As many of our regular readers and clients know, we constantly put ourselves through regular testing of emerging and next generation technologies. Our goal is to understand how these new technologies will work; what the real benefits of using them are; and how we as customers can deploy, integrate and support these technologies to improve our businesses.
As it happened, while we were discussing this question at one of our regular planning meetings, one of our readers sent us a note that we thought was worth sharing with all of you. Thanks to Mr. Gordon Henderson of Ottawa for his well thought out comments and guidance to fellow Canadians.
A Reader’s Thoughts on Next Generation ICT for Corporate Users
Thank you for your most recent edition. I am a dedicated reader of your report, and a strong believer that it helps us to better understand the Canadian Telecom scene.
Mr. Lawson’s take on RIM and their future tablet is interesting. I know that RIM is relying on QNX software; an Ottawa based company, to pull off a miracle and stay relevant in the business marketplace. It’s great that Canadian companies are active and innovative.
I have to point out one very key point that makes me a sceptic on RIM’s strategy: it’s all based in the future. Timing is everything right now and I’m afraid by the time RIM actually has a product available for sale, Apple’s iPad will be in its second generation. I have little doubt by the time iPad v2 is ready for sale it will have caught up to and surpassed other competitive tablets.
On a daily basis in Ottawa, I encounter business people who are already working with their MS office files, surfing the web for information, and viewing videos on their iPads. I am one of those people. Most of us have purchased the tablet as consumers, and have found it of value in our working lives.
I no longer lug around my company supplied laptop when out and about. I simply tether my iPad to my phone. My mail program syncs with our company’s exchange server in Toronto, and I can send and receive emails in a near real time environment.
PDF’s have become a pleasure to read and work with. I can flick on my iPad and in a few seconds take a client through a short power point deck. My point is the iPad has already changed the game.
I think there are some major changes happening in the office environment and that Mac OS is going to gain market share. It’s certainly not RIM’s fault but Microsoft’s fumble out of XP has encouraged the introduction of Linux into the server environment and that combined with the effect of Dell and HP’s lousy computers has created an opportunity for Apple.
I know a telecom company near Ottawa that has 15,000 VoIP lines installed across Canada that changed over their office operations to Mac and they have no regrets – their costs for IT help desk have declined, their employees love working with their Macs, and their overall IT spend has been reduced. We used to see Macs only in creative departments but that’s not the case anymore.
I have not come across a single Cius or Flare interface and I don’t have a count but there is literally hundreds of business apps already developed for the Apple mobile devices. Programmers are attracted to the developing Apple apps and every other platform save android seems to be missing the game. What is odd is that Microsoft has not developed apps for Apple. Microsoft has allowed third party firms to offer up MS integration software. The only thing I can’t do on my iPad is enter CRM info. I’m tied to my laptop (desktop) for doing that. I think it’s a matter of time for the big firms to shift development towards the Mac environment.
I have to agree with the comments of Telco and VAR support for products. It’s logical that Apple will have to ramp up to meet business demands, but as a consumer I have been consistently blown away by Apple’s customer support.
For example, one call into Apple’s toll free to report a problem I had with their voice recorder app led to a conversation with the app’s product manager in California, and follow up calls that led to problem resolution, all in the same day. If any company can match Apple’s customer support standards I have yet to encounter them. In fact Apple is the one company that emphasizes human contact yet does it through a variety of media, the web, email, chat, phone, and their stores.
First Summary
The future has already happened, and it’s a matter of time before more businesses catch on. Thanks again for your hard work and dedication to the Canadian Telecom scene.
Dueling Views and Comments
As our Chief Technology Advocate, and the person responsible for providing day to day ICT support, Stephen believes that the RIM/Playbook Combination as an excellent laptop replacement combination for SMBs like us, when combined with hosted access of our corporate applications such as email, ftp, crm, and cloud network storage.
I must admit that during my recent trip to a conference in the United States, I rarely used my laptop that I lugged down with me. I primarily relied on my new Blackberry Torch to read, view and change project files I was working on; the hosted exchange, combined with our various in-house UC applications enabled me to keep connected with my team and clients via email/Unified messaging and group calendaring. Using the readily available 3G-Wi-Fi network capabilities and built-in social media apps, I even played YouTube videos while rehearsing as part of our Battle of the Band competition.
Views as a mobile business user
As a mobile road warrior user, I lean towards the idea of the simplicity of Apple iPads and tablets where the core business apps are already pre-loaded, and you can pick and choose which niche applications you want for social/consumer purposes; and have them take little or no time to install and be easy to support.
As a business owner, I worry about the data network wireless costs forthose types of devices that have not been necessarily designed to be ‘network/bandwidth aware’, compared to the RIM products.
I am also very cognisant of the user interface and experience of some of these smaller devices for us computer intensive mobile road warriors, and the effects it has on us all as knowledge workers. This includes things like keyboard and mouse comfort, screen visibility in bright lights, battery usage, that some of these smaller devices are challenged to provide, particularly for our demographic segment.
The other area I worry about, which would also affect other Canadian medium and large organizations that are moving to the UC future, is the time, effort and skill set it takes us on a daily basis to manage and support these integrated ICT applications and vendors (11 different vendor applications integrated together, in our case).
Summary
Having worked with various VoIP/unified messaging applications for over ten years, and unified communications for the past two years, we believe that the Canadian marketplace is ideally suited to get the benefits that these next generation applications can provide for a variety of social, cultural and economic reasons. We as Canadians have a culture of collaboration and working together. These next-generations solutions enable us to work together across distance, time and place as long as we have reliable, cost-effective access to high speed broadband networks.
We just have to get the various network, telecom and IT industry players to work together with us as customers, disregarding the size, location or type of business to enable us to deploy and manage these types of solutions, and of course…stay sane!
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback. Feel free to contact us at Editor@FOXGROUPMedia.com or 905.473.3369 x 1001.