Volume 3, Issue 4
Live From The Wireless Enterprise Symposium
Stop us if you've heard this one: What do you call 2,000 BlackBerrys under one roof? Answer: Wireless Enterprise Symposium ("WES"), the annual BlackBerry conference (no, not "a hydroponics farm" or "a tumor"). This week, 4,000 thumbs converged on Orlando for three days of unabashed, blissful BlackBerry worship.
Aeroprise sponsored the show and (we're confident of this) sent many attendees home to tell their managers "I saw this amazing application we need to buy immediately!" Self-promotion aside, we
thought you might enjoy a brief blog from the show floor:
Day One: Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Part of the keynote involved Mike Lazaridis, RIM's co-CEO, discussing the company's hardware strategy (no immediate exit in sight), BlackBerry's international growth (54 new telecom partners signed up last quarter alone), and the BlackBerry ecosystem (225 application partners and growing).
Following that, Mike Luttmann, Aeroprise Administrator at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO, presented a terrific case study about how Peterson uses Aeroprise and BlackBerry to reduce support costs and travel time and improve customer service for 6,000 employees at the Base. Later that night, Jim Belushi and his band put on an incredible, high-energy show at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney that, from the bare midriffs and high heels in the audience, made us question if we were really at a tech show.
Day Two: Wednesday, April 20, 2005
It was a short night and the Solution Showcase opened far too early the next morning. Bleary-eyed, we woke up to riveting conversation about MDS vs. VPN for CRM over 1XRTT vs. EVDO. Who needs coffee when you have that? Here are some themes from sessions we've attended: in the year ahead, you'll see broader use of location-based services, a broader set of solutions that make it easier to replace laptops with BlackBerrys, and carriers moving further in the direction of providing data-centric solutions.
One of the coolest demos we saw involved a new ruggedized BlackBerry case from STI, a Florida-based BlackBerry partner: bluetooth, bar-code scanning, GPS, all in a space-age ice blue molded plastic shell. Buck Rogers, eat your heart out!
Day Three: Thursday, April 21, 2005
The day began with a keynote from Nortel's President of Enterprise Networks, Malcolm Collins. It turns out there are 2.8 billion subscribers worldwide to wireline and wireless voice and data services. Today, over half of those are wireless. According to Mr. Collins, the distinction between public and private and wired and wireless networks will all but disappear soon.
We also learned more about RIM's "beyond email" strategy. These application categories are in most demand but they'll continue to be provided through partners: field service, time-tracking, systems management, instant messaging, and sales force automation. RIM's core technology is and will continue to be the aspects of BlackBerry devices that are focused on battery life and security.
With this final panel, WES crescendoed, concluded, and unleashed 2,000 well-fed "CrackBerry" evangelists into Orlando... with tired thumbs.
Aeroprise Index Of Wireless Activity
IOWA slipped 3.71% to 161.2, giving back its last two months of gains. The decline was primarily attributable to sagging wireless stock prices. For the month, the NASDAQ declined 2.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 3.3%. Also, tech headlines were dominated in April by disappointing earnings, consolidation, and boardroom drama - wireless news is waiting patiently until the din subsides.
Upcoming Events
Aeroprise Selected to Present at Prestigious Mobile Showcase
Hyatt Grand Champions Resort
Indian Wells, CA
May 9-12, 2005
Meet Aeroprise at the 2nd Annual Column-BMC Remedy Customer Event at Borgata. This is a can't-miss opportunity! We guarantee you'll love it! Click here to register for free.
Borgata Hotel & Casino
Atlantic City, NJ
May 11-12, 2005
Aeroprise Webcast May 24, 2005: Best Practices for Mobilizing Service Management Applications on BlackBerry. All registered attendees will be eligible for a free BlackBerry. Click here to register.
Industry Buzz
CRM Buyer: BlackBerry and Microsoft Collaborating for Instant Messenging
BBC News: Vodafone Launching Own Wireless E-mail, to Compete with BlackBerry
Tip of the Month: Personalized Queues
How do you make sure your users see just the tickets they're working on when they're away from a desk? On desktop clients, your users get a ticket queue that probably isn't exactly what they want wirelessly. They need multiple wireless queues for different times of day or days of week or one queue per problem type, building, etc. Personalized queues may seem insignificant but addressing these subtle, wireless-only work behaviors is essential to the success of your mobile solution.
Here's what you do:
From the Administration Console select 'Ticket Rules'. If you give your end-users permission to create their own rules, they can do this from their Personalization Consoles as well. Make sure your active application is selected appropriately in the drop-down box at the top left. Provide a name for your rule and then select the fields and values you need. For instance, "location" is "Oncology Wing" will return all of the tickets in that building. From your device, turn rules on and off as needed. The result: a personalized queue that consists of just the tickets you need now.
Trivia Question:
Question: What was the average monthly wireless (voice and data) phone bill in the US at the end of 2004?
(a) $225.09 (b) $87.63 (c) $50.64 (d) $23.38 (e) $13.94
source: Wireless Week
[answer in next month's newsletter]
Last month's question: According to a recent survey of 600 wireless decision-makers in the United States, what percentage of respondents currently use wireless data somewhere in their company?
(a) 2% (b) 15% (c) 40% (d) 72% (e) 91%
Last month's answer:
A whopping (e) 91% of wireless decision-makers said wireless data is currently used somewhere in their company. We're not sure that is the most objective audience but even if the statistic is slightly exaggerated it still sends a clear message: mobile devices aren't just for voice anymore.
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