Archive for the ‘mobility’ Category

A Mobile Dessert I’m Anxiously Awaiting

Friday, June 4th, 2010 | located in SME Trends, mobility | No Comments »

My summer resolution is to replace my Blackberry RIM 8320 mobile phone.  I’ve had this phone for a couple of years, and it’s done a respectable job of handling my corporate Outlook email, calendar, and address book needs.  Despite this device’s solid messaging abilities, I’m looking for a replacement because I’m tired of its “Flintstone”-like Internet browser and its limitations.  Recent smartphone browsing developments make my Blackberry’s tiny screen, sluggish browser speed, and miniscule application market replacement-worthy.

Replacement Criteria

Here’s what I’m looking for:

• A device that handles integrated voice, email, calendaring, and address book at least as well as my old Blackberry.
• A smartphone with the largest possible screen that will fit into my pocket.  It should also support Internet browsing at or close to broadband speeds via WiFi or a carrier’s mobile network.
• A smartphone brand that supports more than 10,000 third party applications — a healthy, growing number of third party apps bolsters my confidence in the platform’s functionality.

Given these criteria, my decision boils down to a smartphone that’s either on the iPhone or Android platform. While iPhone is compelling because competitors have had to perform more than a few iterations to even approach its functionality, and the new 4G IPhone is due to be released soon,  there’s good reason to consider Android in my selection process.

Top five reasons I’m considering the newest Google Android Platform smartphone:

Google is releasing FroYo (Android version 2.2 – with a code name short for frozen yogurt) this summer on phones and carrier networks yet to be determined.  In addition to meeting all my criteria above, FroYo is a significant upgrade for the Android platform, offering speed and phone capabilities that exceed or equal those of the iPhone.   My list of top FroYo capabilities includes:

1. Ability to store Android apps in SD memory. Storing apps outside core memory frees the device to easily add apps that constrained earlier versions of Android, which required them to be stored in core memory.
2. Access to 50k applications in Android’s app market. The platform also has automatic upgrade capabilities.
3. Speeds of 2x-5x faster than Android v2.1 with a  browser that’s 2x-3x faster. Speed improvements enable Google to claim FroYo will be the fastest mobile browser in the market when it is released.
4. Support for Flash 10.1 and AIR from Adobe. FroYo users will be able to access video clips in the most common video format on the Internet (unlike iPhone, which refuses to support the Flash format).
5. Tethering. FroYo users can connect their phones to their PCs/Macs to access WiFi or the carrier’s network − try that with an iPhone.

Looking forward to tasting some FroYo this summer!

Broken Digits? Ribbit to the Rescue.

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | located in Salesforce, mobility | No Comments »

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I live a very active lifestyle—mountain biking, snowboarding, and soccer being some of my passions. Well, that lifestyle caught up with me recently in a form of a motorcycle crash.

Thankfully it wasn’t a serious crash, but I did break a few bones in my hands, which landing me in a pair of casts.

As you can imagine, this has made typing extremely difficult. But with Ribbit’s voice-to-text transcription feature, I was able to keep up with my electronic correspondence using my voice. I used Ribbit for Salesforce to dictate all of my emails (and even this blog post) by just by talking into my mobile phone. No need to use my hands at all—except for that one finger I used to press the buttons on my phone. But I supposed I could have used a toe if I’d really had to…

Going Solar

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | located in mobility | No Comments »

True, you may not be planning to make any calls, message colleagues, or otherwise do anything resembling work while cycling across the playa in silver shorts and swim goggles at Burning Man, but the idea of staying connected while spending time outdoors is extremely compelling for many mobile business professionals. And depending on where you find yourself, the nearest power source may be miles away—unless that power source happens to be solar.

Solar-powered chargers for mobile phones, cameras, iPods, PDAs, and other handheld gadgets (laptops are too power hungry to easily charge using portable solar chargers—but at least one solar backpack on the market promises to charge even those) have come a long way in just a few short years. It used to be you had to rig such devices up yourself by wiring battery packs to solar panels. Today, you can buy inexpensive solar chargers for under $40 and even backpacks with built-in solar chargers for under $150.

Now, if you could just find a strong enough signal to send that email…

Is That a Projector in Your Pocket?

Thursday, August 13th, 2009 | located in mobility | No Comments »

A recent article in Forbes about cell phone manufacturers adding video projection capabilities to smart phones and PDAs got me thinking about the mobility benefits of such a product.

A salesperson’s array of hardware to pack for road trips has definitely grown over the years—but (thankfully) has also shrunk in size and weight. Laptops and cell phones, for example are much lighter and smaller. And mini LED projectors, I discovered, are not only much smaller—3M makes one that apparently fits in your shirt pocket—but also much less expensive (around $350 to $800 US). The point is, now salespeople have a viable option for showing business presentations to clients using a projector rather than a tiny laptop screen.

In 2010, mini projectors are expected to not only grow even smaller, but actually become part of cell phones themselves. Samsung is now shipping a mobile phone with an embedded LED projector to customers in Korea, and says its Samsung I7410 phone will be available to customers in the European market later this year. The phone is supposed to project Powerpoint slides and product images, for example, up to 50 inches in height, and include a 5-megapixel camera and high-resolution, color touch screen. The phone is expected to cost a whopping $980 US.

Assuming projection quality is decent, is this kind of compact functionality worth the price? Analysts seem to think so—sales of embedded projectors are expected to exceed $1.1 billion by 2012, according to Insight Media.

How likely are you to buy such a device? Would a built-in projector help your team increase sales?

Mobile Business Users: Choose Your Apps Wisely

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | located in mobility | 1 Comment »

Broadsoft, Phone Fusion, Jott, CopyTalk, CallWave, Skype, SpinVox. With such a dazzling array of choices in the mobile apps arena, how do you decide which ones to adopt?

Through my own personal trial and error, and through what customers have communicated to me, I’ve whittled the decision process down to a few simple guidelines:

1. Does it save time?
I put this at the top of the list because we are all so busy juggling work, family, and our private lives that anything that puts a few moments back in our day is an important investment in ourselves. Before you commit to using a particular app, do the math. Guesstimate how much time you spend listening to messages, communicating those messages to other people, taking notes, and dictating those notes into your CRM.

2. Does it save money?
This one is obvious, but it can be tricky to measure. Savings is more about time than an app’s price tag. Figure out what your time is worth, and then put a dollar amount on your time savings.

3. Does it help you share info?
While some mobile apps might be personally useful, they may or may not help you easily share information with others. For example, does the app let you forward voice messages to other people on your team, or attach messages to a CRM file for later review? The ability to do so can be a powerful business tool.

4. Does it help you respond faster to your customers?
Responding quickly to customers makes them feel important and cared for—and more willing to do business. See if you can pinpoint at least a few ways in which a mobile app helps you respond to customers more quickly than you do today.

5. Does it integrate with your other apps and existing systems?
Being able to link mobile apps to your existing systems (CRM, email, and mobile phone) not only allows you to work when and where you need to work, it also saves you from having to enter notes and critical information twice. If an app doesn’t link to your CRM, for example, it may not be worth your investment in time.

What are your thoughts on how best to choose mobile apps?