Here’s Why Companies Actually Want BYOD

By: John Shepler

Do you wince when someone brings up the topic of BYOD or Bring Your Own Device? It can be more than an ulcer producer for IT managers. The whole company’s intellectual property can be put at risk by employees blissfully aware of the threats. They bring in what they want and connect it to the company network. Your carefully planned security protocols go out the window. What to do?

Most companies have drawn a clear line between what belongs to the company and what belongs to the individual. Unable to manage the wild and wooly world of consumer electronics configurations, they simply lay down the law and say you can’t use your personal phone, laptop or tablet for company business. But since you clearly need technology to do your job, something has to give. In frustration, the company issues you a corporate smartphone, laptop or tablet that are only used for business. Does that put the issue to rest?

Oh, not really. Smaller companies can’t afford to pony up the capital to hand out gadgets to everyone who needs or wants them. They may simply wince and take their chances that nothing will go horribly wrong. Larger operations install firewalls and other means to protect key information and hope they will be a bulwark against data going out and intruders coming in. Meanwhile, employees continue to casually use their own equipment, both inside and outside the company, for business activities.

Why? Partly because it’s more convenient. Also because everybody likes what they’ve customized for their own use. They don’t want to be carrying two copies of everything and switching back and forth. They don’t want to have to mentally jog between different hardware and different operating systems. It’s just not human nature.

Is there anyway to bridge this gulf and make everybody happy? One answer may be found in the new XO WorkTime service. It’s a cloud based UC (Unified Communications) application that integrates your company’s communications systems with employee smartphones and laptops. In effect, the personal devices become access devices to the same resources provided within the corporate walls.

So, here’s why you actually want BYOD… as long as you keep it under your control with an app like XO WorkTime. The first big advantage is capital investment. Why should you as a company manager spend thousands or millions of dollars to build and manage a pool of equipment when your employees will do that for you at their expense. You don’t have to buy them a smartphone because they’ve already bought their own iPhone or Android smartphone.

The next big advantage is happier employees. You’re no longer on their case about turning off their personal gadgets inside the company. Less nagging, less spying, less scolding and everybody’s in a better mood. It gets even better when employees realize that they have their desk phones on their personal phones. They can roam at will and be connected with other employees and customers effortlessly.

Here’s how this works. Your company needs to be using XO’s VoIP service internally. These include IP Flex, IP Flex with VPN, SIP, Enterprise SIP and Hosted PBX services. You simply install the XO WorkTime application on every device that needs it. At that point employee devices have a dual personality. They are work phones and they are personal phones.

The personal side remains unchanged. Personal apps and information are the same as they were. They also remain outside of the company side of the WorkTime app. What happens on the personal side stays on the personal side.

What happens on the business side also stays on the business side. You can safely transport business communications using encryption and VPN tunneling. Your company applications stay in a secure, password protected environment.

Employees have their business calling plan and office number while they are in WorkTime mode. They’ll use the same calling features they use in the office from the WorkTime applications while on the go. That includes features such as simultaneous ring on desk, smartphone or home computer plus presence, IM and video. On-net, local and inbound calls are free. Long distance calls are included in the company plan and don’t count against your personal minutes.

Are you frustrated with the cost and security problems related to enabling mobile business communications? Get expert consulting to learn more about how XO WorkTime and other sophisticated hosted VoIP services can work to your advantage.

What To Do With Old Cell Phones and Electronics

You’ve just upgraded to the new Android smartphone or iPhone of your dreams. Yet, that trusty smartphone that just came off contract is still hanging around. It would work fine if it had a service plan, which it does not. You don’t need it. You don’t want it any more. You wish it would just leave. But it won’t. It has nowhere else to go.

So, you keep it around and the years go by. Eventually, you open a drawer and there it is. In your surprise you just want to exclaim, “Are you still here?”

Oh, you hurt its feelings. Well, you would have if it had feelings. It’s just a chunk of inert technology now. The battery is long dead and gone. No point in trying to recharge it. This model is too old to do much of anything even if it had power. What a shame. When you think that this marvel of electronics was once worth hundreds of dollars, you start to wonder, “Could I have sold it and at least gotten some cash?”

