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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
15. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 3, 2007 12:54 PM
in response to: DomainDiva
Wow, that is impressive actually.
Thanks for the information Diva.
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Click to view jmarley's profile Start-up jmarley 1 posts since
Nov 27, 2007
16. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 3, 2007 3:03 PM
in response to: Bluesuit
Hello All:

I have purchased an iPhone and use the device to keep informed with the CRM, Billing, Web Site Administration and email communications of my small business. In fact, I am replying to this post at an airport terminal (JAX). I believe this device is what you make of it. For example, my company email is Synced with my phone so when I choose to view email it is available. This allows me to stay in the loop with the most important people, issues and clients. This is priceless and adds value to my client relationship.

In relation to real business functions and processes, most of our CRM and Billing systems are web based applications. One of the strongest features of the iPhone is the Internet browsing capabilities. We use Open Source Applications for CRM (Sugar CRM). This basically enables me to access mission critical information and services virtually anywhere. The more I use this device the more features I discover. For example, a client of ours produces political news online (www.politicalcount.com) and needed a form reviewed within a deadline. However, I was traveling and did not have access to a computer that can open and view a .PDF file. I told the client to email me the request and to attach the file and I would try to reveiw and respond as close to the deadline as possible. Guess what, not only did I receive the file on my iPhone, but the satisfaction of pleasing a customer and meeting their deadline was pricless and magical.

Although, I have found uses in my daily business life, the iPhone has short comings. For example, Safari on the iPhone has no flash plugin. This was hard to explain to my two year old son, as I was trying to log on to Build a Bear web site and trying to see if they had the Elmo bear to build... Now, that was priceless... Thank goodness he settled for Big Bird, LOL.

I hope my experiences have introduced some perspective into one of the most innovative devices I have ever owned.

Sincerely,

Jason Marley MBA/ TM
www.NetUnification.com
Discover Your Potential
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Click to view websignia.net's profile Professional websignia.net 14 posts since
Nov 25, 2007
17. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 3, 2007 4:02 PM
in response to: Bluesuit
I have purchased the iPhone to replace my Palm Treo 650 and it is no replacement. The iPhone has great features for personal use and some that can be used for general business, however I would not recommend this version. Maybe in the future Apple will release a new and improved version but until then, here are my thoughts.

Pro's:
+ Great sleek and sexy user interface on all of the apps
+ Safari Browser, Google Maps, Weather and other nifty widgets
+ Visual Voicemail - one of the most useful functions on the entire device. ie. you can see a list of voicemail similar to an email inbox and choose which one to read, see who its from, etc., just like email. COOL!
+ I am generally found with an IPOD on my ears, so to not have to take my earbuds out to answer a call is another plus.
+ the relationship between the internal apps, ie. taking a picture, assigning it to a contact, emailing it to a friend, very easy

Con's
  • #1 is the exclusivity of the inferior service of AT&T. I get more dropped calls now than when I was on SPRINT
  • The single touch is great in theory, however there are certain times where I want to apply a single action to multiple items ie. deleting a batch of emails and find myself deleting them 1 by 1. I'm sure there is a way and I just havent develed deep into into the manual.
  • The quality of the camera is inferior (bad zoom, grainy in low light) as well as my Treo had a video camera. The phone has You Tube, an ipod to view videos but no video camera. that would be logical to allow video capture to upload to youtube and watch on your iPod.
  • There isnt a good pool of official Apple after market applications. There are some developers creating apps but its not on the level I expected. I'm looking for a good Instant Messenger app for the iPhone, if anyone has found one, please advise. The Treo had VeriChat which was very cool.
  • There is no Microsoft Word or Excel or even Adobe Acrobat apps like the Treo.
  • Lastly, I have a 30 Gig IPOD but the iPhone only stores 8 gigs of my stored media?

