RifcoMobile

Mobile Strategy

The price of a unit of long-distance communication is in a continuous decline. With cell coverage now nearly ubiquitous and now that so many plans have long distance, traditional landline long-distance is steadily declining. That very decline, in terms of cost per unit, holds true for telephone lines, your ‘Net connection, and data circuits. However, the total cost of a mobile phone and usage is consistently on the rise.

Strategic Mobile Road Map

For a business to synch its business and communications goals, a plan which includes a strategy and outlined actions is a necessity. To transform your mobile platform over from a cost center to a business enabler requires the implementation of a comprehensive road map. The strategy and road map describe how mobile services can add to the grand scheme of information and communications technology used by the business. This strategy can also match the business’ goals with a particular technology. In addition to being a part of the overall strategy, the roadmap needs a base in the organization’s requirements, devices in use, contract limitations, process, and system hardware and software.

Getting it Implemented

The preferred way to outline and enable a mobile strategy and roadmap is to understand the user and make a profile. The profile should not be considered the same thing as the person’s job title. Instead, it should be representative of the role and responsibility which the person fulfills. The user profile ideally describes both current and future situations. A user’s profile should have the role and responsibility of the individual and the department, overall mobile needs, description of the type of device, device use by role & responsibility, an indicator of phone voice and data use, and info on any current contracts held with the service provider including service agreements. Once both of the profiles have been opened, it’s time to run a gap analysis - results of this analysis can indicate steps to take in the future. As an example, by changing the data plan for an employee with unlimited data transfers who only uses 15% of this capacity could equal savings. Once applying these types of changes across an entire organization, the results become significant.

Manage Mobility

Outsource, insource, or some of each? Now that you’ve implemented your plan, it needs to be maintained. Process control and policy which has been activated now needs to be monitored and updated regularly. Some organizations simply don’t have the employees to tackle this task. Typically, mobile telephony is time-intensive and strains other highly-utilized staff, particularly IT. If this is the situation, the business can outsource these functions to another party instead. This contractor works as a liaison between you and the multiple cell phone service providers. However, some larger businesses are wise to use their own mobile services expense-management tool. This can be done with internal resources and tied in specifically to the policy and procedure described in the road map. This is the preferred method for an enterprise with over five thousand mobile devices.

Mobility Today

With plenty of options around mobile services, it’s difficult to determine just the right mobility strategy for your company. Smaller, medium and larger organizations must all keep a sharp eye out for the expense and work hours needed to develop and maintain mobility. Next it’s time to formulate the strategy and road map which will lead to successful long-term management. Failure to do so may let mobile service cost to continually grow without significantly assisting with your company’s long-term business objectives.

Nick Pegley is a marketing expert with All Covered: Technology Services Partner for Small Business, providing information technology consulting and IT services in 20 major U.S. metro areas. Outsource your procurement, installation and technical headaches.

E-TEN Information Systems today announced that its M600 Pocket PC Phone Edition now has the latest version of Skype 2.0 pre-installed on the device. E-TEN also confirmed that the company is scheduled to release an OS upgrade for the device soon and that Skype 2.0 will be one of the new features included in this package.

Skype certified E-TEN M600 Pocket PC Phone EditionWith its built-in support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Quad-band GSM and GPRS, the M600 Pocket PC Phone delivers a complete communications package in one compact device. And with Skype 2.0 for the Pocket PC, these capabilities extend even further allowing users to share the same Skype account with their PCs and M600 and to enjoy free/low rate internet calls.

A big number of Pocket PC devices currently available are unable to meet the hardware requirements for Skype certification – Windows Mobile 5.0, 312MHz processor and high-speed wireless internet connection. E-TEN’s M600 is not just one of the few products that is certified, but its small size, innovative internal antenna design and fast 400MHz processor give it the edge over products from other well known manufacturers.

For more Smartphone and Pocket PC News or Applications for windows mobile devices visit us at mobiletopsoft.com

