Are Smartphones a Smart Idea for Small Businesses?

As a student, I consider looking reruns of “Star Trek” in my university dormitory with the different University of California matriculates, and sure, I turned into a piece of a geek for positive! My preferred phrase uttered episode after episode turned into “Kirk to Enterprise. Come in, Enterprise.” A well-prepared Federation employee could “beam” Captain Kirk again to Enterprise from anywhere he became with a simple flick of the wrist. Maybe Gene Roddenberry and the alternative geniuses at the back of the Nineteen Sixties hit have been in reality generation experts and visionaries. Think approximately it; Captain Kirk talking without delay to someone on any other space vessel, or maybe in every other galaxy, via a live connection on a huge display screen show.

Does this remind you of Cisco TelePresence possibly? What about the electronic “pads” the yeoman turned into always handing to Captain Kirk to sign-off on. Did Steve Jobs have that vision in mind as he fleshed out the primary iPad layout? Maybe the most prescient tool on the show changed into the communicator. Could it have been a precursor to a contemporary cellphone? Even in his wildest dreams, I do not assume Roddenberry imagined the path of contemporary smartphones, a tool powerful enough to allow users to play phrase video games with friends whilst talking to their mom and searching a website for an excellent vicinity for sushi. Interestingly sufficient, it changed into Canada, in which both of those wonders had been born.

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The clever smartphone revolution became of route pioneered by way of Canadian large Research In Motion (RIM), and I’m not certain now not even the corporation’s corporate strategists ought to have foreseen how deep the insertion might be whilst Blackberry first hit the market. The term “CrackBerry” snidely mentioned those individuals who, despite a crowbar, couldn’t be separated from their BlackBerry devices.

RIM enjoyed an awesome benefit in being first to the marketplace, and their legions of converts who eagerly fed on the entirety of BlackBerry have been harbingers of a new era of commercial enterprise mobility. The days of “out of office” greetings were numbered as any smart, aggressive business enterprise knew that if they had been extra reachable to their clients and potentialities, the probability of ultimate enterprise and growing agile customer service became astronomically better than the ones now not embracing the mobility fashion.

In the case of business and within the wild, the hunter frequently will become the hunted. Even even though RIM had a quite sturdy foothold at the fledgling marketplace, others soon came to dislodge the chief from the mountaintop. Even PDA makers consisting of Palm, Inc., with their Treo gadgets, jumped into the fray after seeing their product was becoming out of date. Soon others with new operating systems like the Apple iPhone and the Google-sponsored Android device were introduced.

Of route, it would not definitely be a party without Microsoft, which has been looking to crack the phone and mobility market for numerous years with their Windows Phone. Though lagging in the back of in characteristic set, the Windows Phone changed into having a moderate advantage in ease of incorporation into complete Windows-based environments.

Industry watchers cautiously maintain an eye on the following iteration of the Windows Phone running machine, Windows Phone 8. Microsoft has placed a few heavy bets on this product, touting the seamless consumer interface between the phone and the computer or pc. However, the comparative ease of the competition to do the same and weaker Windows Phone characteristic sets kept Microsoft on the out of doors searching in for the most element; till now. Time will inform whether or not this method will be a winner or a disaster.

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Today’s telephone market gives a plethora of alternatives, which makes it difficult to point to one that is considered the BEST. In reality, there might not be one everyday preference because the wants and needs of the small and mid-sized businesses are all over the board, and there is no “ordinary” community configuration.

However, I assume we can agree there are numerous alternatives that maximum SMB agencies could use inside the realm of the smartphone characteristic set. Being able to behave commercial enterprise on the fly is the maximum compelling and commonplace motive small organizations are thinking about the telephone and the way it suits their average plan. Sure, employment agencies are in the equal boat. However, the SMB space may also have more agility and versatility in its business model to deal with a shift like this.

More and greater, there are small start-u.S.And sole owners that may take advantage of the power smartphones mixed with cloud answers eliminate the need for an onsite server and suite of applications. Solutions like Microsoft’s Office 365 allow customers to have all their organizational statistics, e-mail, databases, intranet, voice, and IM communications treated in the cloud and accessible anywhere on their telephone tool of desire.

This configuration and cellphone integration works well for agencies with a small office or a domestic office. However, it may also work nicely for companies trying to reduce fees and not reinvest in costly hardware, software, and personnel to help it. However, there are various pitfalls around security, and the device gets the right of entry.

Timothy Washington
Hardcore internetaholic. Social media nerd. General writer. Freelance travel junkie. Music practitioner. Twitter guru. Alcohol maven. In 2008 I was writing about wooden trains for fun and profit. Earned praised for my work researching fatback in Los Angeles, CA. Spent 2001-2006 lecturing about walnuts in Cuba. Earned praise for analyzing tattoos on Wall Street. Uniquely-equipped for deploying wooden horses in Jacksonville, FL. Spent a year lecturing about tar in Salisbury, MD.