Entries Tagged 'Mobile' ↓

The iPad isn't just a hot new consumer device, it's also an increasingly popular tool for business. Each week we take a look at the new or updated business apps for the iPad, and highlight trends in how tablets are being used in the enterprise.

It was a short business week in the U.S. and there were few new application releases this week. But there was one that caught or eye: Oracle Virtual Desktop for iPad. We also found some interesting articles on use cases for iPads in the workplace.

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Oracle Virtual Desktop Client for iPad

This week Oracle released an iPad client for its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment. It joins Citrix and VMware in offering tablet support for VDI.

We've made the case before that VDI will continue to play a role in the enterprise, even in the post-PC era because it will enable users to maintain a consistent desktop across multiple devices. However, another approach is possible: making important files accessible from the cloud, and syncing application states across devices (which is what WebOS aims to do). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

iPads for Field Technicians

TechWorld ran an article today about a lifecycle management application from Siemens. The app has been around for a couple months, but that isn't the interesting part. What's interesting is how the use case for tablets:

The advantage to carrying the lightweight iPad, which is connected to the Teamcenter data wirelessly, is that technicians can stay in place on the large machines being serviced, rather than having to climb down a ladder and find a workstation to call up the information, Taylor said.

"iPad support is now an enterprise requirement," writes RedMonk co-founder and analyst James Governor in a post about both the Oracle app and the TechWorld article. "From an architecture standpoint it makes little sense for enterprises to develop their own iPad apps - but when it comes to consuming them they're demanding native from vendors."

iPads for Point of Sale

Also, Information Week looks at another common use case for the iPad: point of sale systems for retailers:

Microsoft currently holds about 87% of the market for so-called Point of Sale, or Point of Service, operating software. But retailers' desire to arm employees with mobile gadgets through which they can provide and receive customer information while, say, on a showroom floor, has them eyeing tablets.

All the reason for Microsoft to get Windows 8 out the gate as soon as possible.

5 Free Collaborative Whiteboard Apps For the iPad

This week we took a look at free collaborative whiteboard apps, such as ZigZag Board (pictured above) and SyncSpace. Check them out and let us know which one you like best.

Short form, long form, there's a time and a place for reading all kinds of articles but wouldn't it be nice if you could have some very long things made very short, automatically, and still get the gist of them? Such is the promise of Trimit, a London-built iPhone app described as "an automatic text summarizer and editor for iOS."

This 99 cent app can take copied text or URLs (like links I've favorited on Twitter, for example) and apply an algorithm that shortens bodies of text thousands of characters long down to one thousand, five hundred or 140 characters automatically. How well does it work? It works well enough for me to appreciate it. Check out the demo video below.

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"The algorithm finds the sentences in the passage of text that are most integral to the passage's meanings," says Trimit's Nick D'Aloisio. "We're utilizing keywords that are specific to the text, the appearance of adjectives and modifiers, where sentences are in the passage, use of conjunctions or contradictions, superlatives and dates, proper nouns, facts and figures, place and time adverbials, the syntax of the sentence (e.g if has list format) etc."

The end result seems good to me most of the time. I got the gist of Danny Sullivan's long post about the new Google Analytics interface delivered to me in 25% the time it would have taken to read the whole article, thanks to this app. ReadWriteWeb's Klint Finley thought Trimit did a poor job summarizing one of his articles but I thought the summary was just fine. I've been going through my Twitter Favorites, grabbing URLs, popping them into Trimit and loving it.

It's not as good as some people could do at summarizing the text, but it's much better than most people (humans) could do. And most of the people who could do a better job than the algorithm Trimit has built aren't available to me at a moment's notice.

This kind of technology could of course be applied in lots of different places and there are no doubt many different companies building things like this. Making it relatively easy to use on my phone and selling it for 99 cents is very nice, though.

D'Aloisio says the company will release Mac and iPad apps in the next two weeks, a web interface and bookmarklet in a few months.

