http://help.sap.com/saphelp_fiori/index.

html#c7995
cc8feec45e68c3a4a5823cb6619.html
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41598

Point of view SMP Vs SAP Fiori
In todays connected world, enterprise mobility allows organizations to earn
business value by engaging closely with colleagues, suppliers, partners, and
customers. With always-on online connectivity, employees wish to get more
tasks completed in less time, from wherever they are.
This increasing demand for handheld access to enterprise applications and
business data, is driving the need for more adaptive, dependable and cost-
efficient IT solutions. By integrating mobile applications with back office data
management platforms, companies can access and analyze data about
customers, employees and operations much faster. This anytime, anywhere
access to information helps business managers across the enterprise to make
real-time, strategic decisions that deliver business value.

The need of enterprise mobility is undeniable faster business processes, closer
customer connections, and faster decisions. However developing the enterprise
mobile applications which will meet the user requirements is a very difficult job
for IT. Moreover, there is always a high pressure from business to mobilize
applications quickly versus high effort and limited budget to mobilize processes.

SAP is growing exponentially in Mobility Space and we have multiple ways in
which SAP provides rich enterprise mobile applications.

As per the Gartners Report published in August 2013, SAP is on top in leaders
Quadrant. According to this report:
Customers report high levels of satisfaction with SAP mobile solutions, and that
SAP's MADP offerings are stable and secure
SAP's banking and messaging solutions have demonstrated the ability to scale to
support demanding consumer scenarios
SAP offers some of the broadest device support among all the multichannel
vendors

SAP provides a industry-leading mobile application development platform named
as SMP SAP Mobile Platform, that solves mobility challenges, supports
mobile apps that fit your business-to-enterprise (B2E) or business-to-consumer
(B2C) use case, and helps balance device user requirements with enterprise
requirements.
In first quarter of 2013, SAP has come up with SAP Fiori which is a collection of
applications with a simple and easy to use experience for broadly and frequently
used SAP functions that work seamlessly across devices desktop, tablet, or
smartphone. Wave 2 of Fiori apps is also out in the market with more 198+
apps.
This Document highlights the solutions provided by SAP for enterprise mobile
apps. The paper also makes an attempt to provide detailed view of these
solutions and crisp comparison between these solutions. I trust my attempt will
help you find best-fit mobile solution to your business scenario.
SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) :
Sybase Unwired Platform and the Syclo Agentry development platform have
been integrated, and the product rebranded to SAP Mobile Platform. SAP Mobile
Platform provides the middleware platform where users connect to and interact
with various enterprise information systems and applications that exist in any
large or medium size corporate IT infrastructure that supports customers,
employees, sales, partners, suppliers, and executives. SMP acts as the hub that
connects enterprise information systems and data sources to mobile devices.
Find more details on SMP here ...
SAP Fiori :
SAP Fiori is a collection of apps with a simple and easy to use experience for
broadly and frequently used SAP functions that work seamlessly across devices
desktop, tablet, or smartphone. Fiori is developed by SAP working closely with
over 250 customers to understand the most commonly used business functions
and ways in which the user experience for those functions could be improved
and simplified.
Wave 2 of Fiori app with 198+ apps, is now in market for our use, The apps are
designed for the most common business functions, such as workflow approvals,
information lookups and self-service tasks, analytical apps.
Find more details on Fiori here ...

Now as we have seen that SAP has provided above two approaches majorly, for
mobilizing your business, let us now compare these solutions and see which one
best fits to your scenario.

