Tuesday, August 20, 2013
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Microsoft’s Bing team is doing its part to help converge the software giant’s operating systems, launching a suite of Bing apps for Windows Phone 8.
Bing News
The new apps include Bing News, Sports, Weather and Finance—they’re similar to the ones that are already available on Windows 8. For now, Bing’s Health & Fitness and Food & Drink apps—both of which debut in the forthcoming Windows 8.1 update—haven’t made the leap to Windows Phone 8.
Bing News lets you read stories from partnering publications such as Associated Press, The Guardian, and Reuters. You can create a list of favorite sources, browse by category and watch videos. One thing that appears to be missing from the Windows Phone 8 version is the ability to add your own RSS feeds—a feature that arrived in the Windows 8 version of Bing News in April.
Bing Sports
Bing Sports shows headlines, scoreboards, schedules, and standings for all major sports. You can also designate your favorite teams and leagues for quicker access through the app.
With Bing Finance, you can keep an eye on stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities, in addition to getting the latest financial news. The app also includes a currency converter. While the Windows 8 version now includes a mortgage calculator, retirement planner, and return on investment calculator, those tools haven’t made it to the Windows Phone 8 version.
Bing Finance
Finally, there’s Bing Weather, which shows hourly and daily forecasts from the locations of your choosing, along with historical data. Weather maps offer satellite imagery and provide information on temperature, precipitation and cloud cover.
All four apps take advantage of Live Tile shortcuts in Windows Phone 8. With News, you can pin your favorite sources or topics to the Start screen. Sports lets you pin your favorite team, Weather lets you pin a location, and Finance allows you to pin favorite stocks.
Bing Weather
As Microsoft tries to turn itself into a devices-and-services company, one of its major goals is to provide more consistency from one Windows device to the next. Seeing as Bing’s apps are included on Windows 8 devices, it makes sense for those same apps to be available on Windows Phones.
It’d be great to see even more cross-device features—for instance, having your news preferences and favorite sports teams show up on your Windows tablet after adding them on a Windows Phone—but this is a good start as Microsoft tries to bring its platforms together.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013 0
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Microsoft Wednesday added Android to the list of mobile operating systems now supported by Office Mobile. But Office Mobile for Android only covers phones, not tablets, limiting its utility.
The Android version, Office Mobile for Android, is also arguably the weakest of the bunch, in terms of compatibility with Microsoft Office. Microsoft is still tacitly encouraging users to buy Windows Phones, which come preloaded and activated with Windows Mobile and don’t require an Office 365 subscription to use. The problem is, within the Android world, there are a number of other office solutions that provide very good direct competition to Microsoft’s offering.
MicrosoftHolding your phone vertically allows you to edit your PowerPoint slides. Nevertheless, Office Mobile for Android is free and downloadable from the Google Play Store. The only requirement is that your phone must contain Android 4.0 or higher, and you must already have purchased Office 365.
In a break with Office Mobile for iPhone, Microsoft doesn’t even offer the option to purchase Office 365 from within the app; instead, users must sign up outside the application itself. And without Office 365, Office Mobile for Android is virtually useless.
“The release of this app shows that we’re committed to keep providing additional value for Office 365 subscribers,” said Guy Gilbert, a senior product manager of the Office apps for Microsoft, in a blog post.
Qualifying Office 365 plans include Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E4, Office 365 Education A3 and A4, Office 365 ProPlus, and Office 365 University.
There are also Office 365 government plans that include Office Mobile. Users can also visit Office.com and sign up for a free 30-day trial, Microsoft said.
While Microsoft eventually intends to make Office Mobile for Android available across 33 languages and in 117 markets, it’s only currently available for the United States. That will change over the next few weeks, Microsoft said.
Like Office Mobile for iPhone, the Android version comes with mobile versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Word; Office Mobile for Windows Phone adds OneNote as well. So far, Android users don’t have access to the Outlook Web App app that Microsoft recently released for the iPhone, either.
MicrosoftOffice for Android users can create documents in Word or Excel. Users can create new documents, edit those that they’ve already created, and save, load, or edit files saved to Microsoft’s SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro—which on Tuesday received a few upgrades, as well.
But the ability to create files only applies to Word and Excel; for now, you can review your PowerPoint slides and edit them, but not create a presentation from scratch.