Imagine something like this being built into Instapaper and fed automatically: please store offline everything I favorite on Twitter, all the most retweeted articles among my friends or on some other site, then create 500 word summaries of the articles and let me choose which ones I want to drill down into the full text of.

That sounds great, but Trimit is pretty cool already just as it is.

Let's test this baby out. Trimit says the above article is 2922 characters long. Cut down to just over 500, Trimit's summary reads as follows. What do you think?

Short form, long form, there's a time and a place for reading all kinds of articles but wouldn't it be nice if you could have some very long things made very short, automatically, and still get the gist of them. And most of the people who could do a better job than the algorithm Trimit has built aren't available to me at a moment's notice. It's not as good as some people could do at summarizing the text, but it's much better than most people (humans) could do. That sounds great, but Trimit is pretty cool already just as it is.

That looks like a succinct but accurate summary of the above review to me.

We've talked a lot about the consumerization of IT and the post-PC era here. According to Forrester, nearly 60% of enterprises already officially support employee owned smartphones and, according to Unisys, employee-owned devices are a lot more common than enterprises realize.

What about your organization? Do you officially support employee owned devices?

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You've probably seen the popular iPad app Flipboard; there are a number of competitors on iOS, most notably Zite. That crowded market looks different on an Android tablet though, so what's an Android tablet owner to do? I've tested the four personalized magazine-style news apps that most closely resemble Flipboard and here are my impressions. These apps are great to kick back with on a Sunday morning with a cup of coffee or on a plane ride. (If you can avoid the many conversations people on the plane will want to have with you about your Android tablet.)

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Taptu and Pulse

Taptu is a lot like Pulse, which is many peoples' favorite way to read news on an Android Tablet. I mean it's a lot like Pulse, now that it's no longer a mobile search app like it used to be.

The background colors are different. It syncs with social media accounts so you can read updates from LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter alongside topical and source-based feeds. Topic granularity is good, the interface is attractive and the app is free.

Syncing with Google Reader is limited to 100 feeds, which makes it of little use to me personally. Pulse is limited as well, but that might not matter to many other people.

FeedSquares

Feedsquares syncs with Google Reader and displays all your subscriptions and articles in an attractive interface of squares. Feedquares is also free and could be visually ideal for some users.

Feedly

Feedly syncs with Google Reader and has no limit to the number of feeds you can import. It offers updates in a very clean layout with more white space than any of the alternatives. It's a cross-platform app that also works on the iPad, iPhone and in desktop browsers. It's a smart, well-developed service. When the iPhone version launched in January, I said it might be the best mobile feed reader on the market.

Those are the best alternatives to Flipboard that I've been able to find for Android tablets. All of them are pretty good and I think Feedly is great. Many other people swear by Pulse. These aren't quite like the magazine type apps you see on iOS, but they can make for a great weekend afternoon of casual reading none the less.

The iPad isn't just a hot new consumer device, it's also an increasingly popular tool for business. Each week we take a look at the new or updated business apps for the iPad, and highlight trends in how tablets are being used in the enterprise.

This week we look at a new ERP client, a new project management, a whole new way to look at your enterprise activity stream and more.

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Exact Synergy

Exact released an iOS client for its ERP product Synergy. It enables users to manage schedules, enter billable time, update expense reports, etc.

A third-party client called iSynergy is also available.

ScrumMaster

ScrumMaster is a new iPad app for managing scrum projects. It features a product backlog, a task board with burndown chart. It can be used by all members of a scrum team, including the product owner, scrum master and stakeholders. The database file can be shared between different users.

tibbr FlipView

As part of the tibbr 3.0 release (coverage), the company has added a Flipboard-style magazine view within its iPad app. Is this the first sign of the next shift in consumerization of IT, from activity streams to magazine views?

65% of Major Marketing Automation Vendors to Develop iPad Apps by 2016

Enterprise Innovation reports that, according to Gartner, "65 percent of major marketing automation vendors will extend 25 percent of their functionality to the iPad."

