When it comes to communication there are a few tools no business owner can go without: a computer, an in-house phone system and according to a new study—a smartphone.
A study done by RingCentral, examined the smartphone use among their small to medium-sized business customers in the US. They found that “79% of respondents use their smartphones to conduct most business calls, versus an office phone or home phone.”
If you take a look back in history you can trace back the smartphone to 1993 (referred to as Simon)—but it wasn’t until 2000 when the Sony Ericsson R380 was released that anyone in the phone industry used the term “smartphone.”
Ten to seventeen years later (however you look at it) smartphones have evolved into most peoples’ everyday lives. It doesn’t matter what type of business phone system your company has in place, chances are most employees also use their smartphone while on the go.
If you haven’t taken advantage, or need some new ideas, below are some great apps for businesses:
Fuze Meeting for BlackBerry and iPhone
This app turns your
BlackBerry into a videoconferencing device on the go. You will be able to access:
- Instant web conferences – Start, host, and attend audio and web conferences with full dashboard controls from our new and improved interface.
- Live desktop sharing – see files and presentations in perfect sync with the meeting presenter
- HD-quality content – view crisp, detail-rich video and imagery. Now with expanded supported media including Word, PPT, PDF, and others.
- Universal Contacts – Start meetings immediately with access to your address and personal IM contacts from multiple networks like Microsoft OCS [beta], Gmail, LinkedIn. Yahoo!®, AIM®, MSN®, and more.
This app is free, with the option to upgrade to higher-level packages.
Timewerks for iPhone
This application has a “built-in
stopwatch” that helps you capture any time spend on a project and allows
you to send your client an invoice. The price tag for this app is
$9.99
LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone
LogMeIn will display your computer desktop on your iPhone allowing you to check any Outlook messages as well as read Word docs. The app cost $29.95.
Microsoft Office Mobile for any Windows OS phone
If you couldn’t guess, this app will allow you to access all Microsoft Office documents on your Windows OS phone. The cost for this app is $49.95
There are many other applications you can take advantage of as a business owner. Take the time to see if smart phones can aid you in running your business and help keep you connected while on the go.