Users can also open a document via email. Office Mobile includes a couple of handy features designed for the phone;
The software knows what documents you’ve recently accessed on your PC, and those are the first options presented when you choose to open a saved file.
A feature that Microsoft calls Rapid Resume also works like Amazon’s Kindle, ‘fast-forwarding” you to the portion of the document last viewed on your PC.
An “outline view” in Excel and Word allow you to quickly navigate through the document, and both apps allow annotations as well.
Within the three supported apps, Microsoft has made efforts to make editing a snap; in Word (shown at top of story), for example, tapping the pencil brings up the most common editing functions. Excel allows you to filter and sort data and create charts, using the local processor to calculate data.
Within PowerPoint, users can review slides and edit speaker notes, move and hide slides, and make text edits directly from the phone. Holding the phone in a portrait orientation allows edits to be made and includes a quick navigation bar; a landscape orientation serves as presentation mode.
MicrosoftOffice Mobile for Android, displaying an Excel worksheet. In general, Office Mobile for Android and Office Mobile for iPhone should function quite similarly, with two exceptions: Android users can not sign up for Office 365 within the app itself, and Android users may need to fully qualify documents that are accessed via an on-premise SharePoint server.
To date, however, Microsoft has been keenly cognizant that productivity apps are the foundation of the Windows platform, and users who purchase a Windows Phone will have these benefits:
Office Mobile will be preinstalled and activated;users will be able to save documents to the phone itself, as well as SkyDrive or email;WP users will be able to filter and search for documents;Users can also easily open documents with permissions attached to them.Office 365 includes a license of up to five mobile devices—but Windows Phones don’t count against that limit.
The biggest annoyance, however, is that—like the iPad—tablets aren’t supported in either Office Mobile for the iPhone or the Android version, either. Those trying to hunt and peck at keys in the back of a jouncing taxi are likely to grit their teeth and muddle through; by doing so, however, Microsoft is tacitly encouraging customers in the direction of a Surface tablet—now at a new low, low, price—or even a full-fledged Windows 8 PC. (“Phablets” like the Samsung Galaxy Note II should still be supported, however.)
“If you have an iPad or Android tablet, we recommend using the Office Web Apps, which provide the best Office experience on a tablet,” a spokeswoman for Microsoft said via email. “We have made lots of enhancements to Office Web Apps including a touch experience for tablet users.”
QuickOffice Pro provides one tablet-friendly alternative to Office Mobile for Android. Microsoft also has native apps for OneNote, Lync, and SharePoint, in addition to supporting Exchange Active Sync for email, calendar and contacts, she said.
”I’m not sure how many people are going to want to do a lot of Office work on a phone,” Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner, said recently. “A tablet’s going to be a lot more important.”
Of course, there’s no reason that users have to live in the world that Microsoft has created. Plenty of Android office apps allow document creation or editing, both on a phone or tablet: Google Drive, of course, allows for Google’s own documents to be created; and Google’s own QuickOffice, Documents to Go, and OfficeSuite Pro 7 are all arguably as good or better choices than Microsoft’s offerings.
In one way, editing or creating an Office document on a mobile phone is counter-intuitive; too many people still append some sort of signature file on a mobile phone to explain away any typos or shorthand.
Within a business document, however, typos simply shouldn’t appear. Office Mobile can certainly stand in to enable last-minute changes while on the go, but they shouldn’t be considered as serious tools for document creation. And that’s exactly how Microsoft appears to want it.
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Hoping to generate more apps for its mobile platform, Microsoft has launched an online tool that could allow even non-developers to create new programs for Windows Phone 8.
The tool, called Windows Phone App Studio, is free to use and in beta now. Microsoft designed it to be as easy to use as possible, even allowing people to create mobile apps without writing any code.
MicrosoftWindows Phone App Studio
“We’ve heard from many potential Windows Phone developers who have great ideas, but who might not have the coding skills to create an app using standard development tools,” wrote Todd Brix, Microsoft general manager for Windows Phone Apps and Store, in a blog post announcing the new tool.
The App Studio runs in a Web browser and is optimized for Internet Explorer 10. It has a number of templates that can serve as launching points for creating apps. Users provide addresses to data sources, such as image galleries and Twitter feeds. They can create new sections and then order those sections by dragging and dropping them across the visual interface. They can also customize the app with a color palette and uploaded images.
