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Ask Dr. Mobile You ask great questions... ones we know everyone
This month's question comes from Dave L., a Help Desk Manager in Wichita, Kansas who writes: "We're thinking about mobilizing our Help Desk but my Director is skeptical. How much of our applications can we really expect to use on a tiny PDA? We're looking at using BlackBerrys with Remedy ITSM 6.3 and a custom-built
Dear Dave, At risk of sounding like a fortune cookie, if it is essential, you can do it. If it isn't, you don't want to. Here's what I mean: your handheld requirements are very different from PC requirements. Two simple examples: when you're at a PC, there's plenty of screen real estate for everything so you don't have to worry about field alignment or which features you use most. Not so on a handheld. You only want certain fields and they need to be accessible within one or two clicks. Oh, and by the way, your users can't agree on which fields are most important and where they should go. You've been warned. Another example is menu size: on your PC, it's ok to have menus with thousands of entries because you can rely on a high bandwidth connection and a fast processor. Bandwidth is pretty good these days when you're in coverage and I hate to break it to you but for the next few years you won't get the processor speed you want for under $1,000 per device. So you want handheld menus that are compact and consist of just the items you actually need in the field. Again, that means you don't want the PC application. You want a version of it for your handheld. The good news is today's handheld applications are often (gasp!) better than the ones on the desktop. Why? Because they have only the features you need and they're easier to use because none of the PC bloatware gets mobilized. They're basically what you would get if you smashed your current system into a thousand tiny pieces and kept just the ones you actually use. So march into your Director's office with your newfound knowledge and tell her to bust out a sledgehammer so you can build a screamin' mobile help desk. Oh, and let us know how you do! Yours truly, Dr. Mobile PS Got a question? The doctor is in. Email me at drmobile at aeroprise.com. Index of Wireless Activity IOWA sputtered this quarter giving back half of its fall gain to close down 18.34% at 140.59. Mobile and wireless stocks moved laterally since November during a period when the NASDAQ was down 0.25% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.06%. Meanwhile, headline activity and mergers and acquisitions dropped precipitously. The winter lull was punctuated by the recent annoucement that PDA shipments hit a new record high, rising to 17.7 million units from 14.9 million in 2005. A year ago, a story like this would have garnered significantly more attention. Today, anything short of record growth would grab more headlines. It's common for IOWA to begin the first few months of the year slowly as wireless bellwethers digest end of year activity and prepare new products and announcements for major industry events in the second half of the year. We expect the index to rebound modestly in the spring and make a big push in the summer and fall. So what's ahead? Expect to hear more about location-based services for mobile devices, multimedia applications, and voice over WiFi. And look for IOWA at an all-time high by early fall. Upcoming Events Aeroprise CEO Dan Turchin discusses Mobile Service Management on TalkBMC Podcast Creekpointe HEAT User Group Atlanta, GA March 1, 2007 HDI 2007 Las Vegas, NV April 30-May 3, 2007 Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2007 Orlando, FL May 8-10, 2007 Industry Buzz CIO Magazine: Taking Mobility Beyond E-Mail: Build or Buy? Cellular News: Global Mobile Data Spending To Reach $200 billion in 2011 CIO Magazine: Mobile Mastery: Smartphones Don't Need To Wreak Havoc On Enterprise IT News of the Weird from Engadget: Finn Wins World Cell Phone Throwing Championship Tip of the Month: Mobile Menus Made Easy Life in the field is tough enough for your mobile employees without having to wait for massive menus to download. Wouldn't it be ideal if their mobile menus just had the items they actually use? They can. Here's how: Create Custom Lists either from your Administration Console or let users do it themselves from their Personalization Consoles. First, pick the menu to customize. Then, create your mobile version of it by adding just the items you need. When you use it wirelessly, you'll just see the optimized menu. No waiting, no scrolling, no hassle. You can also edit your custom lists wirelessly if you need an item that isn't in your list. Then go tell HR how much less stressful you made life for your company's road warriors. Got a tip? Send it to us and if we publish it we'll send you a limited-edition Aeroprise mock turtleneck. Trivia Question: ...And how many people are on the planet? How many mobile phones were shipped worldwide in 2006? (a) 255 million (b) 1.02 billion (c) 1.97 billion (d) 3.23 billion source: IDC [answer in the spring newsletter] Fall trivia question: The FCC has determined the threshold level above which radiofrequency (RF) energy emitted by cell phones may be dangerous to be 4 watts per kilogram (W/kg). How much RF energy is emitted by a typical cell phone? (a) 0.2 W/kg (b) 0.7 W/kg (c) 1.6 W/kg (d) 3.4 W/kg (e) 7.1 W/kg Fall trivia answer: (c) 1.6 W/kg of radiofrequency energy is emitted by a typical cell phone. The FCC regulates radiation emission from cell phones and so far there is no evidence linking any known health problems to usage of wireless devices. Phones on the market since June 2, 2000 must specify the amount of radiation they emit, or their Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). Check your phone's hardware specifications online to make sure yours is safe. 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