Erply

Some time ago, Erply announced iPOS, which is essentially the ERPLY solution running on the iPad. They have a demo landing page up for the service, but it is enough to intrigue me into writing a story about it. I think this is one of the best B2B solutions/ideas out there for iPad.

The landing page claims to have the iPOS as an optimised solution for the iPad and its 10.7″ screen. The service will be able to act in sync with the Erply service the shop keeper has in place. Furthermore, the service takes advantage of iPad’s coverflow feature meaning you can work with multiple views and functions at the same time.

There’s no information out when and if Erply is going to create the service. My guess is that they’re trying to tap on the demand with their landing page and if there’s enough of it – they’ll go after the concept in terms of development. Not a bad idea in the end, but I do think this would be a great addition to their already innovative service.

Another tip I have for them is to greatly subsidize the iPad for the shopkeepers, something that the bigger media houses have overlooked in my opinion as well. If you take the business model from the mobile phone business where you greatly subsidize the prices of the phones with 12- or 24-month operator contracts, media businesses and Erply alike could ideally give away the iPad for free to their clients with longer contracts signed up front. Solutions like these would pave way for predictability in the business model as you’ve managed to create at least a year long lock in to your service.

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/04/19/ipad-solution-ipos-adds-mobility-to-erply/

by Antti Vilpponen