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The necessity of having a clear and cohesive mobile marketing strategy has never been greater. Companies that do not have a mobile marketing strategy now are light years behind the curve in the face of booming smartphone adoption and changing consumer behavior. Research firm Forrester took a look at some of the biggest and best mobile marketing companies to see how they stack up and what benefits they can add for companies.

There is a problem with Forrester's research. Mainly, it looks only at the biggest and best. It is an enterprise-focused report that narrows in on nine mobile marketing companies and the strengths behind each. Fundamentally, this is the wrong approach to take in a world where dozens of innovative startups are tackling the idea of mobile marketing with fresh ideas and eager teams.

A devastating assessment of the course of technology growth last Friday from technology analyst Forrester flies in the face of what competitive firms would consider "conventional wisdom," to say that before cloud computing truly commands the attention of enterprise network architects, a few other dramas currently in progress must play themselves out first.

At the center of one of these dramas is a player that officially exited the enterprise computing market in November 2010: Apple. The reason: Apple makes a tablet that CxOs really want. Many may not actually know how it integrates with their networks, but unlike most any technology purchase to date, they're willing to invest in it now and figure out the solutions down the road.

A new report from Forrester says that geosocial apps a.k.a. location-based social networks can "help increase in-store visits, your brand's visibility and consumer word of mouth by connecting people with their locations and their friends." Yet consumer adoption of location-based apps is very slow. In 2010, only 4% of U.S. online adults used geolocation apps monthly or more; that number grew to 6% in 2011. In 2010, 84% of US online adults did not know what geosocial app like Foursquare or Gowalla even were; that percentage has changed to 70% in 2011.

This is a new one on me. I've heard of tree huggers, but Patrick Thibodeau's piece in ComputerWorld today is the first time I've run into server hugger. What's a server hugger, you ask?

According to Thibodeau, it's a term coined by Forrester analyst James Staten, for IT folks who "have significant concerns about their ongoing value to the company if they don't run [IT systems] themselves." Does the term fit, or is it perhaps a wee bit early to be labeling IT folks who haven't put all their eggs in the cloud basket?

The prospects for virtual desktop technologies include the ability for office workers to utilize their business assets from just about anyplace, including their tablets, without transporting those assets directly into mobile devices and exposing them to security dangers. Already, businesses are saving millions by reducing the number of servers they would have deployed to host operating systems. And cloud-based developer platforms are helping businesses deploy new and dynamic applications with less overhead and reduced time to maturity.

At least that's what the mimeograph machine has been repeating up to now, and that's the message that's been repeated here and elsewhere. But yesterday's Q4 Forrester TechRadar status report for cloud computing paints a darker picture for VDI and PaaS, claiming vendors are attempting new business models for these technologies that prospective customers may be rejecting.

Mobile device usage has spread across the globe. In terms of mobile penetration, the United States is actually on the lower end of the worldwide spectrum, with only 77% cellular device ownership. That seems counterintuitive to the way the U.S. views itself as the heart of mobile acceptance and innovation. It is China and other Asia-Pacific countries that really lead in mobile adoption.

Research firm Forrester released a study last week showing global mobile usage trends. In almost every mobile usage aspect, metropolitan China and other Pacific Rim countries lead the way. That includes mobile social usage, work usage and multiple device ownership. Mobile is near an inflection point, changing the way people interact with information around the globe.

Forrester's Brian Hopkins has identified 10 tech trends that enterprise architects should be watching through 2014. The report, released on October 7th, identifies trends that are expected to have a strong impact on IT over the next few years.

The 10 technology trends on Forrester's watchlist through 2014 fall under four categories: Application platforms, integration, infrastructure and operations, and mobile computing.

Last week, Forrester Research tries to grok Big Data with a report entitled, Expand Your Digital Horizon With Big Data. And while it is somewhat amusing to see how they approach the topic as they would a new network router or new version of Office, ultimately the report falls somewhat flat, especially for those of us that have been using these tools and writing about the subject for many years now.

It's often said that business leaders make their companies in their own image. In that case, no two images ever stood in starker contrast with one another than the Hewlett-Packard of former CEO Mark Hurd, and the Hewlett-Packard of present CEO Léo Apotheker. Whether for better or worse, HP is becoming a different company than the one many enterprise clients signed their contracts with just a few years ago.

That fact has led one Forrester analyst to recommend this to his firm's clients: not that they dump HP, but that they make a careful re-assessment of their business relationship with the firm, taking into consideration whether a contingency plan for switching vendors might be in order.

The "mix" between desktop and laptop PCs flipped toward the laptop side of the equation for most of the world's PC manufacturers five years ago. The reason, it was surmised at the time, is that the nature of the workforce is changing: that "the office," as we have come to know it, is no longer rooted to a desk.

A report issued Wednesday by Forrester Research analyst T. J. Keitt flies completely in the face of that supposition. Data accumulated by Forrester suggests a seemingly self-contradictory phenomenon: Although more U.S.-based IT departments supply their workers with laptops, the most mobile workers in today's workforce are least likely to use a laptop more than a desktop computer. In fact, more professionals who think they're more mobile than most, are actually chained to wherever their desktop PC is.