Category Archives: Mobile device

Cloud & IT Management, Information technology management, Logicalis, Mobile device, Networking, Virtualization

Updating Your Network Infrastructure for Modern Devices

Today the world of IT infrastructures is changing. This is due to the way companies communicate and the way they send and receive data within their networks, and the development of cloud computing and virtualised servers has re-shaped the way we share information with one another.

Cloud computing is a scalable and reliable cloud based environment which utilises remote servers to host and store all of our information. Just some of the benefits of cloud computing include improved accessibility, reduced spending on maintaining localised servers, a streamlining of processes and much more flexibility for businesses and organisations. (To find out more about how cloud computing works and how it can benefit your business, visit PC Mag online.)

Networking and Secure Infrastructures

With the increased accessibility of using servers in the cloud, it’s never been more important for network security. A greater number of people and an increasing number of new devices, including mobile devices will request access to modern day business networks. From laptops and contemporary tablet devices, Blackberries and smart phones, to desktop computers and other digital devices, one single business will have a lot of different data handlers to consider.

With new devices, are increased levels of complexity when it comes to traffic patterns, and as expected there are more security threats when more devices request to access your network. With this in mind, today’s IT infrastructure needs to be updated in order to cope with the increasing amount of data flowing over the IT network. (For more information on networking, visit Logicalis, an international IT solutions provider.)

The Importance of Accessibility

What’s most important to understand is the importance of welcoming such changes to your IT network. Virtualisation can improve the way businesses send and receive information, both internally and externally, and can also help organisations of all sizes cut down on costs in the long-run. Cloud servers can also provided added security with data backup and the development of virtualised computing can reduce planned downtime by up to 90%.

With the growth and development of modern devices it’s now more important than ever to ensure that you have increased accessibility for all business devices. Finding the right IT solutions provider for your business can help you support next-generation technology whilst encouraging better communication between key people in your company. 

Read more on how virtualisation and cloud servers could be redefining the roles of IT within a business on the Logicalis blog. 

Guest Post, Mobile, Mobile device, Mobile marketing, Mobile payment, Payment, PayPal, Point of sale, POS, Smartphone

Mobile Payment Future Is Tied to Services

Guest Post by Nick Nayfack, Director of Payment Solutions, Mercury Payment Systems

Consumers are already using their smartphones when they shop. They just need the incentive to take the next step to making a purchase with their phone. According to Google, some 79 percent of consumers today can be considered “mobile shoppers” because they use their smartphones for browsing for product information, searching for product reviews or looking for offers and promotions. Today’s merchants see their customers browsing their store with smartphones and know that mobile marketing is no longer an option, it’s an imperative.

There is a clear opportunity to target avid smartphone users, as well as provide merchants with the ability to turn their point of sale system into a marketing engine simply by capturing their customers’ phone numbers. By creating a point of sale environment where processing becomes prospecting, mobile and alternative payments become a natural extension of the convenience and value that merchants and consumers are looking for. Not only can consumer use their phones in store to gain product information or exclusive offers, they can skip the checkout line by paying with their phone.  In this environment, mobile payments gain adoption because of the valuable service it provides to both the merchant and the consumer.

What is it that is driving merchants to adopt mobile point of sale systems (POS) – doubling their implementation in the past year – and consumer rapid adoption of smartphones – while mobile payments has yet to experience the same growth curve? The slow speed of adoption can be tied to two gaps in the current payment landscape: convenience and value. Merchants are adopting mobile POS systems because of their affordable pricing, the ease of use, and the ability to tie value-added services like loyalty programs and gift options to their customer’s checkout experience. Consumers are looking for more value for their money and more likely to sign up for opt-in marketing at the cash register or loyalty programs if they feel like they are getting something in return.

Where is the value in Mobile Payments today?

1. Information is Still Key

Consumers are using their phones now mostly to find product information, restaurant reviews, and discount offers.  90 percent of smartphone shoppers use their phone today for “pre-shopping” activities. The most common are price comparisons (53 percent), finding offers and promotions (39 percent), finding locations of other stores (36 percent) and finding hours (35 percent).  In contrast, consumer in-store purchases from a mobile device are still in the minority (~16 percent), but show promise for fast and exponential grow.  As such, if you want consumers to use your mobile payment application, there must be a tight alignment with other frequently used mobile applications (i.e. mobile search.)