Oh, you could have done better than that. You might have pocketed a nice crisp Benjamin if you’d spent 10 or 15 minutes online right after you made the upgrade between phones. Yep, $100 or maybe even more for a few minutes work. But noooooo. You couldn’t be bothered even trying to sell your late model working cell phone. It just seemed like too much trouble to figure out how to do it and probably a lot of grief trying to make the sale.

Well, here’s some good news for next time. There are companies that recycle old cell phones and electronics that are chafing at the bit to make you a competitive offer for your smartphone. No nonsense with trying to run an auction. No waiting for people to show up at your door and wasting your time just looking. This is all done online with no muss, no fuss, no grief.

Here’s how it works. You simply find the make and model of your device using the search box and the aptly named “Get Paid!” button. You’ll then have to check a few buttons for questions like working or not working, screen damage, water damage, broken parts, condition from like new to heavy wear, and which accessories you still have. Even if you are a little groggy this should take no more than 5 or 10 minutes. Then click the “Find Top Cash Offers” button.

You are likely to get multiple offers, because this particular operation is an aggregator for recyclers who actually make the offers and buy your phone. The advantage of using this service is that you don’t have to hunt down multiple buyers and get offers from each individually. That can take hours or more. You know those travel sites that give you multiple airline flights or hotel deals? It works something like that. It’s one stop shopping to get cash offers for your cell phone and other electronics.

Did you notice the question about screen damage? It’s not a disqualifier. Companies really will buy a cell phone with a cracked screen. So, if you have water damage, cracked screen, broken parts, or lots of apparent wear and tear on your phone, give it a try anyway. You might be surprised by how much money you can get for that piece of.... well... that unfortunate mobile device.

Say you get 5 offers for your phone from five different buyers. You can just pick the highest price immediately and click the “Get Paid” button. Or, you can choose to read the reviews about the companies you have in mind before you commit. Either way, once you’ve accepted the offer you are done for the night.

What happens next is that you’ll get a pre-paid shipping label or even a pre-paid shipping box delivered to your door. Either way, you will not have to pay to send in your device. The buyer takes care of that. Now take a few minutes and pack it up. Then drop it at the shipper next time you go out. Your work, my friend, is done.

When your equipment arrives at the buyer’s site, it will be unpacked, inspected and tested. As long as it agrees with what you described, the offer holds and you’ll get paid what you agreed to. You can have them mail a check or save the paper and get a deposit into your PayPal account. Your choice. Either way, you’ll be richer in a couple of weeks or so.

Here’s some even better news. This service also works for tablets, e-readers, game consoles, MP3 players and digital cameras as well as a wide variety of feature phones and smartphones. As you might suspect, the more valuable your device was originally and the sooner you get an offer, the more you’ll be paid. Obviously, if it’s too old there isn’t any value left. But don’t jump to the conclusion that you have nothing worth money. Gather up your items and spend some fun time online getting offers for your old cell phones and electronics right now.

Free 6-Way Desktop and Mobile Video Calls

We’ve all been on conference calls at one time or another. They’re a good way to have a discussion when the people you want in the conference can’t all come to the same place at the same time. This is audio conferencing using telephones. These days, it’s pretty much old school.

What’s better? How about video conferencing? OK, I know that when you hear video conferencing you think of big corporate meeting rooms with formal presentations. That’s how video conferencing got started, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

The big impediment to date for anything more informal has been the high cost of video equipment and connections. No more. Now that most desktop computers, smartphones, laptops and tablets have video cameras built-in, there’s no reason you can’t have video conferences anytime you want them and on the cheap.

How cheap? How’s free sound? You say that you already do that with one on one video calls using Skype or Apple’s iChat? Oh, but can you set up a group video chat with up to 6 people on any combination of PCs, Macs, iPhones, Android smartphones and various tablets? You can now.