I
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
SAPs Roadmap and Goal
A stable platform that will allow for
mobile innovation through the use of
a common architecture, enhanced
security and better control. Goal is to
quickly build and deploy mobile apps
that keep your workforce and
customers connected and engaged
with the SAP Mobile Platform.
Collection of ready to use
applications for broadly and
frequently used SAP software
functions . Goal is to provide
immediate impact by renewing the
user experience of the most broadly
and frequently used SAP software
functions that can be accessed from
mobile and desktop devices
Usage
The SMP is an on-premise or cloud-
based mobile application development
platform that accelerates the
development and delivery of secure,
highly scalable business-to-enterprise
(B2E) and business-to-consumer
(B2C) mobile applications on any
device.
SMP is a mobile enterprise application
platform that securely mobilizes
information on a variety of mobile
devices.
Thus using SMP, developer has to
build a complete custom application
that meets business requirements.
Fiori is a collection of apps with a
simple and easy to use experience for
broadly and frequently used SAP
software functions that work
seamlessly across devices desktop,
tablet, or smart phone. This is not a
platform, rather these are ready to
use applications and hence with little
installation and configuration,
become available for customers to
use.
Major Highlights
Provides an enterprise-class mobility
platform delivered, maintained, and
further developed by SAP, as your
unified mobile enterprise application
platform (MEAP)
Includes fully integrated mobile
device, user, apps, and security
capabilities.
Includes non-SAP, thin integration
layers, so that well selected instant
value pre-packaged solutions can be
added out of the box.
Supports multiple mobile devices and
operating systems
These apps are extensible and
customizable to meet customers
requirements and can be adapted
and aligned to corporate branding.
They are designed for increased
productivity.
Fiori Apps can be assigned by specific
roles so users get only what they
need.
Users can personalize the order of
the applications.
Responsive design allows the same
application to be available for
different form-factors.
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
Architectural Overview
The Architecture is little complex as
compared to Fiori:
SAP backend systems
NetWeaver Gateway for providing
oData interfaces to business
logic.(this will not be used for MBO
approach).
SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) to store
and pass data between NetWeaver
Gateway and mobile devices.
SMP SDK is a development tool set
which will be used to build mobile
applications, which will meet mobility
needs.
Afaria Server offers integrated device
management and security for the
broadest range of platforms from a
single, web based console.
Fiori Architecture is simple and relies
on three components.
SAP backend systems
SAP NetWeaver Gateway
SAP UI5 for NetWeaver
No mobile platform is required.
Backend Integration
There are two approaches :
MBO Approach:
An MBO is a middleware object that
describes mobile data and operations
on that data.
Operations on an MBO are typically
record related, but can also be
operations that are directly invoked
against the back end.
Changes made to MBO data on the
device are reflected in the back end.
Back-end changes are communicated
to the user when the middleware
notifies the device application of an
update and the application
subsequently synchronizes the MBO
data on the device.
Backend integration is simple and
uses oData Approach. SAP Netweaver
Gateway exposes existing SAP
Business Suite processes as OData
services.
In simple terms, it takes RFC data
from SAP back-end and
adapts it into OData. This implies
that your business logic will reside
solely on the back-end and not on the
SMP server.
The SAP Fiori apps can be deployed
in multiple ways;
As a collection of apps with a single
launchpad,
As multiple Web apps, and they can
be consumed from SAP or third-party
portals.
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
oData Approach:
SAP Mobile Platform also supports the
Open Data Protocol (OData) as a
back-end resource.
When an OData source is used as the
back end, the application developer
does not need to create any model
elements (MBOs) in SAP Mobile
Workspace, but rather inherits a
service model from the service
document published from the back
end, for example SAP NetWeaver
Gateway.
These OData service documents
contain all the information the device
developer needs to parse and interact
with these data streams.
SAP Fiori can also be configured to
give access to a sub-set of apps
based on user roles. Also as Fiori
apps use Netweaver Gateway as
middleware connector, Netweaver
Gateway has two deployment
options:
Central Hub deployment of SAP
Netweaver Gateway
Embedded Deployment of SAP
Netweaver Gateway
Development Approach
SAP Mobile Platform supports two
mobile business object-based
application types:
Native Applications :
The native application model enables
the developer to generate platform
specific code.
Here, the application is based on
compiled code that is specific to a
particular mobile operating system.
Provides the most flexibility in terms
of leveraging the device services, but
each application must be provisioned
individually after being compiled,
even for minor changes or updates.
Supports both, offline and online
development.
You can also choose native-MBO or
Native-oData approach
SAP Fiori are (online web based)
lightweight apps fetching data
directly from the backend system.
For SAP Fiori to work, SAP has
developed additional standard SAP
Netweaver Gateway Models based
with oData interfacing.
Fiori uses SAPUI framework based
HTML5 on top of that. SAPUI5
framework is developed by SAP for a
common UI development tool for all