2. Remember Your Basics

Key players in the mobile payments space need to make better UX by applying principles learned from the web many years ago: mobile-specific design, clear calls to action and one shopping experience across all platforms.  Beyond the UX, there needs to be clear and repeatable value to the consumer. Special offers or incentives could be paired with your current purchase history to make one-click purchases attractive from mobile devices. From a historical perspective, Amazon introduced this concept several years ago in the e-commerce world with links that provided suggestive purchases based on the buyer’s current purchase (e.g. others that bought this book, also bought the following). While m-commerce has different considerations such as limited time and high distraction of users, there can be some lessons learned from the past.

3. Find Today’s Value

POS developers will succeed today, and in the future by helping merchants to obtain and analyze information about their business and customers. This requires coordinating with an acquirer or processor that has rich historical data to help analyze transaction history, and other data. In this way, merchants can then personalize the consumer experience for new cost benefits or improve operations for cost savings.

Lastly, as mobile evolves, new data points will provide richer context (e.g. location, social context, sku data) and merchants will have even more reference points to deliver a personal consumer experience. In this way, personalization is the key value that is coupled with convenience.

Nick Nayfack

Nick Nayfack is the director of product for Mercury Payment Systems. He is responsible for developing best practices in mobile commerce with industry peers in order to help enable merchants and consumers to navigate technological “ease-of-use.” Nick is also a member of the Electronic Transaction Associations (ETA) Mobile payments committee.

Big Data, Mobile, Mobile device, Mobile network operator, SAP, SAP HANA

SAP Pilots Service to Unlock Value of Mobile Data

SAP today announced the SAP Consumer Insight 365 mobile service, a pilot initiative of a new cloud-based offering aiming to unlock the value of big data. The service will be powered by the SAP HANA platform and will allow enterprises to gain insight from the analysis of massive amounts of aggregated and anonymized consumer data residing in operator networks in real time. This market intelligence will ultimately allow brands to strengthen relationships with consumers through more targeted and context-specific marketing efforts.

“The rise of the always connected mobile world is creating a new source of data that has the potential to provide deeper insight into consumer behavior,” according to Guy Rolfe , global mobile practice leader at Kantar Mobile. ”The challenge is that this data is on a scale not seen before, therefore any service that can address this will create a new empirical data source that will not only complement existing research methodologies, but will also enable brands to better connect to consumers.”

There are more mobile devices in the world than there are people. The proliferation of mobile devices has significantly changed the way people communicate, live and engage with each other at work and in their personal lives. As more consumers get connected around the world through mobile devices, smartphones and the Internet, all of these interactions create massive amounts of data. The sheer volume and scale of this data has made analysis difficult.

With SAP Consumer Insight 365, data from operator networks will be analyzed through advanced analytics providing population level insight as well as high-definition detail through an intuitive Web portal, without drilling down into user-specific information. All mobile network operator data will be stored discreetly and individually partitioned within a global network of SAP data centers.

 

 

Collaboration, Contract Management, iPad, LoadSpringMobile, Mobile, Mobile device, Program management

LoadSpringMobile Releases Mobile Project Management

LoadSpring Solutions today released LoadSpringMobile, a streamlined, secure interface for mobile devices such as smartphones, iPads and tablet PCs.

LoadSpringMobile was designed to maximize the usability of PM applications such as Oracle Primavera P6, Contract Management 14.

It solves a prominent problem among project personnel in the field—how to view and interact with advanced PM software on a small mobile display. In the past, many mobile solutions were of limited value because they attempted to duplicate the full desktop experience on a much smaller screen. The result was a cluttered workspace with more features than needed, making them difficult to view and use.

With LoadSpringMobile, working on the fly is easier, thanks to simple graphics and the elimination of unwanted features and information. Still, every essential tool is available in a mobile setting.

According to Eric Leighton, LoadSpring’s founder and CEO, “We based our interface on ‘What You See is What You Need.’ That’s because mobile teams and contractors only require certain functions and data to do their job. Anything more would just reduce usage and lower efficiency and ROI.”

Mr. Leighton went on to say, “For those who need a mission-specific version of the interface, our Customer Services division can accommodate them by customizing LoadSpringMobile to fit their exact needs.”

Business Processes, Content Management, Customer Relationship Management, GlobalSCAPE, Mobile device, Salesforce, salesforce.com

TappIn Pro Edition Includes Salesforce.com Integration

TappIn, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of GlobalSCAPE, Inc. announced today the launch of the new TappIn Professional Edition. TappIn’s Professional Edition offers 10 GB of secure transactional cloud storage, enhanced secure mobile access features, integration with Salesforce, and group management capabilities designed for professional users, businesses, and an increasingly mobile workforce, by creating a go-to service for remote access to all content regardless of where it resides.