What’s an ooVoo? It’s a cross-platform instant messaging client that supports voice and video chat with HD or regular quality video and desktop sharing. Non-ooVoo users can be invited into the call through Web video chat. Video messages up to a minute long can be recorded and sent to other users or shared on YouTube. Large files up to 5 MB can be shared securely. Go ahead and set up a web chat room for free.

Free? Yes, the basic ooVoo service is free to download and use to your heart’s content. It’s ad supported to keep the company in business. If you want to get rid of those ads and get access to more features, there are paid versions available for both personal and business users.

What sort of extra features? On the paid plan, video calls go from 6 way to 12 way. You can send larger files up to 25 MB, record and save your video calls, record and save audio conferencing calls, store and protect recorded video calls, share your desktop and add phone participants to your video calls. Phone minutes are included with the paid plan, but not with the free version. You also get security settings and live support with the paid service.

How about ooVoo for business? Licenses are available for 1 to 10 users and above, with cost getting lower as volume goes up. There are no ads, of course, and you can include both video and audio participants. As an integrated collaboration solution, ooVoo offers a combination of instant messaging, video calls, phone calls, desktop sharing and file sharing in one application.

FREE HTC Wildfire S White For The Holidays

The HTC Wildfire S for T-Mobile is a vision in white. This hot new Android smartphone is in-demand for holiday gift giving, even if you are both the gift giver and receiver. Get it for free and you can almost guarantee your holidays will be bright.

What makes the Wildfire S so desirable? Perhaps it’s the people-centric nature of this clever little smartphone. It organizes your calls and messages by people, not applications. Multi-window browsing let’s you do everything at once. The Wildfire S is also one of the most compact smartphones you can get. If you want something approaching tablet size that will stretch out your shirt pocket, this is not your phone. However, if you’d much prefer a device that fits in your palm and measures a scant 4.1 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches, this could be your phone.

You won’t have to give up smartphone functionality just to get an easier to carry cellphone. The HTC Wildfire S White features a 3.2 inch full touch screen with pinch and zoom capability. You’ll navigate through email, text and instant messages quickly and easily with Swype. You’ll compose messages faster with Swype, too. Just slide your finger over the letters that make up the word you want to spell. Compare that to hunt-'n-peck.

You have one-touch access to Google applications like Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar and Google. That’s an advantage of having an Android powered smartphone. This one runs Google’s Android OS 2.3 with HTC Sense. The internal processor runs at 600 MHz with 512 MB of built-in memory and expandable memory capacity up to 32 GB. You’ll get a 2 GB microSD Card included to get you started.

How about the digital camera? You need something to capture those images when opportunity strikes. It would be even better if your cell phone camera was good enough to leave the old bulky point-and-shoot at home. With the HTC Wildfire S, you get a 5 Megapixel digital camera with flash and auto focus. It has 3x digital zoom to let you fill the frame with your subject. Like many dedicated cameras, this one lets you adjust the capture mode from automatic to sunny, cloudy and more. Would you prefer a camcorder? No problem. Just switch to video capture mode and you’ve got that camcorder in your phone.

What to do with those pictures and videos? You can watch them in excellent full color on your touch screen, of course. But you can also easily send them to friends and family via multimedia messaging. While waiting for the family to oooh and aaah, post them for the world to enjoy on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr from wherever you are.

What else will this little beauty do? It has integrated GPS to support turn by turn Navigation from Google Maps. This also means that you can geo-tag your photos. There’s a built-in MP3 player that supports just about any music format you’ll need. Go ahead and load up your music collection so you’ll have it on the go. While you’re at it, visit the Android Market and stock up on apps, widgets, games and ringtones.

Here’s something special. There’s even an FM radio built-in. You’ll need special headphones sold separately to listen to your favorite radio stations, but unlike Internet radio stations, you won’t be burning cellular minutes while you enjoy the over the air FM radio.

Your broadband connectivity is via 3G wireless for zippy download and streaming multi-media. While in range of a WiFi hotspot, use that instead of your cellular data allotment. You can also be the WiFi hotspot to provide your laptop computer or other WiFi device with Internet access when there is no other hotspot nearby.

