Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Steven Levy, CEO of Verivo Software (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some use cases. What verticals do you have maximum adoption in?

Steve Levy: The verticals we have maximum adoption in are those that have been early adopters of mobile apps themselves: financial services, healthcare, business services and transportation, manufacturing, etc. A very common application would be in business services, where people are building apps for consultants or other time-based employees to track their time. They want to know when they are on the client’s site, which clients they are at, etc. This is all on their device while they are using it. Track their time, coordinate it with the back end systems, expense management, etc. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Steven Levy, CEO of Verivo Software (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In that case, let’s start by describing what that technology is and then we will get to the use cases.

Steven Levy: Our primary product is a software platform. This platform is used to both build and operate in run-time and managing control the apps enterprises need. If I wanted to build a field service app, that app is going to have a bunch of characteristics that make it an enterprise app. I can design that app using Apple’s Xcode platform or using HTLM5 tools. There are lots of different technologies for how I am going to design the front end of the app, but I am going to quickly be affected by some problems. First, the application I am building is going to interact with the corporate systems – not just getting data but updating data. That interaction has to recognize that the mobile app may go out of coverage. The connection between it and the back end systems may be interrupted. But the app generally has to continue to operate. So, if I am operating a field app and I have to go to somebody’s basement to fix their cable and I am not getting any signal, I can’t stop working. I have to record all the changes. Then, when I get back into coverage, it has to sync back on. Building apps like that is challenging.

SM: So you cache some of that data on the device itself?

SL: Yes. Our platform makes it easy for the developer who is building the app and who may not want to deal with data management issues, caching, and synchronizing. They just want to design and build the app, and they are using an underlying library or platform and saying, “This is the data I am interested in. Please keep me up to date as I change it, as the back end changes and as I go in and out of coverage.” This makes it easier for a mobile app developer to build the app without having to become a data management developer.

SM: It sounds like your greater value proposition is in building enterprise apps that actually do go in and out of coverage areas.

SL: That is one of them. I’d say enterprises have four big challenges in building these enterprise apps. One of them is getting the apps to integrate with their corporate systems and letting the apps to continue to operate both in and out of coverage. A second one is that these systems have to be secure. Before you can interact with those back end systems, you have to authenticate; that is, confirm who you say you are. You may have to get authorization to operate against three or four different back-end systems – a CRM, an inventory control, a shipping system, a financial system, etc. All of those might have different authentications and permissions on them. All of that has to be managed.

You can imagine that a developer who just wants to build the app’s functionality does not want to get involved with that stuff. Simplifying the authentication and permissions and all issues around security is the second issue you have to deal with. If you are caching data and you are also worried about security, you have to start talking about how to encrypt that data – how you make sure it doesn’t become available to somebody who might steal the device. With each of those issues, you are making the mobile app increasingly complicated. Our job is to let developers build an app by designing a front end and business logic, and using a library to access and interact with back-end systems that handle all of those things.

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Steven Levy, CEO of Verivo Software (Part 1)

Steven Levy is the chief executive officer at Verivo Software. Prior to accepting his current position of CEO in 2010, Levy served as a member of the Verivo Software’s board of directors. As CEO, he has led the company in dramatic growth, increased product investment, and expanded the reach of sales through his ability to create new revenue models, extend the company’s business offerings, and identify new market expansion opportunities. Verivo’s software is about helping customers accelerate their business results. Its product, Verivo Akula – an enterprise mobile app platform – helps to simplify the complexities associated with building, securing, and managing enterprise mobile apps. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did you bring this product to market? This is a very interesting case study. You are speaking to somebody who loves stuff that you can charge serious amounts of money for. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: So you are betting on more sophisticated intelligent agents?

Alex Bratton: Absolutely. They are going to combine intelligence on the mobile device with big data in the cloud. Whether that data is all of my personal information that I uploaded there myself, or the big data of enterprises and being able to use that based on analytics, pushing information to a salesperson about something that is happening in their area they should be aware of. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Based on what you have told me, it seems that in being able to deliver these solutions, you are in some cases connecting into other systems. What kinds of other systems are you connecting into, and what do you learn from connecting into those systems?

Alex Bratton: One of the fundamentals for what I describe is a serious mobile application is that it needs to talk to something outside of the phone or tablet to be really worth something. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with John SanGiovanni, Co-Founder and VP of Product Design at Zumobi (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: I more or less agree with you that the ability of a click to get into a more immersive user experience is much higher than [with] a TV channel. When you are on the mobile phone and you click on something, instead of a 30-second ad roll there is a real story coming up; we spend five minutes listening to that piece. I do think that there is a much more interesting and productive engagement model than just viewing these ads.

John SanGiovanni: I agree. The numbers validate this point in a dramatic way. I referenced the Chevy example because they were kind enough to share the data. People spend six and a half minutes on an ad on their phones. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: To achieve that kind of efficiency and intelligence in the app, did you have to build a configurator in the back end?

Alex Bratton: We did not. We had to identify all different types of data – equipment types, facility types, etc. to try to nail down the master data source. Did we have to build an additional configuration engine for it? Not necessarily. >>>