Windows Phone App Studio provides pre-built functionality for many common app tasks, such as saving data and sharing it with other parties. The software provides a depiction of the app on the right side of the browser as the app is being built.
The Studio can generate the app so it can run directly on a phone, or provide the source code so it can be further developed in Visual Studio or some other advanced IDE (integrated development environment).
To further aid in app creation, Microsoft now allows developers to unlock and register one phone in order to load two apps, so they can sideload and test their apps.
Developers need a Windows Phone Dev Center account to publish their apps in the Windows Phone Store. It will also let them test up to 10 apps across three different phones. Through Aug. 26, Dev Center accounts are priced at US$19 for a yearly subscription.
Microsoft is no doubt trying to make it easier for developers to create new apps in order to make Windows Phone devices more appealing to potential users.
Microsoft hosts more than 145,000 apps in its Windows Phone app store, while Android has more than 819,000 apps and Apple has counted more than 900,000 apps for its iPhone and the iPad.
Sales of phones running the Microsoft Windows Phone OS seem to be picking up, though they still trail Android and Apple iPhones by a wide margin. In the second quarter of 2013, 182.6 million Android phones and 31.2 million iPhones were shipped, compared to only 8.9 million Windows phones. That was up from 5.6 million Windows phones in the same period last year, according to data from Strategy Analytics.
Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.
More by Joab Jackson
Monday, August 19, 2013
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
We interrupt your regularly scheduled Hassle-Free PC post to bring you the Hassle-Free Phone edition.
Trying to decide between, say, an HTC One and a Samsung Galaxy S4. Sure, you can read PC World's awesome reviews, maybe talk to friends and hit some stores for hands-on demos. But ultimately your best bet is to compare them directly, to see their specs, strengths, and weaknesses side by side.
That's what you get at PhoneRocket, a nifty site that compares any two smartphones in exhaustive detail.
Let's use the two aforementioned models as an example. All you do is type the names of the two phones you want to compare. PhoneRocket then gives you a quick summary of each one followed by a "winner" based on various ratings and criteria.
When you scroll down you'll see review data for things like performance, graphics, battery life, and a review average culled from various sites.
Below that you'll find detailed benchmarks, followed by bullet-point advantages of each model over the other, links to reviews, and a full roster of specs.
The site also has a Sort option that lets you browse smartphones based on things like talk time, operating system, and screen type, and a Search tool if you simply want to look up details on an individual model.
PhoneRocket's database seems pretty comprehensive; I used it to look up an old LG Optimus S and found oodles of data.
Bottom line: If you're trying to decide between two smartphone models, there are few better decision-making resources than PhoneRocket.
Contributing Editor Rick Broida writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at hasslefree@pcworld.com, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PCWorld Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mailed to you each week.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow.
More by Rick Broida
Monday, August 19, 2013 0
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Password-protecting your smartphone makes sense, as it prevents unauthorized users from accessing your data.
But it can also work against you. Suppose, for example, your phone gets lost. If a Good Samaritan finds it and wants to return it, he or she won't be able to do the necessary detective work. (And it's not like you'd want them poking around your data anyway.)
Fortunately, Android 4.0 offers a solution in the form of lock-screen contact information, which will display the message of your choosing even on a passcode-protected device. Here's how to set this up:
1. On your Android phone, head to Settings, then look for an entry called Lock Screen. (I found this under the Personal section on my Samsung Galaxy S3; on your phone it might be under Security or somewhere similar.)
2. Tap Lock Screen, Owner Information.
3. In the field provided, enter whatever message you think might help someone return the phone to you--your e-mail address or office phone number, for example. You could even set up a Google Voice number solely as an "emergency recovery" number, just in case you don't want your personal number readily visible on your lock screen.
4. Make sure Show owner info on lock screen is checked, then tap OK.
And that's all there is to it. Now, if someone finds your phone, they still won't be able to bypass your security, but they will have the info they need to get in touch with you.
Now there's just the simple matter of what kind of reward befits the return of a lost phone. My feeling: $20. Your thoughts?
While you're mulling that over, be sure to outfit your phone with some kind of tracking app so you're not relying solely on the kindness of strangers. You can't go wrong with Where's My Droid, but it's just one option of many.
Want to learn more? Check out TechHive's recent roundup of Android security apps.
Contributing Editor Rick Broida writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at hasslefree@pcworld.com, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PCWorld Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mailed to you each week.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow.