It’s Android, it’s got performance features, it’s compact and, best of all, it’s free. This phone is widely touted as an entry-level Android smartphone, but once you get it you may decide that this one does everything you’ll ever need. Give it to yourself this year or give it to someone you love, perhaps on a shared minutes family plan. Learn more and get your HTC Wildfire S White for T-Mobile Android smartphone for free, while they last. Other smartphones are also available free or at deep discounts.

HTC ThunderBolt Screams On LTE

Get your hands on this Android smartphone and it will hit you like lightning. This is the future of mobile connectivity. The HTC ThunderBolt doesn’t just run on Verizon’s LTE network. It screams.

Not so long ago you could turn a colleague’s eyes green with envy by showing off your cutting edge smartphone with amazingly fast 3G broadband. Remember those days? You couldn’t possibly be that young! It was only a few years ago. That’s how fast things have been moving in the world of mobile devices.

When 3G entered the marketplace it really did seem fast. Well, fast in the way that 56K modems seemed amazingly fast when you remembered poking along at 300 baud. There are all sorts of speeds quoted for 3G and 4G transmission, but let’s say that 3G comes in at about 1 Mbps and 4G takes that up to 10 Mbps. You know that you may get more than that or a mere fraction depending on how strong your signal is and how congested the tower is that you are connected to.

When they say that 4G is an order of magnitude times the speed of 3G, they're not kidding. All that extra speed lets you download apps faster and enjoy video experiences that might not be up to it with lower bandwidth. Also like all technology advancements, there seem to be two competitors trying to claim the market.

First out of the gate was WiMAX technology deployed by Sprint and Clearwire as CLEAR. You’ll find CLEAR capability on Sprint Android smartphones. So fast is this technology and so powerful is the signal that CLEAR is selling wireless service for both desktop and mobile applications. You still have a broadband modem on your desktop. There just aren’t any phone or cable wires running to it.

T-Mobile and Verizon have shunned WiMAX in favor of a competing technology called LTE. AT&T is also planning to deploy LTE and not WiMAX. Some pundits are predicting that LTE will be the universal standard in a few years, but WiMAX is also a worldwide standard and may be more resilient than anyone expects.

Is this the end of the line as far as speed enhancements are concerned? Not hardly. Both WiMAX and LTE are upgrading their standards to offer peak rates of at least 1 Gbps for fixed operation and 100 Mbps in mobile use. Nobody’s talking 5G yet, but those speeds suggest the order of magnitude increase that justifies a new descriptor.

The ThunderBolt itself is a 4.3 inch full touch screen (800 x480 pixels) smartphone running Android 2.2 OS with HTC Sense 2.0. It uses the Snapdragon 1 GHZ processor with 8 GB of built-in memory that’s expandable up to 32 GB via plug-in microSD card. You have enough horsepower onboard to act as a WiFi hotspot for up to 8 other devices. You also have excellent photographic capability with an 8 Megapixel 2x LED flash camera that takes HD videos plus a 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera for video chatting.

Do you live in one of the 39 initial cities where Verizon LTE has been deployed or the 150 markets where it should be installed by the end of 2011? If so, you may have a hard time resisting the urge to move up 5x to 10x the download speed of your once-amazing 3G smartphone. If so, learn more and order your HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon Wireless Service and get a tremendous discount off the suggested retail price.

Pink Android Intercept Means Business

Remember the movie “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald? Gotta love the '80's. Anyway, the same title might be applied to the Samsung Intercept in its stunning satin pink case. This is not just a pretty phone, its a pretty hot business machine.

The pink Android's beauty starts with a large three inch touch screen display that gives you access to all your apps. There are thousands available through the Android Market. But unlike lesser touchscreen phones, this one also sports a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard for high speed email, instant messaging and texting to family, friends and colleagues. The email client is equipped to handle Microsoft Direct Push as well as mobile email like Gmail and Yahoo! You’ll be able to view document attachments in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to take care of business.