“The increasingly mobile nature of today’s workforce, coupled with the rapid diversification of content sources and storage repositories, has forced a re-envisioning of how IT manages the access device landscape,” said Maureen Fleming, analyst with IDC. “Content is no longer stored on just a computer or server, it’s stored across collaboration platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Exchange, on NAS drives, and in cloud repositories—public, private, and personal. As mobile devices put our lives at our fingertips, businesses and their employees will look for solutions that also streamline access to these content sources, increasing efficiency and eliminating the need for redundant copies and storage.”

“If we have learned anything from the BYOD revolution, it’s that people are looking for the simplest way to manage and access everything they need via a mobile device,” said Chris Hopen, President of TappIn, Inc. “TappIn Professional Edition is the next evolution of our approach to access and management, allowing users to go to a single place on their mobile device and securely access or share all of their important content—whether it resides on a home computer, business server, or SaaS application such as Salesforce. TappIn is the one place they can go for access to all of their content without having to move it all to one place.”

 

 


3Cinteractive, Enterprise Mobile, Fision, Marketing, Mobile, Mobile application development, Mobile device, Partnerships

Fision Partners with 3Cinteractive to Integrate Mobile into Its Distributed Marketing Automation

Image representing 3Cinteractive as depicted i...

Fision, the leading sales and marketing automation SaaS provider, today announced an agreement with 3Cinteractive, the leading provider of cloud-based, enterprise mobile solutions, to leverage its Switchblade platform to extend sales and marketing automation across messaging, mobile web, smartphone apps, voice, and social media.

“Control, compliance and measurement of campaign distribution across all media channels has always been a recurring problem for businesses,” said Mike Brown, CEO of Fision. “This agreement furthers our mission to provide a simple solution that optimizes that effort. Mobility is the next mainstream media channel and the capabilities of 3Cinteractive extend the power of Fision to address that demand.”

Fision’s platform allows enterprises and small businesses in manufacturing, health care, retail, financial and business services to store, customize and distribute marketing materials, giving companies real-time metrics on customer behavior. Switchblade, 3Ci’s cloud-based mobile platform, provides businesses with a single platform to deploy multi-channel mobile applications to any mobile device throughout the world. The combination of these capabilities will extend Fision’s offering to include mobile solutions that engage consumers and increase their lifetime value.


Customer Relationship Management, Fonality, Fonality PBXtra, Mobile, Mobile device, Tools, Voice, Voice over Internet Protocol

Fonality Enhances Contact Center Features for HUD Mobile

Image representing Fonality as depicted in Cru...Fonality today announced a new release of the Fonality Heads Up Display (HUD) Mobile application delivering extensive contact center features among other enhancements. The application now offers users 100 percent management and visibility of individual queues over tablets and mobile smartphones. In addition, the solution can now be accessed by Fonality’s 200,000+ end-users across its entire cloud-based and hybrid-hosted product line including: Fonality Connect, Fonality PBXtra and Fonality trixboxPro.

HUD Mobile empowers the mobile workforce with cloud-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications and contact center capabilities in a single-view, secure, user-friendly interface via Apple or Android platforms. This announcement represents a first step in an ongoing “innovation series” of rollouts over the coming months to help growing businesses save time, communicate more efficiently and reduce costs.

“Mobility is without question a must-have to drive productivity especially for SMBs and we’ve already seen broad adoption of Fonality HUD Mobile,” said Fonality’s Chief Technology Officer Rick Bushell. “By enhancing contact center features and making the app available our entire solution base, all of our customers can work from anywhere, anytime. We are committed to delivering smart, simple and affordable business phone solutions to small businesses. HUD Mobile and the upcoming feature releases were designed to help our customers communicate more efficiently, giving them the competitive edge they need for growth.”

The exclusive Fonality HUD Mobile technology brings the entirety of the contact center environment on-the-go. All activities in the queue, including current and pending calls, can be accessed complemented by real-time performance metrics for quality control. Managers enjoy a 360-degree view of all communications, including color-coded agent status, call types and duration. In addition, they have the ability to record calls on-the-fly or join through barge, monitor or whisper modes. Agents can also log in and out of queues to maintain high levels of customer service.

