Business Intelligence and the Cloud: Strategic Implementation Guide

CHAPTER 9

Mobile Computing Intersection

The Intersection of Mobile, Cloud, Big Data, and Business Intelligence

Mobile computing has brought a whole new level of data into play and is a major driver of Big Data and BI. Big Data comes from applications that companies create to interact with their customers, social media, cloud data providers, and a host of other sources. BI comes from using the data that are stored, processed, and distributed to create intelligence that can be used to innovate the business. All of this is enabled by cloud and mobile computing.

Mobile, cloud, Big Data, and BI all intersect to provide a new frontier of information processing. Mobile computing is composed of many applications and technologies. Mobile devices provide locator applications that know your geographic position and indicate the closest service (e.g., a store or an ATM), money transfer, and package tracking details. These are just a few of the recent mobile innovations.

Organizations must determine how personal, commercial, and business applications of mobile computing can increase employee, customer, and supplier satisfaction and productivity throughout the supply chain. Doing so makes it possible to increase market share and enhance the bottom line.

Annual sales of mobile computing devices—phones, tablets, and other handheld devices—have outstripped the sale of desktop devices; that occurred more than 10 years ago. Driven by IT consumerization, the desktop is a staple at home and in the office, ...