Mobile email - Whats the fuss? Wireless e-mail has seen
phenomenal growth in the past two years, thanks to the proliferation of
Research in Motion’s (RIM’s) BlackBerry devices, initially in North
America and now in Europeand Asia/Pacific. Drivers for adoption by
organizations are the critical role of e-mail in supporting of immediate
access business process workflow, the mobility of employees who
increasingly spend time far from their office and PC,and the expectation
to corporate information.For better or worse, customers evaluating
wireless technologies are faced with a range of issues that are not
specific to individual solutions, technologies, tools or languages. Here’s
a list of questions that you may want to discuss in order to be able to
develop the best solution for you particular needs:Investment
Protection:There are by no means standardized solutions out there, issues
include the different types of standards, what kind of vendor to go with
when it comes time to mobilize apps, the number of devices to support, and
so forth. The Mobility business is not in a mature stage, a lot of vendors
have great solutions, yet less likely to survive â?” so who to go with
?Intel facilitates this by joining standards consortiums, submitting
non-proprietary proposals, helping customers to make long-term decisions
with the bigger picture in mind.Simplicity/Usability:Security/PrivacyBased
on concerns of safety, privacy, regulatory or accessibility legislation,
standards are also drafted into law. That said, there are only so many
standards that can be supported.TCOVarious cost related decisions drive
ROI of the selected solutions:Handset support is another important
consideration. Most customers evaluating wireless solutions state that
they will support only a small number of handsets (between 1 and 10).
Overall, most customers are only looking to support between 1 and 5
versions of any particular handset.â?¦ more:Any solution must allow the
ability to roam from docked to wireless and between wireless topologies
easily.The convergence of wireless voice and data is a requirement for
long term user and infrastructure productivity.Capabilities in wireless
will use a combined layer 2-4 security model to allow for secure access
and roaming.Roaming within campus networks should allow users to maintain
IP context.The IP address will become the userâ?Ts network context and
should be able to be transported from enterprise, to home, to the road,
and to hot spots.Standards-based solutions will be considered above
proprietary solutions .Ease of use and transparency are paramount in
developing solutions.Security controls to protect Intel intellectual
property must be able to function both in connected and disconnected mode,
supporting mobile application standards.Solutions must be inclusive of
secure access for non-Intel managed productivity enablers . “In the
mobility business the market segment share is won at the time of
technological transitions. Between technological transition it is very,
very difficult and very expensive to move market segment share by even a
point or two. At times of transitions, the early movers tend to drive the
technology transition and reposition themselves.” — Los Angeles Times 3rd
Annual Investment Strategies ConferenceAndrew S. Grove, Los Angeles,
Calif., USA, May 22,
1999http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/speeches/cn052499.htm”
Companies that wait too long to implement a mobile solution risk losing
customers, being less efficient and effective than their competition, and
limiting the flexibility they need to compete in the new market realities.
Companies must implement a mobile strategy now.” By starting now with the
transformation of email into a service level based wireless framework,
customers actually define the foundation for a company-wide Enterprise
architecture that is cheaper to implement, easier to manage and maintain
and faster to change/innovate.The push email client solution allows the
implementation of the most important design principles of a service
oriented enterprise in a small-scale environment, but it mandates the same
ingredients.Achieving the SOE reality requires new levels of innovation to
orchestrate:â?¢Software and data as servicesâ?¢Hardware as virtualized
resourcesâ?¢Autonomic data sourcesâ?¢Occasionally Connected Usageâ?¢And
Services that cross firewallsBy 2008, over four-fifths of mobile knowledge
workers will have access to wireless e-mail (0.6probability). (Gartner)By
2012, three-quarters of all knowledge workers will be evaluated in part on
how fast theyrespond to e-mails (0.6 probability). (Gartner)Productivity -
53 minutes per day regained through mobile email (RIM/IPSOS research)For
most organizations, e-mail has both put an end to the days of predictable
workflow andbecome a mission-critical application. The speed at which
staff respond to e-mails has a directimpact on an organizations’ success,
now that on average, a tenth of the messages that arrive each day need
immediate action.Wireless access to e-mail, which is appearing in most
parts of the world, should help them cope.The chief audience for this
technology are those workers who are spending more and more time far from
their main places of work. Adoption of wireless e-mail is growing fast,
aided by the appeal of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry handsets.Workers
with wireless access to e-mail can reduce their e-mail backlog by 80
percent or more, as they have more time to delete spam and prioritize
messages that need prompt attention. More importantly they can cut their
response times in half.Implications Wider availability of wireless e-mail
will raise expectations for “real time” responses.A person’s speed of
response to e-mail is easily measured, many firms will include it among
staff evaluation criteria and whether it’s appropriate or not.This will
force workers to greatly reduce, or even eliminate, their use of automated
“out of office” replies, and to respond promptly even outside normal
working hours and during holidays.Vacations will turn from periods where
they don’t work into periods where they simply do less work than
usual.Consequently, the adverse effects of overwork will multiply:
illnesses, divorces and other kinds of disruption to family life will
sadly become all too common There will be more legal battles too, when
workers will claim to have suffered from their employer’s policy toward
e-mail and especially as it’s likely that many firms will break laws
passed to protect workers.Assuming spam is brought gradually under control
and that filters shield people from unwanted communications, vital
messages are likely to account for 40 percent of a knowledge worker’s
daily e-mail burden by 2007.That’s a welcome rise in one respect. But
missing a vital message will be more likely to harm your career. The
deployment of wireless technologies is further evidenced by the growing
proportion of the workforce that is expected to become mobile during the
next five years. Gartner Dataquest’s definition of a mobile worker covers
employees working away from their desks for more than eight hours per week
on average.Interestingly, the trend in Australia and South Korea is not
that of a mass exodus of staff out of the office during the next five
years, but more of a steady increase in workforce mobility.Just over one
quarter of the Australian workforce will be mobile in five years’ time (up
from 18 percent today) compared with South Korea, where one-third of staff
will be mobile in 2008, up from 15 percent today. We suspect the
differences between the two markets are attributable to a variety of
factors including geographical and cultural issues, network coverage and
workplace considerationssuch as management practices and staff oversight.I
hope the above helps - a number options and vendor platforms are
available. Please contact me to explain anything you are unsure on by
posting in the blog !!Thanks.

