Go the Extra Mile with Mobile Applications

Introduction This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest athletic achievements in human history: the running of a mile in less than four minutes by a 25-year-old British medical student named Roger Bannister. Previously considered impossible, Bannister’s feat is often cited as an example of determination and the human spirit. What isn’t often spoken of is the aftershock of that achievement. The pace of distance racing was permanently quickened for anyone and everyone who came afterward. It was no longer competitive to run a mile in 4:15, 4:05, or even 4:00.01. Once the four-minute mark was broken, the pace of milers — and even racers in similar events — was set forever. Technology has done much the same in business. Up until the mid-1970s, when one business sent an important document to another in a different location, the expectation was it would take anywhere from a couple to several days to arrive. Then came Federal Express, and suddenly the bar was raised to overnight. In the 80s, fax technology meant documents could move from one location to another in minutes. Fast forward to the 90s, e-mail – the bane and boom of corporate America – set the bar higher yet again. Still, as technology has taken over the corporate office it seems that mobile workers are getting further and further behind. Like the milers who peaked at 4:05, mobile workers are faster than the pack but are not leading the field. So, why hasn’t the state of mobile technology allowed remote workers to keep pace with the rest of the corporate world? One certain factor is the general uncertainty of where mobile technology is headed. As in any industry where competing standards are at work, buyers are reluctant to commit large sums of money to any one technology for fear they might select the wrong standard. To understand this dilemma, just ask anyone who chose Beta over VHS. There has been some convergence of cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs,) but what you wind up with most often is a good cell phone that makes a barely adequate PDA, or a great PDA that has marginal value as a cell phone. This makes it difficult for enterprises to determine how to outfit their mobile workforces. Further complicating matters is the utility of the various protocols. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) used with cell phones is fine for looking up a phone number or getting other small bits of data. But it is not optimal for pulling up detailed customer histories, particularly on ever-shrinking cell phone screens. Wi-Fi is better for more details, but despite growing popularityhas still not proliferated as rapidly as expected. This is a problem that must be solved, and solved soon. Technology research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc., predicts that by 2007, more than 66% of the U.S. workforce will be using mobile applications. They will need reliable access, both in terms of the connection system and the applications that run on them.

Cost of Ownership Issues

Companies are increasingly looking at device proliferation and connectivity options, and weighing the costs and benefits of going mobile. As noted above, the price/performance ratio of mobile devices is improving steadily thanks to both technology gains and price wars. The current low-end PalmOne device sells for less than 30% of what we remember a similarly equipped model costing three years ago. PalmOne`s web site indicated pricing of $99 for the Zire 21 and $399 for the high end Tungsten T3 in mid-July 2004. Due to recent research published by analyst firms, there is heightened awareness that the total cost of ownership (TCO) of handhelds exceeds the simple cost of the device. The cost of providing support, network connectivity, replacement units, training, and software all contribute. Fortunately, companies can take steps to dramatically reduce the cost of ownership of both laptops and handhelds. Commenting on their computation for TCO, Gartner writes “End-user operation costs represent about 40 percent of all costs, primarily due to the time investment required to keep PDAs synchronized with user desktops or servers.”6 Centrally-managed mobile infrastructure software can mitigate the need for manual device synchronization, thus dramatically reducing TCO by paring back this dominant cost component. Mobile device TCO can be further reduced by enforcing policy management and technology for automatic healing of devices. Because traditional LAN-based systems management tools do not work well for mobile devices and remote connectivity, the mobile infrastructure components must provide the systems management functionality. Payoff on these types of investments is quick and can yield major reductions to TCO. See sidebar. Thus there are a variety of steps that corporations can take to limit mobile device TCO to a reasonable figure. Many are tied to the mobile infrastructure technology that will support any mobile initiatives.

More Networking Choices

New forms of wide area networking (WAN) are available to connect the mobile devices back to the corporate IT environment. POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) dialup modems have stabilized at maximum speeds of around 56K. DSL and Cable modem technologies, lumped under the heading “broadband,” are being successfully promoted to both consumers and businesses. For the most part, wireless networks don’t feel terribly different than they were two years ago. The over-hyped 3G networks of the future are probably still at least several years away due to spectrum allocation issues, technical glitches, and the monumental network build out effort required. In the meantime, many telecomm firms are realizing that 2.5G services such as GPRS might be easier to provision and quicker to revenue in the short term. Reasonably far along in Europe and parts of Asia, the Americas have seen only extremely limited pilots for 2.5G in select test metro areas. We expect the telecomm companies to continue to over-hype both the bandwidth and timeframes they can deliver in. The reality is that aggressive companies are making wireless investments, building their skills and realizing a return on investment (ROI). Many more are sitting on the sidelines watching cautiously. There is a sense that big bandwidth, universal coverage, and total reliability are still a long way off for wireless. But certain situations offer compelling reasons to move ahead regardless, relying on the right technology to compensate for occasional inability to connect. Now,let`s go to APPCRAFT.ORG and post a mobile e-business project for free!