The Law Firm that Traded Its Notebooks for iPads

Info World has a look at how the law firm Proskauer replaced its laptops with iPads.

Since the publication yesterday of a damning open letter to RIM's senior management team from an anonymous employee, Boy Genius Report has two published more open letters. Also, the Financial Post reports that RIM is forming a committee to examine leadership structure in response to analyst pressures to spit the co-chair and co-CEO roles.

The blogosphere is abuzz with people talking about what RIM did wrong, and what the company should do next. You can tell us what you think RIM's biggest mistake was in our poll, and I've talked about what RIM should do before.

But today I want to focus on what RIM has done right, and why it's too early to dismiss the company and its technology.

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The Company is Growing, Making Gobs of Money and Has $3B In the Bank

I guess that's actually three reasons rolled into one, but the gist of it is: the fundamentals of RIM's economy are strong. It's one of the cruel ironies of modern capitalism that a heavily new company running on borrowed capital and with little revenue can be considered a hot investment, but a profitable and growing 27 year old company with $3 billion in the bank is considered a fail boat.

True, RIM is losing market share to companies like Apple, HTC and Samsung. But the smartphone market is growing. RIM has grown to become the fourth largest phone manufacturer overall. By practically any other measure RIM is a smashing success.

If it wanted to it, RIM could buy Rovio, or go for broke and buy Zynga (not that either acquisition would good a good idea or make any sense). Its acquisitions of QNX, TAT, Gist and Tungle are all logical moves that advance the company's direction. RIM has plenty of money to either address its problems or pivot (see below).

It Still Has the Best Enterprise Support of Any Mobile Platform

RIM's e-mail service is one of the original enterprise cloud services, and despite a few well publicized outages remains the gold standard in enterprise mobile e-mail. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the most trusted name in enterprise mobility. And now that AT&T has decided to uncripple the PlayBook's integration with BlackBerry handsets, RIM's tech is now available on tablets.

I want to keep this article positive, but I do have to add a caveat here: RIM can't rest on its laurels in terms of its enterprise security and integration. ActiveSync is good enough for most businesses, and third party device management vendors can provide extra security and control. Even the NSA is starting to let employees use their own smartphones for work.

But this is RIM's biggest strength, and one that it can use to stay relevant.

RIM Wasn't Always a Smartphone Company

RIM didn't start out as the maker of the BlackBerry. It started out in 1984 working on technology for Mobitex wireless networks, such as wireless modems. Its first two-way pager, released in 1995 was branded by the carrier, RAM Mobile Data and called the RAM First Inter@ctive Pager. The first BlackBerry wasn't released until 1998, 14 years after the company was founded. The BlackBerry has been around for slightly less than half of RIM's existence.

What are the worst case scenarios for RIM? One is being acquired by another company, like Microsoft, and essentially sunsetted (Microsoft has its own mobile OS and its own device management platform). The other is that it continues to exist as its own company, but that BlackBerry handsets flop in the market.

One thing that could cause the latter is a lack of developer interest. That's already happening. As we've pointed out before, not much has changed since Jamie Murai penned his famous open letter to RIM.

It reminds me of the hoops that Nokia developers had to jump through to submit Maemo applications to the Ovi store. Ovi is now dead, and Nokia has all but abandoned Maemo (now called MeeGo) in favor of Windows Phone.

BlackBerry will sink or swim based on its developer community. It could turn this around, but let's face it, fostering an independent developer community has never been part of RIM's DNA in the way that it's been a part of Apple or Palm.

But RIM might not have to sink or swim based on the BlackBerry. It has other assets and competencies that should ensure its survival.

An anonymous Research in Motion employee today published a letter to the company's senior management team begging them to change the companies direction by refocusing on end-user experience, among other things. The letter was published by The Boy Genius Report.

While it might be easy to dismiss it as the bitter rantings of a disgruntled employee, I think it's worth reading. Not just for yet another perspective on what RIM is doing wrong, but because it presents the exact series of organization problems that enterprise 2.0/social business tools are intended to solve.

