Leading off the enterprise section is a back-to-basics article I wrote that attempts to clarify the term “Mobile Worker.” As it turns out, there’s a lot of confusion about this term, since one company’s mobile worker may be dramatically different than another’s. In an attempt to clarify things and create a common worldview, I define three types of mobile workers.
Next up, we travel to Sisters, Oregon to take a look at how mobility is being used to fight wildfires and protect homes. Jim Moore tells us how the local fire district used ruggedized handhelds and custom software to streamline their communications and gather better information. Their goal: use mobile technology to make better decisions—and save more houses from wildfires.
The retail industry is all about the customer, and Brian Tracy takes a look at how retailers are using mobile technology to improve the customer experience and increase sales. Following up on that is an article about the trends in mobile business intelligence within the retail space. The challenge in retail is to get the right information to the right people at the right time, and Peter Price describes how to make that happen.
How many times have you lugged your laptop half-way across the country just to give a PowerPoint presentation? With the Impatica ShowMate, you can leave it behind and give presentations directly from your smartphone. You can also use the ShowMate to put your smartphone’s display up on the big screen—great for training or for giving demos. Is the ShowMate right for you? Check out my review.
Windows Mobile has a very rich ecosystem of industry players with a core investment in Microsoft’s technology. In previous issues, we’ve looked at how mobile operators and device manufacturers have leveraged this ecosystem. In this issue, Randy Siegel takes a look at the role that independent software vendors play in the space. Dig into this article to see how software vendors are able to leverage enterprise infrastructure investments in the Microsoft platform.
Mobility is all about giving the right information to the right worker at the right time. In this next article, Donna Ford tells us how Savage Consulting was able to utilize mobile technology and a field service automation application to eliminate redundancies, increase productivity, and ultimately drive a positive return-on-investment.
Wrapping things up, we have a very good piece on the best practices for designing and developing mobile applications within the enterprise. Microsoft provides us all with a free example of excellent design—the Mobile Line-of-Business Solution Accelerator 2008, and who better to give us an under-the-hood look at the architecture than Rabi Satter, one of the developers on the team at Microsoft who built the accelerator.
If you have questions or comments, you can always e-mail me at nathan [dot] clevenger [at] smartphonemag [dot] com.
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