I could go on and on, but you get the point.
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Click to view BDS INC's profile Founders BDS INC 131 posts since
Jul 20, 2007
18. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 4, 2007 8:55 AM
in response to: Bluesuit
I have an I-phone and while it takes a little time to get use to the Touch Screen, the phone is great. I really use it as my personal phone, as my business for is the notorious Blackberry. I have the new curve and that is a great phone!
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
19. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 4, 2007 2:35 PM
in response to: BDS INC
Has anybody tried the Blackberry World?
I am interested in that phone and may purchase it.
Right now I am using my Samsung Blackjack and love the Win Mobile system.
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Click to view NetworkGuru's profile Founders NetworkGuru 25 posts since
Aug 6, 2007
20. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 11, 2007 10:31 AM
in response to: CorpCons08
When looking at the different phone options, I would recommend you make a list of what features are important to you. Each has their own pro's and cons.

A Windows Mobile based phone is great for people that would like to view and edit Office Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. Also, these types of phones include a Outlook Mobile for emails, which most people are very fimilar with. Connecting a Windows Mobile phone to Hotmail, GMail and your Exchange Server, if you have one, is fairly painless. AT&T has a great new phone out called the Tilt. The Tilt has alot of memory to run applications, Windows Media Player for music and a 3MB camera. Verizon has a similar phone called the XV6800, though it has less memory and only a 2MB camera.

The IPhone is a personal device that I do not recommend for business. It main design is for music, video and surfing the Internet. My wife has one, and though it's Internet capabilities are nice, it's extremely hard to type with.

Lastly, the Blackberry. Blackberry's are decent phones, but are limited in capabilities. In order to connect to your Exchange server for emails, you must install a Blackberry application on the server or your PC, which must be running all the time. If you install it on your server, and have more than 15 people in your company that wants to use it, you will be forced to purchase the Blackberry Server software which runs in the $10K range (25 users). You'll also need someone knowledgeable with the software as it can get very complex at times. But, with that said, the newer Blackberry has one of the best email capabilities to date. Want to edit Office documents... $$$.

To wrap up, I like Windows Mobile based phones as it gives me everything I need to run my business including Internet access, instant email notification through my Exchange 2007 server, access to Office docments which I can edit and send back to my clients in the field, and a decent music player which I can sync with my Windows Vista and XP PC's. Now think about what is important to you.
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Click to view CorpCons08's profile Mogul CorpCons08 1,128 posts since
Nov 14, 2007
21. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 11, 2007 3:38 PM
in response to: NetworkGuru
Thanks for the information. I guess I am glad that I went with Windows Mobile® then. :)
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Click to view CARPAYDIEM's profile Authority CARPAYDIEM 16 posts since
Dec 19, 2007
22. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Dec 19, 2007 3:40 AM
in response to: Bluesuit
I use my iphone for Business and I love it, I nolonger have to lug around my laptop I think it is perfect for Business it fits my life style like a glove.
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Click to view akgold's profile Founders akgold 51 posts since
Jul 19, 2007
23. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Apr 16, 2008 7:26 PM
in response to: NetworkGuru
It's nice to have a full range of technological options. These devises are pretty amazing and I think they are putting America back on top in regards to handheld devices. America was behind the rest of the world - Japan, Europe & Israel - for cell phone technology in the late 90's and early 2000's. I thought my Treo 700 was pretty good. I prefer the interface and interfacing with my MacBookPro of my iPhone.

I agree with Network Guru - make a list of what you need and then evaluate each of the solutions. You can check them out in stores everywhere.

I remember in 1995 when I bought a new Macintosh 7100. It had a 500 megabyte hard drive which I could not imagine filling up and I thought that the 17inch Sony monitor was incredible. Thank goodness for progress.
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Click to view intechspecial's profile Mogul intechspecial 1,457 posts since
Jan 6, 2008
24. Re: anyone try an iPhone or iTouch for your business? Apr 20, 2008 6:21 PM
in response to: Bluesuit
How about insuring that your website is compatible iPhone or iTouch?

I think you might want to look into making sure your website is Handicap Accessible as well.

What if I told you there is a way to do both.....by making your website Handicap Accessible, you are insuring it is accessible across portable internet devices as well.

The Website Accessibility Initiative sets the standards to make this possible.

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