SwiftMobile was selected by SAP to produce apps for SAP TechEd (9/12/11) at the Venetian/Palazzo Congress Center, Las Vegas, Nevada. This annual event provides essential training for IT professionals who work with SAP systems. The four-day event attracted almost 6000 attendees and offered more than 1,000 hours of educational content.

We built native apps to support this event for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry devices, as well as a mobile-Web version of the app for all other devices, and loaded the apps with the content we thought was most relevant and indispensable to SAP’s attendees. We also made sure the apps met our highest standards for performance and super-fantastic usability.

The results were were nothing short of amazing. For the event’s 5,800 attendees, we logged a total of 388,005 page views for 3,452 unique visitors. SAP TechEd attendees accessed the apps an average of 112 times and spent an average of 16 minutes in the app. And here is an interesting piece of information:  the iPad owners used their apps much more often and much more heavily than iPhone users. In fact, we’re starting to see are rapidy growing and  intensive use of the iPads at our events—25 to 40 percent of the users are coming in through their iPads. And more than 90 percent of the apps users were repeat users.

That’s the kind of use you’d want to see if you were interested in sponsoring or advertising. High rates of use can also help you assess the ROI of establishing a mobile program in the first place.

SAP TechEd’s apps contain private content and require a log in. If you download them from the app stores, you won’t be able to see much. But, if you’d like a demo, please email me at kathleen@swiftmobile.com.

SwiftMobile and Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Release New White Paper That Provides Guidance, Ideas.

Cambridge, MA, March 17, 2011 – Getting Mobilized for Meetings and Events: How to Create a Mobile Strategy that Delights Your Users and Achieves Your Business Goals, is a new white paper that provides meeting professionals with everything they need to know about smartphone apps for meetings and events.

“Mobile apps are a medium that is all about a high quality user experience,” said Kathleen Gilroy, SwiftMobile CEO. “Mobile apps offer meeting and event planners new ways to engage attendees, enhance the event experience and earn higher revenue. Getting Mobilized gives people planning events what they need to make smart decisions and cut through a lot of the hype and claims for mobile.”

Researched and written by SwiftMobile, Getting Mobilized is published by Meetings Professionals International (MPI), which partners with leading experts and innovative organizations to advance industry knowledge in critical business areas.

“MPI believes that it is critical that our members fully understand what goes into a successful mobile strategy for their meetings,” said Miranda Van Bruck, MPI Knowledge Manager. “With this white paper, we’re can offer our members a comprehensive approach for successfully developing a mobile programs. It’s another great way we can help our members become smarter, more successful and better connected to emerging trends.”

The white paper covers planning, development, design and deployment, and sponsorship and advertising. It also includes case studies of organizations that have successfully implemented mobile programs. “We think that Getting Mobilized is going to become the bible on mobile for meeting professionals,” said Kathleen Gilroy. “If you are going to do mobile apps for your meetings, you must read this paper.” Meeting technologist Corbin Ball highly recommends Getting Mobilized for Meetings and Events “for any meeting professional wishing to explore a mobile strategy for his or her organization.”

Getting Mobilized for Meetings and Events: How to Create a Mobile Strategy that Delights Your Users and Achieves Your Business Goals can be downloaded at: http://www.mpiweb.org/Portal/Research

About SwiftMobile: SwiftMobile helps organizations develop mobile strategies and also builds mobile app programs for events and meetings, convention centers and enterprise customers. SwiftMobile’s has designed mobile programs for the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Georgia International Convention Center, the Direct Marketing Association, the American College of Opthamalogic Surgeons, Yankee Dental, and SAP. In 2010, SwiftMobile was selected a Gartner Group “Cool” Company. For additional information, visit www.swiftmobile.com.

About MPI: Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the meeting and event industry’s largest and most vibrant global community, helps our members thrive by providing human connections to knowledge and ideas, relationships and marketplaces. MPI membership is comprised of more than 23,000 members belonging to 71 chapters and clubs worldwide. For additional information, visit  www.mpiweb.org.

Sue Hatch at MeetingsNet has published a useful set of articles on meeting apps, including a directory of vendors, an overview of the various approaches, a list of available features and functionality to help you get started, and a nice list of questions that event and meeting planners can use to devising their own mobile strategies.

And thanks, MeetingsNet, for including SwiftMobile.

Last week we launched a Blackberry version of our mobile event app for the 13,000 doctors attending the ASCRS 2010 conference at the Boston Convention Center.

SwiftMobile’s CTO, David Willoughby, described the development process for Blackberry as “completely different from the iPhone. The biggest issue is that there are many different screen sizes and shapes for Blackberrys. The Blackberry has been around for a long time and there are still Blackberrys in use that have older features and capabilities. A developer needs to make the decision how far back you go and which devices you choose to support. Rather than sacrifice features, we made a cut off that supports 60 to 75% of devices.”

The Blackberry version of the app has the same core set of features as the iPhone but in order to accommodate the limitations of the Blackberry, Willoughby had to make changes to the design.  ”Our app for iPhone is very visual and takes advantage of the power and memory of an iphone.  The ability to swipe, pinch, and touch the screen doesn’t carry over, so we designed an interface that gives you access to the same information, but within the user experience of the Blackberry. ”

The iPhone version of the app has a high resolution map of the trade show floor.  But, according to Willoughby, “you can’t load the full high-resolution show floor on to the blackberry and you can’t pinch and scroll.  Instead, you start with a list with access to the visual map, but use menus to move around.”

Over 400 users downloaded the Blackberry app for the ASCRS 2010 conference.  The analytics and survey responses from these users will give SwiftMobile valuable information about how to enhance and add features to future releases.

Watch a demo of the ASCRS 2010 mobile app for Blackberry on YouTube.

Watch a demo of the ASCRS 2010 mobile app for iPhone on You Tube.

Download the ASCRS 2010 mobile app for iPhone.

Email us at support@imswift.com for instructions on how to download and demo ASCRS 2010 for Blackberry.