Trust your supplier? Check with the Armadillo
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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Mobile news and business information content is on the rise, as many of our contributors have been reporting. Newspaper publishers have long seen apps as the only way to keep their business afloat, while information users are expressing an increased interest in consuming content via mobile devices – link to a Freepint research report on the subject here.

Dale Moore has hailed 2012 as the year of the app, confirmed by Gartner research published last year which predicted that, by 2013, 33% of all business intelligence will be consumed by mobile devices, opening up content to a wider audience. This is seen as a huge business opportunity for vendors and one that will likely come to the attention of the big investors, as shown by the interest in the Summly app.

The UK’s RM Group, a well-established provider of online business registration services and company information, has now added an app to its business information services, which will appeal to information professionals, businesses and consumers alike. The Armadillo app, hailed by RM Group as the “world’s first company and credit report app” provides a credit checking facility for 200 million businesses in 220 countries.

The business-to-business (B2B) app has been launched at an opportune time of course. The need to conduct credit checks on suppliers has never been greater, however still only a third of UK businesses bother to check out businesses before trading with them.

The Armadillo app is hoping to change this complacency and views its new product as a major investment opportunity and a way to significantly grow its business. Anybody interested in putting their funds into this new venture should look here.

Access to the information is made easy: the app is free to download, there is no need to set up an account and payment for each credit report is taken via users’ phone bills. Company reports are also sent to customer’s email addresses for later perusal. Business researchers no doubt will also benefit from this app.

Armadillo’s claim to be the world’s first cCredit report app however is not strictly correct. Experian launched the BizGo app way back in 2007. It provides credit reports on 19 million US companies and includes information on a company’s credit rating, bankruptcies, liens and collections where available.

Other business information apps include Hoovers Near Here and Connect+ products and Hoppenstedt’s FirmenNavi app, which provides access to data on 250,000 German companies. Mobile business intelligence data will no doubt proliferate, making it easier for us to work “any place, any time”.

Whether that is a good thing is another topic for discussion. In the meantime read Patrice Curtis’ excellent article on useful apps for researchers here.

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