Yes, you have full access to the Internet. The browser is a full HTML Web browser. You’ll be connected at 3G speeds wherever possible through the Sprint 3G network. If you want more download speed or just want to save your 3G Mbytes for on-the-go usage, you also have WiFi capability.

The Intercept is a multimedia phone that lest you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll always have a high resolution digital camera with you. The included camera offers 3.2 Megapixel pictures good enough to print as well as send. It also works as a camcorder for capturing video at a moment’s notice. Catch the latest news, sports, weather and entertainment with Sprint TV. You can even control your home’s FrontPoint security system.

Will you be sociable using this phone? Yes, you will. Access to Facebook is built-in, as well as access to Twitter. With the real buttons on that full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, you’ll find it effortless to keep up with your social networks. Of course, you can always use the voice network, a.k.a. telephone, when you want to communicate old school.

Speaking of telephone, the Intercept allows you to “intercept” your voicemail using Visual Voicemail. Listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without actually calling in.

Another nice feature is integrated GPS that provides support for location-based services like Google Maps. There’s no excuse now for getting “lost” at lunch time and coming back late. Oh, well.

Have you been looking for a high performance smartphone that also has a flair for fashion? This may be the Android phone that you’ve been wanting. If so, you can get it FREE for a limited time when you order online with new service. Learn more and get your Samsung Intercept Satin Pink for Sprint right now.

Of course, there are many other free and low cost smartphone and cell phone models available to you. Visit Cell Phone Plans Finder and check out today’s cell phone specials.

Samsung Intercept Brings Free Android Smartphone to Sprint

There’s a new design that’s becoming a standard in the smartphone market. It’s the combination of a 3 inch touch screen display with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and the Android operating system. Sprint gets this package in the Samsung Intercept. Would you like to intercept one online? What if you knew it was available free? Would that make a difference?

It’s truly amazing that you can get a phone with these capabilities free of charge when you order it online with new Sprint PCS service. Even the shipping is free. You don’t pay a premium for the service, either. The plans are priced the same as they are in stores.

Here are some of the highlights that emphasize what a deal the Samsung Intercept M910 really is. It starts with the large 3 inch touch screen display. This gives you the ability to select from a wealth of Android apps and run your application on a space large enough to make it usable and enjoyable. You’ll enjoy streaming multimedia on the go. Watch live TV and video on demand with full motion video and vivid sound.

What kind of connectivity can you expect to make that streaming video a pleasant experience? You’ll connect at 3G data speeds where available on the Sprint PCS network. You also have the option of connecting to wireless hotspot networks with the WiFi connectivity in this phone. No all smartphones give you WiFi connectivity, so be sure to look for it if you want to use this capability.

Messaging is obviously a high point of this design. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard lets you enter your messages efficiently by pressing actual physical keys and getting that tactile feedback you don’t enjoy when tapping your fingers on glass. In addition to standard text messaging, you can send and receive picture and video messages with multimedia messaging. The built-in camera offers 3.2 Megapixels to give you photos good enough to print as well as share via messaging. You can also capture video with this camera.

Other features of note for the Samsung Intercept include integrated GPS support for location-based services like Google Maps. Bluetooth for hands free conversation is included, as well as stereo Bluetooth so you can stream to your music to A2DP compatible devices, like wireless stereo headphones. Visual voicemail is a new feature. You can listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without calling-in.

The Intercept is a great work phone as well as a personal cellphone. It supports viewing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents that come in as email attachments. The included Web browser offers full HTML capability. Email capability includes Microsoft Direct Push as well as mobile email like Gmail and Yahoo!

Does this make your current cell phone seem like something from a generation ago? You needn’t suffer with inadequate functionality when you can get a high performance Android smartphone like this for free. Note: This phone is also available in a satin pink finish. Learn more and get your Samsung Intercept for Sprint or other high performance smartphone. There are many models available and most are free or offered at a tremendous discount through Cell Phone Plans Finder.