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According to the letter:

• RIM is out of touch with what its customers want
• Management has trouble communicating
• Innovation is stagnant
• People aren't held accountable for their work
• Senior management isn't listening to the employees

Some of the letter writer's suggestion include making key decision makers use competitors' products for a week at a time and, to fix the development tools problem, "Recruit serious talent, buy SDK/API specialist companies, throw a truckload of money at it."

RIM responded to the letter, casting doubt that it really came from a high-level employee, but acknowledging that it has had difficulties recently. But remember the famous open letter from Jamie Murai on BlackBerry development. RIM was quick to respond, but the problems persist.

I've been hard on RIM for the past year, but I do feel sorry for Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. They've built a tremendous (and profitable) company over the past 27 years, and for a time they had the best smartphone around. Now all anyone wants to do is compare RIM to Apple and Google. I'm no longer a RIM customer myself, but I do hope they pull through this.

Skype has released a new update of its Android application that will bring video calls to a select batch of devices. Skype video calls will be available on the Google Nexus S, HTC Desire S, Xperia Neo and the Xperia Pro with more devices to be added to the list eventually.

The rollout of video calling on Android for Skype is limited because of the system requirements. A phone must have a front-facing camera (of course) and be running version 2.3 (Gingerbread) or higher. As more devices upgrade to Gingerbread, the more will be able to take advantage of Skype video chat. Can Skype remain relevant in the mobile ecosystem as services like Pinger, Google Plus/Talk, Facebook and others become more prevalent?

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The iOS version of Skype has had video calling for some time. But it is much easier for developers to create an app for the iPhone than it is for Android. The argument is longstanding - there is one set of specifications for an iPhone, there are dozens for Android. That number is smaller than the 312 (or so) total Android devices available worldwide because not all of them have a front-facing camera, but new Android devices like the Motorola Atrix and Samsung Galaxy II are more than capable of handling the bandwidth and processor requirements of video chat.

Skype is following in the list of companies that have recently made previously unavailable apps accessible to a limited set of devices. Netflix and Hulu Plus finally came to Android in limited rollouts, with promises of more devices to be added later.

Qik Video Connect also allows for video calls over Android. Qik allows for video calls between Android and iOS devices, as well as users on computers. Qik was bought by Skype for $100 million in January.

One of the most impressive parts of Google's beta rollout of Plus is the fact that Google had a fully functional Android application available in the Android Market the minute Plus went live.

As such, I have a unique introduction to Google Plus - mobile first. It is an interesting way to test an experimental new social network. The Plus Android app is polished and impressive. But, just as Plus is entering into the crowded social network space, so does the Android application against the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. How do the Android applications compare?

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Google Plus

The main interface for Plus has five icons to navigate to - stream, photos, circles, profile and huddle. Three of those five are straightforward. Stream is the news and update of all your Plus contacts. Circles allows you to see your individual groups and has three tabs on the bottom for people, posts and photos. Profile is your Google Profile and is standard information with all of your posts and pictures.

Photos is a differentiator. As our Sarah Perez noted, Instant Uploads is one of Plus's killer features. When Instant Upload is turned on, any picture you take with your Android will automatically be uploaded into a private folder in Plus. You can choose to share those pictures later if you so choose. The feature is a little disconcerting at first and I can imagine toggling it on and off depending on where I am, what type of data connection I have and what is actually in the pictures. Photos allows users to upload up to eight pictures at a time when not in Instant Upload.

Huddles is Google's answer to mobile group messaging. Users can start a group message with a particular circle or with individually selected people. In this respect, huddles is unique - it cannot be found in the browser version of the platform. There is the ability in the browser to chat with circles and there Hangouts allows users to group video chat, but it is not quite the type of system that Android has with huddles.

It is a bold and intriguing move by Google to have a service available in the mobile version of the platform but not (specifically) in the browser version.

Facebook for Android

Google Plus on Android is sparse in comparison to all the functionality that Facebook packs into its mobile application. Facebook includes: news feed, profile, friends, messages, places, groups, events, photos and chat. Anything and everything that makes Facebook a great social platform is available through the Android application.