More by Rick Broida
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Blackberry’s board of directors has formed a committee to explore strategic alternatives for the future of the company that could include joint ventures or a sale of the company, as it struggles to turn its new BlackBerry 10 operating system into a success.
The news comes after the company announced that it had shipped 6.8 million smartphones and recorded a $84 million loss during the three months to June 1. Only 2.7 million phones running the new OS were sold, a figure that disappointed analysts.
The soft sales led analysts to question the future of BlackBerry 10 and the company during a conference call on the results. At the time, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins offered various themes on the same reply as a defense: “BlackBerry 10 is still in the early stages on its transition. In fact, we are only five months in to what is the launch of an entirely new mobile computing platform,” he said.
IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo paints a darker picture of BlackBerry's current situation.
"It is very clear that BlackBerry 10 isn't a success after all, and won't save the company. At least BlackBerry has recognized that before the company is completely out of cash, which gives it some time to explore its options. And I believe the only option it has is to sell the company, because I don't think there is anyone willing to license BlackBerry 10," Jeronimo said.
BlackBerry's worldwide smartphone market share was 2.9 percent during the second quarter, compared to 4.9 percent during the same period in 2012, according to IDC.
While smartphone sales are dropping, BlackBerry still has a number of assets to whet the appetite of potential buyers or partners. The company has one of the biggest patent portfolios of any mobile phone manufacturer, according to Jeronimo. Its messaging platform could also be of interest to companies that want to increase their presence in the enterprise sector, he said. Recently, BlackBerry has taken several steps to make its software work better with Apple's iOS and Android, including making BlackBerry Messenger compatible with smartphones based on the two operating systems.
"Companies like Microsoft, Samsung Electronics, Amazon and Facebook could take advantage of that," Jeronimo said.
BlackBerry has made no secret of the fact it has been exploring its options for months, according to Ben Wood, director of research at analyst firm CCS Insight.
"We have to assume that all options are open now. But there is no question there is a huge commitment from the management team to keep the company going rather than breaking it up into little pieces," Wood said.
The so-called Special Committee of the Board is comprised of Heins, Barbara Stymiest, Richard Lynch, and Bert Nordberg, and will be chaired by Timothy Dattels. All the committee members are board members. The company provided no time schedule for when the committee’s work would produce a result.
Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry CEO “We continue to see compelling long-term opportunities for BlackBerry 10, we have exceptional technology that customers are embracing, we have a strong balance sheet and we are pleased with the progress that has been made in our transition,” said Heins in a statement Monday.
“As the Special Committee focuses on exploring alternatives, we will be continuing with our strategy of reducing cost, driving efficiency and accelerating the deployment of BES 10, as well as driving adoption of BlackBerry 10 smartphones, launching the multi-platform BBM social messaging service, and pursuing mobile computing opportunities by leveraging the secure and reliable BlackBerry Global Data Network.”
Updated 8/12/13 with analyst reactions
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Tethering: It's one of the most convenient features your smartphone has, yet carriers insist on restricting it.
Tethering most often refers to using your smartphone as a mobile hotspot. In other words, it lets you connect to the Internet on your laptop, tablet, or Wi-Fi enabled device, using your phone's data connection. Tethering is very useful if you happen to be in an area that has no free Wi-Fi and you need to do your computing on a device other than your phone.
[Related: How to tether your iPhone]
Carriers don't really want you to use this oh-so-convenient option, because users who tether are more likely to use a lot of data. After all, it's much easier to use data when you're browsing on a laptop or a tablet, than when you're limited to your smartphone's tiny screen. You might argue that, since most mobile plans feature limited data anyway, it shouldn't matter how you happen to use that data. But some carriers disagree, and will typically charge an extra $20 to $50 per month for tethering plans.
Verizon
You may or may not have heard the news: Verizon recently announced that, thanks to an FCC investigation, it will stop blocking its Android users from downloading and using third-party tethering apps. This means that Verizon's Android users on usage-based plans can avoid the $20 tethering fee by using a third-party app instead of their phone's built-in tethering option (called Mobile Broadband Connect).
