Monday, March 18th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
This Thursday, iPass is pleased to participate at: 2013: The Year to Define Your Mobile IT Strategy
Hosted by Esselar, our partner, the live event will help organizations become proactive, not reactive, in their BYOD and Mobile Device Management policies. The full agenda, networking lunch and panel discussion, provides many opportunities to answer your questions about your mobile enterprise strategy.
Attendees have already posted questions to be addressed at the event:
- We need to provide access to company systems, but we don’t want to restrict personal usage, or manage devices. How can we achieve this securely?
- How do financial services companies manage the device liability to ensure data is secure but also the Total Cost for Ownership for devices is fully understood?
- What are the major pitfalls?
- Where do you see the challenges in mobile enabling back end applications
- Will it be the case that any device can be accommodated?
- And many more…
The agenda includes key players in this space to address this challenge head-on. Join us for presentations from:
- Nicholas McQuire, VP, Mobile Enterprise Strategies Research, IDC: Strategic Mobile Enablement: Perspectives on the Next Phase of Enterprise Mobility
- Richard Neale, CTO, Esselar: Time to Stop Reacting, 2013 is Your Year to Get Proactive with Mobile IT
- Ray Smith, Regional Director – UK & Ireland, iPass: The Largest Global Wi-Fi Network for Smart Devices
- Phil Keeley, Senior Systems Engineer, Aerohive: Secure Wireless & Layer 7 Visibility
- Orlando Scott-Cowley, Director of Product Marketing, Mimecast: Mobile IT Has Broken Users’ Email and Fragmented Your Data. The Solution is the Cloud
- Jason Hart, VP, Cloud Solutions, SafeNet: Hacking the Virtual world
- Alistair Mutch, Director, UK Eire, MobileIron: Apps, Apps Everywhere – Now’s the Time to Think
- Eldar Tuvey, CEO, Wandera: Managing Mobile Data: The Missing Piece of the Mobility Puzzle
If you can’t make the event, you can follow the hashtag, #esselarworkplace, or watch for our follow-up blog on some of the key topics, takeaways and Q&A.
Register today.
Mobile IT Strategy event in London >>
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
The adage “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” doesn’t apply when it comes to mobile apps. There are thousands of productivity apps for business travelers. How can anyone find that better mousetrap in the overwhelming pile of options? That’s why our team came up with 10 essential apps that will make your traveling employees happier and more efficient. Your iPass solution provides the essential connectivity for all of these apps. And, if you have a mobile device management (MDM) solution in place, you can easily distribute and manage them.
Here’s the list of 10 that we just featured in our user newsletter.
1) iPass Hotspot Finder – Lets you easily find Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere, including the more than 1.2 million iPass Mobile Network hotspots in 113 countries where your users can use iPass to connect. Features include Geotracking directions, and ratings of hotspots, among other mobility tools.
2) Here on Biz – Networking on steroids! It locates, identifies, and alerts you to any nearby LinkedIn users, and provides a secure, real-time chat client. A great app for networking at conferences.
3) Evernote – A personal assistant in your pocket. It stores and lets you search photos, memos, video, typed notes, and almost anything else you want to capture to work on or review later. A built in OCR even lets you capture and search handwritten notes.
4) Dragon Dictation – Talk, don’t type. This voice recognition application lets you speak and instantly see your text or email messages. You can dictate tweets, IMs, emails, and notes.
5) Expensify – Eases the pain of expense reporting by tracking expenses and filing expense reports right from your mobile device. It uses the camera to scan receipts to capture the date and amount. It also tracks mileage and imports expenses from other sources.
6) OfficeDrop – A scanner in your hand. It converts captured images and saves them as text-searchable PDFs that can be easily shared with coworkers.
7) RingMindMe – The “Doh!” killer app. How many times have you turned off your ringer for a meeting, forgot to turn it back on, and missed important calls? RingMindMe will alert you at a set time to turn your ringer back on, so you will never again miss a call.
8) CrowdCall – Conference calls made easy. It lets you launch conference calls simply by selecting members from your contact list and pressing “Call.” No PINs, no dial-in numbers.
9) EasySign Mobile – Electronically sign documents. You won’t have to print out a form, sign it, and scan it back in. Just use your touchscreen to write your signature, size it, and place it electronically in any document.
10) Hootsuite – The social media app for social media. It manages all your social interactions from one interface, and offers a wide variety of features to manage your schedule, and track clients and contacts.
Here are a few more:
- HotelTonight – Only released this year, the app has moved from the US and now covers some cities in Europe as well. You can book hotels, up to 70%, very last minute.
- <a href=”http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/play/appy-traveler-373984″ target=”_blank”>Splid – A photo and audio app, that does not allow files to be edited or changed in any way. You can record terrible travel experiences and have backup proof – photos with times and dates.
- Xe Currency – Not just an accurate currency conversion app, but it provides the historic rates for the currency and can be used offline. Nice for when returning to the office after a long trip.
These are just ten among those millions of better mousetraps out there. Do you have any great apps that help your users ben extra productive?
Any others that you would like to share?
10 Essential Mobile Apps for Business Travel (plus 3) >>
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
There’s still time! To participate in our survey regarding international data roaming.
Here are some early results about international Wi-Fi roaming services: how valuable they might be and how they might change data usage.
Chart 1: The majority (over 60%) view International Wi-Fi Roaming as valuable.
Chart 2: Even while subscribed to an International 3G Data plan, consumers still opt for Wi-Fi as the first choice where it becomes available.
Please provide your input to our survey and you will be entered to win a new iPad.
Early results on international Wi-Fi roaming survey >>
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
There’s still time to participate on our survey regarding international data roaming. If you travel to another country and try to connect with your smartphone, tablet or other mobile device, let us know your thoughts. You will be entered in for a chance to win a new iPad.
In looking at the current survey results, I see that:
- 32% of survey respondents have an eReader (and if you have an eReader, 86% of you have at least one tablet too!)
- 48% have a tablet that is Wi-Fi only but 53% of respondents have access to 3G/4G
- 80% find that their highest spend on Wi-Fi is at their hotel with a pretty even distribution over all our survey price levels.
- However, that means that 59% are paying $30/€24/£19 or more.
There’s still time to give us survey feedback on your international Wi-Fi and data roaming options and fees.
Sneak peek on Wi-Fi and data roaming costs survey >>
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Just in Rio for Carnival? Heading there for business? Rio has always been happening, but now there’s more Wi-Fi for iPass users to keep you connected.
Here are a few Wi-Fi hotspots:
Hotel Marina Palace
A beautiful hotel with the added bonus of a roof top pool opposite the beach.
Cafe do Bom Cachaça da Boa
A bistro and bar, within stone wall and high ceilings with food, coffee, craft beers, and over 100 labels of cachaças. During happy hour, the café offers “tarecos”: toast made with cheese bread with Parmesan cheese on top; an invention of the owner and barista, Yansel Galindo.
Piano Bar Santo Graal in the Hotel Merlin Copacabana
Sofitel Rio De Janeiro
The hotel is located in Copacabana, one of the most charming neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro and beside Ipanema, a neighborhood with countless attractions and the historic home of Bossa Nova.
Barra Shopping
You can connect while shopping at 577 stores. You will likely need a break at some point.
For more hotspots in Rio de Janeiro, check out our Hotspot Finder (or our smartphone/tablet version).
To try iPass for 24 hours free, or see if your company offers iPass, sign up for our trial.
Wi-Fi access growing in Rio de Janeiro >>
