Mobile Computing

You'll learn pretty quickly that I'm a gadget guy, and a bit of a geek. Things like the upcoming Chrome OS netbooks, Apple tablet, and the new LG Projector Phone (shown here) have confirmed for me that 2010 will likely see a revolution in the world of mobile computing. I'm also firmly convinced that mobile computing presents small and medium business owners with a tremendous opportunity to leverage technology for a competitive advantage. If your business has a well-defined strategy for utilizing mobile computing technologies, and your competitor does not, you win. So what can mobile computing technologies do for a business? Here are a few examples.

• Netbooks are a great option for enabling a mobile workforce IF they fit with your existing IT infrastructure and roadmap. They're ultra-light, ultra-cheap, and pre-wired for mobile broadband access. They're not as powerful as regular laptops though, and they pose unique security concerns, so they're not for everyone
• Smartphones, including the iPhone, are also powerful tools for remote/mobile workers. Google's Android phone OS is brand new and it already has 20,000 applications, many of which are free. It reaches a broader audience than the iPhone and is already used by 5 times the number of devices, so I'd expect that in the coming years the Android store will pass the iPhone store in total number of apps.
  
• Cloud computing options such as Amazon web services, Google Docs and Salesforce.com (hosted Customer Relationship Management or CRM) allow businesses to get the maximum value for their IT dollar by leveraging infrastructure provided by a 3rd party. Why own the hardware or even the software when all you need is the functionality and the data? Again, not perfect for all businesses, so do your homework.
  

I'm not even going to begin to attempt to discuss all the possibilities for reaching out to new or existing customers using mobile computing technologies. We'll save that for another day.