This doesn't mean that all tethering on Verizon is free, though?it's not. Here's the breakdown:
If you have a new Verizon "Share Everything" plan, you can use your phone's built-in mobile hotspot feature or a third-party tethering app free of charge? but you're limited to the data in your Share Everything data pool. Overage rates for shared data plans are $15 per gigabyte.If you have an old usage-based data plan, you can now use a third-party tethering app free of charge. You can also use your phone's mobile hotspot feature for an additional $20 per month (per device), which also gets you an additional 2GB of data.If you have an old unlimited plan, you are technically required to pay $20 per month for tethering? whether you're using a third-party app or your phone's mobile hotspot feature. However, Verizon has no way of knowing if you're using a third-party app to tether.AT&T
AT&T was not part of the FCC investigation that forced Verizon to allow third-party tethering apps on Android phones, so AT&T still charges for all tethering. Unlike Verizon, AT&T never blocked third-party tethering apps from its phones?rather, it monitors its users' data habits, and sends them text messages and emails telling them that if they do not stop tethering for free they will be automatically signed up for an AT&T tethering plan.
Here's how much it costs to tether on AT&T:
If you have a new AT&T Mobile Share plan, you can use your phone's built-in tethering app, as well as a third-party tethering app, for free?but it will sap data from your shared data pool. Overage rates for shared data plans are $15 for each gigabyte of data you go over.If you have an older, usage-based data plan, you can use your phone's built-in tethering app, as well as third-party tethering apps, for an additional $20 a month per line, which will also give you an extra 2GB of data.If you have a grandfathered-in unlimited data plan, tethering is not an option?you'll have to upgrade to a (limited) tethered plan, or AT&T will upgrade you automatically if it suspects you're tethering.
Sprint
Sprint is the only carrier that still has unlimited phone data plans. However, Sprint does not allow you to tether on your unlimited data plan. Instead, you're required to purchase a tethering option, which gives you a couple of gigabytes for tethering (though your phone will still have unlimited data).
Here are your options (or lack thereof) on Sprint:
If you have an unlimited data plan (and you do, because Sprint requires all smartphones to be on an unlimited data plan), tethering will cost you $19.99 a month for 2GB of data and $49.99 a month for 6GB of data. This means you'll be able to use 2GB or 6GB of tethering data, but you'll still have unlimited data as long as you're just using your phone.If you have a usage-based data plan on your Sprint tablet, you can purchase the same options (2GB for $19.99 per month or 6GB for $49.99 per month) for tethering. In this case, tethering data is also separate?it does not come out of your bucket of usage-based data.If you go over your 2GB or 6GB limit, you'll be charged an additional $0.05 per MB?which equals a whopping $51.20 per additional GB.Some people may have the old tethering option of 5GB for $29.99 per month, and they will be allowed to keep this until they change plansT-Mobile
T-Mobile will be introducing a new unlimited data plan in September. However, this unlimited plan will not support tethering. Instead, customers who want to tether their phones will have to use one of T-Mobile's existing value or classic plans.
Here's the breakdown of T-Mobile's tethering costs:
If you have a usage-based 2GB data plan, you can add tethering to your plan for $14.99 a month. This gets you an additional 2GB of data.If you have a usage-based 5GB or 10GB plan, tethering is available at no additional cost. Tethering takes data from your existing data pool of 5GB or 10GB.If you have an unlimited data plan, you're not allowed to tether. T-Mobile does not allow the use of third-party tethering apps on its network.There are two ways to tether on your Android phone?you can use your phone's built-in hotspot feature, which may or may not incur charges from your carrier. Or you can use a third-party tethering app.
While most carriers (AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) do not technically allow the use of third-party tethering apps, many third-party tethering apps are still available and will work on phones on those networks. Whether you use a third-party app for tethering is at your discretion, since networks will often charge you if they discover you're using tethering data and not paying for it.
Remember, if you do choose to use a third-party app for tethering, it's a good idea to be conservative about how much data you use. If you only tether your laptop to your phone's data connection to check email on the fly, your carrier probably won't notice. But if you're constantly streaming Netflix videos on your tablet using your phone's data connection, your carrier will probably get suspicious?especially if you have an unlimited data plan.
Numerous third-party tethering apps are available today, including apps for rooted and nonrooted phones. Here are a few of the better options:
Tethering apps for nonrooted phones
PdaNet: PdaNet is a free download on Google Play, but this only gets you a 14-day trial. After 14 days, the app will block access to secure websites (websites that require a login) unless you purchase the full edition for $15.95. PdaNet allows you to tether your phone's data connection to your laptop using a USB cable or Bluetooth dial-up networking, or to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot (though the Wi-Fi hotspot mode does not work on all phones).