Google Plus is coming for Facebook's lunch when it comes to photos. Facebook's rise to 750 million users is tied to the fact that it is one of the best places on the Internet to upload and share photos with friends. Fundamentally, this is not going to change any time soon. Yet, from a pure mobile app standpoint, Plus beats Facebook in ease of uploading and volume of uploading. Facebook for Android only allows one upload at a time and asks the user what album they want to put it in. Plus allows multiple uploads and asks what circle (or the general public) you want to share with.

Plus also beats Facebook with huddle. Users can chat one-on-one via mobile and from any device, but it is not group messaging. Yet, Facebook beats Plus with its ability to send messages directly to other users, something that is not easily done in Plus, either in the browser or via mobile. Google does have the Google Talk application, which allows for Gchat between a computer smartphone, but that is not technically a Plus feature.

Where the two applications are in a draw is in the notifications department. Both deliver robust notification systems based on when a user comments on a status update or a picture, friend or circle request.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a fine Android interface. Yet, like the distinct differences the platform has in the browser, the mobile application is a bit limited in its functionality.

LinkedIn does not do photos. It does not have to, photos have never been in the platform's core feature set. The main screen on the app offers updates from connections, invitations, reconnecting with colleagues or acquaintances, a feed of users' connections, a news stream and messages.

LinkedIn serves its purpose of a professional network and does it well with its mobile interface. It does not do chat nor has the robust notification system that Facebook and Plus have.

Twitter

Twitter is harder to judge against Plus, Facebook and LinkedIn. The company's official mobile app is good if unspectacular and its notifications of @replies and direct messages beats both Facebook and Plus in terms of speed and efficiency. Pictures are easy to upload and lists are easy to navigate.

Yet, a lot of Twitter users gravitate towards third-party applications. TweetDeck, though now officially owned by Twitter, is a popular choice among power users along with Tweetcaster and Seesmic. There are also Twitter functionalities built into the skins from different Android original equipment manufacturers such as Motorola and HTC that do not use a specific applications but instead are baked into the user interface.

Do We Have A Winner?

Is there a winner in the social network Android app race? Facebook is the de facto leader in all things social, so the edge goes to them in terms of in terms of actual usage. Google Plus does some unique and interesting things while LinkedIn and Twitter fulfill their roles well in the Android ecosystem.

The iPad isn't just a hot new consumer device, it's also an increasingly popular tool for business. Each week we take a look at the new or updated business apps for the iPad, and highlight trends in how tablets are being used in the enterprise.

This week we look at a new app for enterprise microblogging, a new RDP client for the iPad and yet another way of building mobile apps. Plus, an advance look at the forthcoming Skype for iPad app.

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AccessToGo

AccessToGo is a new RDP client for the iPad from Ericom. It's also available for other iOS devices and for Android. We previously looked at a few other RDP and remote administration tools here.

Adobe Flash Builder Adds New Tools for Developing iPad and Other Mobile Apps

This week Adobe announced support for building iOS and Blackberry Playbook apps with Flash Builder and the Flex framework. Flash Builder and Flex have had support for creating Android applications since April.

MangoTalk and MangoTask

This week MangoSpring announced a stand-alone versions of its enterprise microblogging\instant messaging app MangoTalk and its task manager app MangoTasks for iOS and Android (I couldn't actually find MangoTasks in iTunes, so I assume it's either been pulled or delayed, it is in the Android Market, though).

MangoSpring also announced a few new features for its suite of enterprise social softawre, and new pricing. We previously covered MangoSpring here

Skype for iPad Details Leak

It's not out yet, but details about Skype's iPad app leaked on YouTube. According to CNET, which has already published its review of the app, Skype for iPad will be available from iTunes on Tuesday.

Database Clients for the iPad

Continuing our look at business tools for the iPad, this week we looked at database clients for the iPad, including FileMaker Go, the various DataGlass clients and more.