Put Your Personal Data Assistant (PDA) to Work!

STOP allowing your PDA to sit in your pocket, purse or on your desk under employed! If the only thing you use your Tungsten,Treo or other PDA for is to store telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and contact information, then it's like having a computer and only typing thank you notes! You're allowing your PDA to collect unemployment, and here are some ways you can Fire Up Your PDA. If you're familiar with "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, you may recall the concept, "Sharpen the Saw". In order to maintain an edge, remain current on trends, techniques and developments in your field, you must continually update your knowledge. Reading, researching and self-study are effective ways to increase your knowledge and improve personal performance. However, most of us don't have the luxury of carrying around books, magazines or newspapers. Just the amount of paper alone makes this impractical. So what's the answer? Use the Internet The Internet is Free, it's fast and millions of people use it everyday to advance their personal and professional lives! Others are already taking advantage of this fantastic resource and you can too. Get your PDA off the unemployment rolls and put it to work today! Use one of the many free applications available from the Internet to keep track of inventory, prepare for meetings, keep a journal, take notes at a conference, record your daily exercises, track your gas mileage a thousands of other uses. You can find many of these applications free at PDA sites such as: www.eurocool.com www.MobiPocket.com www.Palmbooks.org www.freewarepalm.com www.freeware4PPC.com These aren't the only PDA sites on the Internet. By using the standard search function on your browser bar, you can find literally thousands of other sites! So how do you "Sharpen the Saw?" Many professionals already receive e-mails and newsletters targeted at their specific field. They recognize and acknowledged their need to stay current with today's information. So they've taken some dynamic first steps to quickly receive the latest information. Yet many complain that instead of "Sharpening the Saw", they're experiencing information overload! With the availability of technology today, information overload is unacceptable, and now there is a better way! The Better Way - Start by connecting your PDA to your home or work computer; whichever one receives the majority of your electronic e-mails, newsletters, and news articles. Next configure your PDA Desktop application to retrieve your e-mail (Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, AOL etc) during the hotsync. Finally configure your desktop e-mail to copy any e-mail which has specific words related to your field of interest in the subject block. For example, Outlook has a Rules feature, which permits the subject block of all incoming messages to be read. Then based upon what you want Outlook to do with messages with specific words in the subject, they can be forwarded, copied, deleted, blocked or filed. When messages are sent to a particular folder in outlook, or on your computer, you can hotsync them into your PDA for later reading and review. Hotsync often and reduce your reading workload significantly. You may have a favorite news site you like to visit to read the latest information related to your field. Consider a visit to: www.avantgo.com an excellent site that will allow you to download (during the hotsync) specific news sites containing information of interest. This service also has features, which allow you to customize and download information from your favorite site, right to your PDA. Finally, you office may send out required reading through the Intranet or your office e-mail. These digital documents and articles are often lengthy and require you to either stare at your monitor for long periods of time, or print out the required reading. Your PDA can help here as well. I suggest a small investment in a commercially available off the shelf PDA application such as; Documents-To-Go, www.handmark.com, which allows a variety of document formats to be read such as, PowerPoint, Excel and Word. Another. Wordsmith Pro is another PDA application from www.Handmark.com, which picks up where Documents-To-Go leaves off. It Wordsmith Pro read a large variety of text type document formats, such as Ascii text, Rtf, MS Word, Linux and more. Wordsmith Pro also replaces your PDA's standard memo pad application and provides the ability to edit text with functions which rival their traditional full version counterparts. So what does this mean? It means, if you're heading to another meeting and you arrive a few minute early, or the meeting starts a few minutes late, instead of engaging in benign chitchat, you could be reading your e-mails and other important documents. o If you car-pool or use public transportation, your commute time could be leveraged to increase your work time productivity by reading your e-mail o While you're waiting in the airport, you can be reading those e-mail newsletters you never seem to have time to get to o As you wait for your associates to meet for a business lunch, you could be reviewing important business documents in preparation o Or of you just want to keep up with the major news headlines, your PDA could have them waiting for you By using your PDA to capture and store your information, you can stay connected and stay ahead. Essentially, any uncommitted time you find available, you could leverage into useful, productive reading and thus, "Sharpen the saw." "Seek to understand, then be understood" This is another effective habit discussed in Stephen Covey's book. The simplest way to apply this habit for the PDA professional is to begin using your PDA to ask and answer questions. Since you already know how to download information from your e-mail to your PDA, you should also recognize that you could send e-mails through your PDA. Using this feature will double your e-mail effectiveness partly by increasing the time you have to read e-mails and also by increasing the time you have to respond to them. Don't sit there in an uncomfortable location while you're considering an important issue. Why not go mobile? Go for a walk around the office, around the building or go outside and think. Now that you're away from your computer and can focus on one specific matter, read the e-mail from your PDA, sit comfortably, organize your thoughts and respond! You are virtually guaranteed to have a much clearer and useful response now, than you may have had otherwise. All because you were able to read in quiet - respond in comfort and continue to be productive. Now go back to your desk, hotsync your PDA with your PC, and send the message(s). Many ideas have been presented here in how to maximize your time and Put your PDA to Work! Remember, having a PDA is a great first step. But using your PDA is what makes the difference between whether it's viewed as a practical tool or a pricey toy! Stay Safe! APPCRAFT.ORG