Steve Rastall - MD igroup. Steve has many years mobile
experience, visit www.igroupltd.co.uk for more information.

What is Wireless Broadband?

Wireless broadband is the most new improved broadband service available. This service is a way to receive broadband without the need for wires, instead a broadband wireless signal is sent around a local area using a device called a wireless broadband router, which enables other computers within the area to connect to the broadband internet connection.

What Can I Do With Wireless Broadband?

Well, this improved innovation makes it possible for you to set up a wireless broadband connection at home/work which lets you use the internet on your laptop or another desktop computer, without the need to connect them to your main computer using wires. You could take your laptop in other rooms of your house or office, for that extra bit of peace and quiet or privacy. Once you get this facility, you won’t want to change back, it’s useful and convenient.

The other great use for wireless broadband is where you can access the internet at public places such as cafes, restaurants, airports, train stations etc. The way this works is that a business such as a cafe for example broadcasts a broadband signal in its local area, which you can log onto using your. This method of connecting to broadband in public places is known as Wifi. The places with these facilities are known as Wifi hotspots.

How Do I Get Wireless Broadband Access?

To set up wireless broadband in your home, you will need to have a broadband connection already set up, you will need to buy a wireless broadband router which is the device which sends the wireless broadband signal around your home and you will need to buy a wireless network LAN card for your laptop or second computer which receives your broadband signal. Once you have the network set up, you will also have the added advantage that as your computers are networked together, you will be able to send and receive files from one computer to the other, read files off any of the computer hard drives from any computer in the network and print documents directly from any computer in the network. You will have to leave your main computer on for all of this to be possible though. However you don’t need to leave your main computer on to use your broadband wirelessly around your home as the wireless broadband router will still send the broadband signal around your house even when your main computer is switched off.

If you only want to use your laptop in Wifi hotspots when you are out and about then you will only need to buy a wireless LAN card as a broadband router is not required in this case (you will only need a broadband router if you were to use your laptop or computer wirelessly at home). The other thing you will need is an account with a Wifi service provider to give you Wifi access.

Wireless broadband routers and wireless LAN cards can be bought in most offline computer stores or you can buy them online too.
Make the most of your broadband provider and choose the right provider for you.

Several broadband service providers have several packages available and now include Wifi products, such as wireless kits, wireless minutes, LAN cards etc.

Browse broadband packages available to you by visiting moneysupermarket.com.

Choose the right Broadband Provider for you.

Skype Now Available For Cell Phones
Call Skype users to their PCs. Make cost-effective calls to any destination.
Call with your Cell Phone from any place by using Skype VoIP-Telephony.

Access Skype via your browser on your Cell Phone with M+ for Skype, an optimized mobile IM client.

IM+ for Skype is a fully mobile application and enables voice and text communication with other Skype users and provide cost-effective calling to mobiles and landlines.
To use IM+ for Skype you don’t need WiFi. The application works in any network. It takes just 2 minutes to get up and running.. To send messages is as simple as typing SMS messages.

IM+ for Skype runs on these devices

• Palm OS
• Java devices
• Windows Mobile Pocket PC
• iPhone
• BlackBerry handhelds
• Symbian S60 v3 mobile phones

IM+ for Skype is a service and permits you to call for low rates. See which of your friends are online and chat with them.

Use IM+ for Skype at

• ANY wireless network
• ANY destination

IM+ for Skype is from SHAPE Services, a Germany-based company, well-known for making mobile IM clients. They charge a small fee for the application, and no recurring monthly subscription fee. By purchasing IM+ users are entitled to all your software updates and upgrades.

Voice over IP is an Internet technology and perfected over time. It is basically a technology that allows you to make telephone calls through the Internet instead of directly through wires, which is the way that telephone calls have been made for decades, in fact since inception of the telephone.

VoIP makes business travel easy
The type of technology that Voice over IP brings suddenly makes life much comfortable not only for business people. Install IM+ for Skype onto your Palm OS Device and receive all your cellular phone calls and messages directly through your mobile device.

Join the Voice over IP and Cellular Phone Blog to be always informed.

Jim Price writes articles for

Credit-Card-FAQ.com

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