SAP products
FIORI apps are hybrid which are
based on the web technologies
(HTML5, CSS, JavaScript) so it will
work in all major mobile platforms
and in desktops.
If an organization has already
adopted another UI Framework for
deploying self-services, it should be
relatively easy to build their own UI's
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
Hybrid Web Container-based Hybrid
App
The Hybrid Web Container offers a
fast and simple way to build
applications that support business
processes, such as approvals and
requests.
With this, the server-side of the
application is metadata-driven and
the client-side of the application is a
fully generated Web application
package.
This package of platform-independent
HTML, JavaScript and CSS resources
can be deployed automatically to the
Hybrid Web Container, a native
application on the device, without
writing any code.
Hybrid applications only support
online model.
on top of SAP Fiori Gateway Models.
SAP has adopted a clean MVC
framework with Fiori that allows
easy adoption of other UI
frameworks.
Application Security
SMP provides Basic Protection to
mobile devices like PIN to activate
device. SAP Afaria, can add another
layer of security to the mobile
devices.
Developers can add security to SMP
server client applications by
configuring a prompt for
authentication, requiring a username
and password upon launch.
SMP supports Local Database File
Encryption to prevent unauthorized
users from accessing data
A Relay Server can be used as it
provides secure network connectivity
between devices connecting from the
Internet and the SMP servers on an
intranet that have access to corporate
data systems and applications
For more details on security please
check SAP documents
Secure system access for SAP Fiori
applications involves password, user,
and password policies, as well as
special considerations for mobile
devices
You can enable an additional PIN
code to enable users to lock their
devices and prevent unauthorized
users from accessing data.
You can also Enable remote
management software allowing you
to remotely lock mobile
devices or wipe the data from them.
All communication channels should
be encrypted in order to ensure
confidentiality and integrity of data.
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
HTTP connections can be protected
through Transport Layer Security
(TLS) and RFC connections can be
protected through Secure Network
Communications (SNC).
Internet access to your SAP ERP
backend system from an SAP Fiori
application can be secured by means
of an application-level gateway in the
corporate network Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ).
For mobile device the SAP Mobile
Platform (SMP) can also be a viable
access path if you wrap the Fiori apps
into small hybrid apps. In that case
SMP can add an additional layer of
security with its device registration
features, but all of that is purely
optional.
For more details on security please
check Fiori Security Guide.
Total Cost of ownership and Total Cost Deployment
As with SMP, a complete custom
application has to be developed,
overall cost of building the application
will be high thus increasing TCD and
TCO.
More number of skilled resources will
be required and development time
would increase with complexity of
application, in turn Total cost of
ownership and deployment will go
high.
Reduced development efforts:
Implementation efforts and time for
Fiori apps is less than developing
custom application. This provides
faster and easier deployment of
applications, thus you can get started
with SAP Fiori immediately and bring
instant value to all employees. SAP
Fiori enables companies to leverage
their existing SAP investments by
delivering powerful business results.
Early users of SAP Fiori have
reported tremendous business
benefits,
Improved user satisfaction through
intuitive easy-
to-use interfaces.
SAP Mobile Platform SAP FIORI
Increased efficiency and productivity
of employees with a lower TCO.
Reduced work completion time thus
promoting better business decisions
by enabling quicker approvals.
Increased adoption of business
processes.
Web responsive design
With SMP, you wont be able to create
a unified web responsive design
application. With Hybrid web
container, you can create a single
application that can open across
multiple OS on mobile devices,
however you cannot use them on
desktop/laptops.
As Fiori uses HTML5 as frontend
technology, thus allowing
organizations to deploy and manage
a single code deployment that can
serve any device on any platform
running any screen resolution.
These apps are designed to adjust to
the device form-factor, and thus can
be accessed from mobile and desktop
devices through a consistent user
experience.

Thus to conclude, with Fiori, SAP is delivering (online web based) real-time
apps directly from the backend system. There is no more need for a
separate mobile platform. These apps can also be made available through
the new SAP Mobile platform, enterprise edition, Cloud version. Main
reason would be to provide a single platform to combine, and control,
both SAP backend Apps and e.g. own build SAP Hana Cloud apps.
Since there are plans to also provide offline capabilities in the new oData
releases, less existing application will require SAP Mobile Platform. SAP
has planned "offline" integration with SMP. It will work on current MBO
concept that gets their data from the OData connection. SAP has also
released the SAP Mobile Platform on HANA cloud. With this now there is
no need to install and maintain a platform server on premise. This will
definitely simplify our life.
In reality, SMP and Fiori are the solutions that SAP has intended for
different purpose. There usage and Roadmap is different. However if you
read various articles published in SAP Mobility space, SAP clearly says
that a company has long way to go in both these areas.
References : SAP documents on SMP and Fiori