FrontRange Solutions Expands Mobile Relationship Management Solution

FrontRange Solutions announced the availability of mGoldMine 1.1. mGoldMine provides mobile employees with secure, real-time access to customer, prospect and supplier information held in a central GoldMine Corporate Edition relationship management database. The product provides contact information and contact history via any WAP or GPRS enabled device.FrontRange has developed mGoldMine to meet the growing demand for mobile applications. As work patterns change and customer service becomes a differentiator; responsiveness becomes a business critical issue. Device and telephony network agnostic, mGoldMine enables businesses to take advantage of their existing hardware and air time contracts to make remote workers more efficient and responsive. New features in mGoldMine 1.1 include: The ability to send email to GoldMine contacts. Emails sent via PDAs are recorded in the contacts history tab so vital information is always at hand for both mobile and office-based employees; The ability to create, edit and complete Forecasted Sales so that sales managers and directors have a real-time view of the entire sales pipeline. An up to date pipeline enables the sales and marketing function to be more responsive to market conditions in order to meet targets; Meeting and Activity notes can now be added when activities are completed so contact history is always accurate and complete, ensuring everyone is ‘in the picture’.APPCRAFT.ORG

Industry Trends

Despite the economic situation and recent world events, the basic drivers of growth in mobile computing are as strong as ever. In fact, telecommuting and decentralized workforces are options many companies are looking at increasingly as they reevaluate their physical security vulnerabilities and develop risk management plans. Meanwhile, executives and business development staff are still traveling to meet with customers, prospects and partners. Field service teams are still out keeping equipment up and running. Transportation and shipping companies keep moving containers and packages. Utility companies are still rolling trucks to install and maintain their networks. The booming home healthcare industry is keeping increasing numbers of doctors and nurses on the move. The list goes on and on. Find out more on my next blog.

JOIN THE 2004 SYMBIAN EXPOSIUM

The Symbian Exposium is an annual smartphone show brought to you by Symbian and the global mobile industry. This year's event focuses on the expanding business opportunities in the Symbian ecosystem and covers every aspect of the smartphone market, from building mobile phones to developing and deploying applications to mobile phone users. The Symbian Exposium also offers comprehensive developer training for Symbian OS and associated technologies.Mobile solutions can you also find on APPCRAFT.ORG inclusive free project registration.

Mobile e-business at work

While particular applications vary within companies andacross industries, many businesses face similar problems—challenges that are now being regularly solvedwith the help of wireless technology. As you read throughthese scenarios, consider how similar solutions mightapply to your business.Serve a marketThe dramatic growth of wireless technologies has givenrise to a new type of business. These enterprises arespringing up to serve the unique needs of today’sincreasingly mobile workforce—including business travelersand medical communities—and are busy establishingthe appropriate infrastructures from which their usergroups can gain wireless access any time, anywhere. Forinstance, business travelers who sign up with a specialservice provider could reach the Internet—and in somecases, their company’s internal networks—from airportsand major hotel chains. Another provider might cater toa network of doctors, offering them fast and easy accessto files and information needed while away from the officeor at area hospitals.By positioning themselves as the portal to a specificmarket’s wireless world, these businesses lock in a steadyrevenue stream and gain a foundation for an entire portfolioof offerings.Let`s take a look to to APPCRAFT.ORG

The primary problem with most software today is that it is focused on one master organizing principle, and if you want to approach the information with a different focus, it is very difficult. For example, a calendar program organizes all the data based on dates. A contact management program (such as ACT!) is based on people. While you can use work-arounds (such as entering your Project as a Person), none of the software that I quote ve seen brings all the different information together by projects. (I'm not including "Project Management" type software that provides things like Gantt charts and critical path analysis, since that isn't really applicable to day to day planning of the sort most of us have to do.) And none really gives you the flexibility to view the information in different ways; sometimes based on the projects or matters, sometimes organized by people, and sometimes by dates.The new website APPCRAFT.ORG is designed for poeple who are need customized application. APPCRAFT.ORG

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