mobile solutions on the platform they know and love, OpenEdge They typically don’t want to go “outside of the box” to graft mobility on to existing OpenEdge business applications or build with componentry from the Open Source arena OpenEdge Mobile integrates mobility deeply into the OpenEdge platform using familiar concepts and methods enabling our Application Partners to build end-to-end mobile solutions with a single product

The following nine steps will guide you in developing a successful mobility strategy that leverages your existing OpenEdge investment using OpenEdge Mobile

Step 1: Take a deeper look into use cases in the industry you serve to find where support for mobility can deliver the greatest value Can you find a “game changer”, a niche you can fill that will deliver significant value to your customers while providing a return on investment for your business? If so, move quickly on this opportunity Even if you can’t deliver everything you want

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with your first release, get your app developed and deployed and then revise and evolve the solution based on feedback and user requests The cloud with give you this flexibility and agility

Step 2: Identify whether your mobile app will need to explicitly support different mobile device architectures (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) or if a strategy of “write once, run anywhere” will suit your needs There are pros and cons to both approaches

Step 3: Take an honest (and brutal) look at the skills and capabilities in your organization Do you have access to developers with JavaScript skills? Can your application architects refactor existing (and potentially monolithic) business applications in a more “service-oriented” architecture? If not, develop a plan to either re-skill in-house or invest in help by third-party experts

Step 4: Take a holistic view of your application architecture Invest in viewing existing business logic in OpenEdge as a set of “capabilities” These capabilities are your core IP and are the artifacts which make your solution so valuable and unique

Step 5: Determine if you have a flexible architecture where you can enable these mobile services Progress Software has a range of service packages and offerings designed to help you to assess the current state of your application’s architecture We will collaborate with you to chart out a course to a “modernized”, service-oriented architecture

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MOBILE DEVICE

CLIENT-SIDEUI and App

reside on device

SERVER-SIDEn-tier architecture with Business Logic and data

INTERNET

APP SERVER

DB

Business Logic

WEB SERVER

*.js *.html

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Step 6: Collaborate with your key end-users, working with them to begin prototyping mobile apps Ideally, you should look to do this with a cloud-based solution to make collaboration easier and to expedite the entire process The OpenEdge Mobile App Builder allows developers and architects to quickly design and prototype mobile UI’s with end users via Drag-and-Drop to the canvas Additionally, the App Builder is “cloud-based” allowing for easy collaboration across stakeholders

OpenEdge Mobile eases the chore of mapping UI elements to the structured payload which is to be transmitted between the Client and the back-end infrastructure Developers can leverage the Tooling to access back end services in OpenEdge from JavaScript on the mobile client This Progress-specific, value-add facility is JavaScript Data Objects (JSDO) and is an inherent part of the overall end2end development experience with OpenEdge Mobile

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Step 7: Re-factor your application business logic into services Service-enabling the application’s business logic will provide the foundation for evolving the application as new technology evolves over time, e g BRMS and BPM The goal is to future-proof your application

Step 8: Services should be addressable via the REST API OpenEdge Mobile provides a REST adapter as part of the end-to-end solution which proxies client access into business logic housed in the AppServer

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GET http://acme.com/services/sales/customers?where=name%20begins%20cyotee”

Deployment time end point information

Design time RESTresource information

Runtime timeclient information

HTTPheaders & body

IDL & MAPPING

AppServer Client

REST ADAPTER

HTTP header & body handler

Resource to procedure mapping

Procedure paramter handler

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Additionally, the Eclipse-based, Progress Developer Studio provides wizards for generating Service Interfaces to business logic for execution in the AppServer The tooling can also generate simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) services from an existing data structure (typically a ProDataSet)

Step 9: The final step is to begin a controlled pilot to a friendly group of end-users:

> Establish feedback mechanisms for gauging acceptance and organize your resources to evolve the app quickly

> Establish ways to promote your mobile app via rating/scoring in order to drive and expand reach

> Carefully monitor usage patterns and user feedback to enable effective and continuous improvement of your app over time

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If predictions are correct, the mobile revolution is here to stay for the foreseeable future To thrive as a solution provider you need to embrace this mobile revolution fully from both a strategic and operational perspective The potential is great for those Application Partners that take the time and effort to build a long-term, sustainable mobile strategy

CASE STUDY: MOBILITY PIONEER BLUEBEE STAYS ONE STEP AHEAD WITH PROGRESS OPENEDGE

Over the decade Quebec-based Bluebee Software has worked with Progress OpenEdge, the market has undergone dramatic change, fueled in large part by the move to the web and advent of mobile devices Sylvain Laporte, President of Bluebee Software, says the company’s decision to use Progress OpenEdge as the platform for its ERP system has played a significant role in its ability to capitalize on those changes, continue to grow its business, and establish itself as a web and mobility leader

“Having the ability to quickly make business and technical changes to meet market and customer demand is absolutely critical for success Where many software companies have either struggled or scrambled to meet customers’ requirements to connect to their business anytime, anywhere, Bluebee’s business has thrived OpenEdge has enabled us to continuously modernize our existing application to support the mobile and web needs of our customers—without making any changes to the underlying architecture ”

“Once the mobility craze hit, our underlying OpenEdge architecture enabled us to react much faster than our competition,” says Jean-Marc Blanchette, Vice President of Bluebee “Today with OpenEdge, we can easily expand on any current or future platform—mobile, iPad, Android, or any other type of web-based system ”

One of Bluebee’s clients, an internationally recognized designer and manufacturer of greenhouses, has realized tremendous productivity and cost benefits with Bluebee’s mobile app Today, a representative can issue a detailed quote with both the specs and architect’s approved plans 45 times

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faster than before using the app Whereas the entire sales process once took days and even weeks, today it takes just minutes As a result, Bluebee’s client can begin construction of a new greenhouse faster; customer service is improved; there is far less overhead involved with processes such as tracking the plans, purchase orders and building permits; and the company is closing deals faster and recognizing revenue sooner

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For deeper insight into best practices of mobile app design, download the recent Forrester report “Design Mobile Apps from the Outside In”, provided courtesy of Progress

For more information about Progress OpenEdge Mobile and the resources you need to get started, visit our website and download an evaluation copy of OpenEdge

Progress Software has developed several offers and service packages focused on helping you to modernize your existing applications Together, we will work with you to evaluate the current state of your application’s architecture and collaboratively determine a path to help you become “mobile ready” through a “modernized”, service-oriented architecture

For more on our Application Evaluation, visit www.progress.com/mobile_productivity or contact Progress today.

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PROGRESS SOFTWAREProgress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that simplifies the development, deployment and management of business applications on-premise or on any Cloud, on any platform and on any device with minimal IT complexity and low total cost of ownership

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