“As a global wine distributor we are extremely busy and often work remotely,” said Justin Hammer, vice president of B-21. “Because our industry is so competitive, we have to be in touch with our global network of buyers to ensure that we have the most popular wines available as quickly as possible. Fonality HUD Mobile allows us to stay connected around the world so we can make quick purchasing decisions to add the latest wines to our catalog. This flexibility has improved our productivity and profitability, because we can stock wines faster. In fact, we recently secured a new wine, made it available online and sold out within a single day solely because of the efficiencies enabled by Fonality HUD Mobile. It is a real difference maker!”

Fonality HUD Mobile creates the same experience as its award-winning desktop counterpart. The mobile solution connects phones, desktops and critical business applications with access to presence and collaboration capabilities. “Find me/follow me” provides seamless connectivity between desktop and mobile devices, along with unified messaging and Microsoft Outlook integration. For improved productivity, other features include company directory, visual voicemail, virtual conference room access, as well as photo caller ID, ring-back and on-the-fly call recording. To control costs and preserve cell minutes, Wi-Fi connectivity can also be activated.


iPad, IT Management, Mobile, Mobile device, Mobile device management, Mobile Enterprise, Soonr

Soonr Lets Enterprise IT Control Tablets, Mobile Devices

Image representing Soonr as depicted in CrunchBase

Responding to the growing trend of data being created, consumed and stored on mobile devices that are not controlled by IT, Soonr, a leader in secure business cloud services that transforms tablets like the iPad into business productivity tools, today announced Soonr Enterprise to help solve the mobile enterprise challenges large organizations are facing.

“Soonr is helping our global sales organization fully exploit the power of its smart devices – transforming its tablets and smartphones into reliable alternatives to carrying a laptop,” said Al Lounsbury, director of Digital Tools, Corporate Marketing at Ciena. “They can access core content to do business – whether they are documents, presentations or videos – and work on them seamlessly and securely within the cloud infrastructure.”

Soonr Enterprise builds upon its existing enterprise grade infrastructure and services that have been in continuous operation since 2005, now serving over 120,000 businesses globally.

Business units and Teams want easy access to content across mobile devices, while their IT counterparts want to ensure that access to sensitive information is secured and controlled according to corporate policies. IT professionals have genuine concerns about the extreme security risks of unmanaged cloud services and are issuing legitimate warnings about a lack of controls, capabilities, reporting and integration. Even so, business units are being rapidly drawn to what tablets and mobile devices can give them – agility, ubiquity and simplicity.

“IT needs to provide corporately endorsed solutions that are easy for individuals to use, but provide IT with security, control and accountability,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “With the Consumerization and mobilization trends, IT has some real interesting challenges with data and compliance issues on end-user mobile devices. IT needs vendors like Soonr to help address these data access and collaboration challenges in the enterprise because they are not going away.”

Soonr understands the complexity of security and compliance issues facing today’s IT departments and their requirements for managing cloud services. Soonr’s services run over a purpose-built, enterprise-grade infrastructure that relies on geo-redundant data centers in major regions that delivers better than 99.9 percent uptime with industry-leading response and service restoral time guarantees. Security of customer information is assured with 256-bit AES encryption of data in transit and storage with dynamic key rotation, virus scanning, and firewalls against hacking attacks. Role-based access controls, password protection and expiration timers for share links, and inactivity session timers deliver best-in-class user security. Finally, encryption of all local session information and non-persistent use of login credentials provide critical protection against lost or stolen devices.

“It’s an issue that every large organization has to come to grips with – and it is not an easy one,” said Martin Frid-Nielsen, co-founder and CEO of Soonr. “But we’ve come up with a solution that helps CIOs and their IT departments to navigate the divide between security and ingenuity. The last thing you want to do is hold your company back from effective sale approaches – and the modern ways of doing business – because of fear.”

The new capabilities being announced today are designed to expand the level of control enterprise IT is able to exert over users, devices and the documents that are part of the cloud collaboration environment under IT management. These include the ability to create and manage Groups from global team lists with custom share permissions, which reflects how Projects are actually managed in large companies. Both users and Groups may now be imported from enterprise Active Directory databases so that adding individuals to Projects with the right permissions is fully automated, saving time and reducing mistakes when multiple systems have to be configured.

New Policy Management capabilities allow the enterprise IT Admin to access all Projects users may have created with the ability to view, search, edit and delete Projects, as well as to control how Projects are shared with other employees or external parties. These new controls enable businesses to be in compliance with industry regulations or lawful access requirements.

Advanced reports and audit trails about user, group, device, and Project-related activities provide a rich set of tools that can be used for business analytics, such as determining how Projects and documents are being used, or for diagnostic, compliance, or security purposes.