EasyTether: EasyTether is a USB tethering app, which means it lets you share your phone's data connection with your laptop via a USB cable. It also lets you tether your game console (PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, or Xbox) using PC Internet Connection Sharing (you need to go through a computer first to tether your console). EasyTether has two versions: a free Lite version and a paid $9.99 version. The Lite version blocks secure websites, instant messengers, and game console tethering. The app supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. As of this article's writing, EasyTether was still blocked on Verizon devices.
Wifi Hotspot & USB Tether Pro: Wifi Hotspot & USB Tether is primarily for turning your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot (complete with password), but it also allows you to tether your phone's data connection to your computer via USB. This is yet another app with a free version (so you can see if it works on your phone) and a paid version that costs $14.99. The Lite version gives you a two-day, five-minutes-per-day trial.
Reverse tethering lets you tether your computer's Internet connection to your phone so that your phone connects to the Web using your laptop?s connection. This is a much less common scenario, since it's rare that you'll find yourself in a place where your computer has an Internet connection but your phone does not. If you do find yourself in this situation, however, you can use the Reverse Tether app to share your computer's Internet connection with your phone.
Reverse Tether is a $4.99 download in the Android Market, and requires a rooted Android device. To tether your computer's Internet connection to your phone, all you need to do is download the app, make sure your device's drivers are installed on your computer, and connect your computer to your phone using a USB cable.
Since Reverse Tether does not work with all Android devices, you can also download a trial version
for free to see if it works. The trial version lets you connect only during certain times, but it never expires.
Tethering doesn't apply only to your phone's (or computer's) data connection. The AirDroid app lets you wirelessly manage your phone from a browser window on your laptop. This can be useful if you're at your computer anyway, but you want to be able to do things like listen to music that's stored at your computer, write text messages, and organize your phone's contacts.
AirDroid is free on Google Play. To use the app, you need to download and install it on your phone, and then open up a browser window on your computer and navigate to http://web.airdroid.com. You can then scan a QR code on the website or enter a passcode from your device, and you're logged in.
From the AirDroid main screen, you can manage files, organize call logs, check and write text messages, look at photos, watch videos, play music, organize contacts, and install apps. Your device does not need to be rooted for AirDrive to run, but if it is rooted you'll have access to a couple more features, such as seeing your device's screen in real-time and taking screenshots.
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
The rapid-fire spread of mobile devices being used by enterprise employees can be a huge boon for businesses in productivity and customer service gains, but those advantages don't come without a price.
The inherent flexibility and freedom to get business done anywhere, anytime, also makes it much harder to maintain the security and control of corporate data when employees are accessing and storing business information on their smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. And the rush of new devices never seems to end, making it hard to stay out in front of innovations.
"Enterprises must plan now for the mobile devices of the future that they don't even know of yet," says Kevin Benedict, principal analyst at Netcentric Strategies LLC in Boise, Idaho. "So you build an infrastructure that says it doesn't care what devices are on the end of it and you have a framework that you just plug into."
Getting there isn't easy, however. One approach that can make implementing a mobile workforce easier--or at least consistent--is through mobile device management (MDM) strategies that can help enterprises address all related mobile issues in a top-to-bottom approach.
Among the challenges that an MDM strategy can help with: Which mobile devices to support, whether to allow employees to choose and bring their own devices into work, and how to handle security for mobile devices, including whether to have remote data wiping capabilities for lost or stolen devices.
One of the first decisions to make with an MDM strategy is to figure out which devices your employees will use and whether the individual or the company will pay for them.
At New York-based Edelman, the global PR firm, most of the 3,800 employees use RIM BlackBerries, unless they have a compelling work-related reason to use something else, says John Iatonna, the vice president of information security. Those cases are decided individually by business managers -- workers can be allowed to use iPhones or iPads if needed for the work they do, but RIM devices are Edelman's enterprise standard mobile devices.
Two reasons Edelman prefers using corporate-owned BlackBerry devices: The firm can negotiate more competitive pricing through its relationship with its enterprise phone carrier and it can maintain tighter management and security compared to other devices. "It's much easier to get hold of and track your BlackBerries than it is [other types of] smartphones," Iatonna says. "We do have an Apple and Android population, but those devices weren't designed with an enterprise environment in mind."
"BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is a much more developed and mature enterprise MDM system than the other smartphone MDM vendors," Iatonna said. And even though RIM has been losing market share to other vendors, its products and enterprise-level security capabilities still offer the best answers for Edelman's needs, he said.
For its part, SAP AG, the Germany-based software vendor, began its mobile workforce project in 2010, says global CIO Oliver Bussmann. At the time it included some 14,000 SAP-purchased Apple iPhones and iPads, and personal iPhones or iPads for another 500 users, who had to sign consent forms agreeing to SAP's terms of use, which vary from country to country depending on business requirements. The first employees to be brought into the mobile strategy were workers in the development organization, followed by executives and the entire global sales force, he said.
The reason for that specific order of rollout, Bussman explains: "We made the development teams that were building the apps test them as part of the process." Then, "executives demanded solutions quickly after that and then drove direction to focus on sales and other field resources."
Starting this past January, SAP expanded the program to also include more than 500 SAP-purchased Samsung Android Galaxy SII smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets, with more to be deployed by employees who request them based on a compelling business reason.
"Our strategy is to be device agnostic," Bussmann said, "The IT organization has to be in the driver's seat. If the CIO doesn't embrace the mobile trend, then the business organization bypasses the IT organization and that's not a good thing. Then it's being done without control and security and that can have an impact potentially on the company."
Centreville, Va.-based Carfax uses a blended approach, with some workers using company-issued iPhones and iPads and others using their own Android devices, says CIO Phil Matthews. "We allow other employees to use a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) approach where it works better for them or where they want to keep their device on their personal mobile plan."
The company's 400 field workers use devices that are company-provided or paid for through reimbursements. "We actually wanted people to have a consistent experience, so we chose iPads and iPhones as our main devices, but some people wanted Android devices" and are allowed to use them, he says. Workers previously carried laptops and printers along with BlackBerry devices, but productivity rose with the iPads and iPhones, he explains. "Our sales reps can complete more activities with the iPads and iPhones and we can provide them with mobile applications that allow them to collaborate much more easily than in the past."
Next page: Managing the expense associated with mobile devices
Sunday, August 18, 2013
AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
App2Card is a service aimed mainly at mobile app developers. It invites them to reimagine their app icon as a physical object and use it to drive more traffic to their app online. In other words, apps have not killed business cards…they're helping to make them. App2Card charges $30 for 100 cards.
App2Card makes it very easy to pull in your app's information.Much work goes into designing an icon for a smartphone app, and done right, it becomes the app's "face," instantly recognizable to users and fans. App2Card lets you take all that work and leverage it into the physical world. To use it, simply enter an app's name, and App2Cards will search for it on iTunes and Google Play. Once you find your app in the list, click it. You will instantly see a preview of your app's App2Card: The front has a full-size image of your icon, while the back features a QR code that leads users directly to your iTunes or Google Play URL. That's it: You can now order physical cards to promote your app. Since anyone could potentially order cards for any app, vendor AptGeek Technologies takes the time to filter orders manually, keeping an eye out for suspicious-looking orders, such as an Angry Birds icon with a QR code leading somewhere else.
Although it's optimized for mobile app developers, App2Card can also be used to create custom business cards. You can upload an image for the card's front side, and specify a URL for the QR code and some text for the card's back. This works nicely if you have a compelling personal website on a service such as Flavors.me or About.me.
App2Card cards are made out of solid, shiny plastic similar to that used for magnetic membership cards.The cards are made of card stock, but are laminated with a thick layer of glossy plastic, making them seem like magnetic membership cards. They are slightly thinner than a credit card, and much smaller. They are pricier than the popular MOO MiniCards, too: 100 App2Cards cost $30, while 100 MOO MiniCards cost $20. Then again, the narrow, elongated MiniCards don't look like square plastic icons. App2Card cards are nothing if not distinctive.
App2Card focuses on a seemingly narrow niche, but it makes sense: Mobile app markets are exploding these days, and developers are looking for interesting ways to capture attention. A custom plastic credit card with your app's icon will certainly do that--as will one with your Twitter avatar and personal website URL.
Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this Web-based software to design and order cards.
--Erez Zukerman
Sunday, August 18, 2013 0
