BoxTone Blog — News and Commentary for the Mobile Enterprise Professional

BlackBerry BES for Domino Upgrade Recommended

June 17th, 2009

Quick note for all Domino BES Admins. Last week RIM introduced Maintenance Release 6 for BES for Domino 4.1.6. For those customers with more than a single BES, BoxTone recommends installing this MR, especially if you had previously installed MR5. The MR fixes a major administration issue introduced by MR5 whereas you would be unable to move user accounts to another 4.1.x or 5.x BES.

View the Release Notes
Download the Software

And of course BoxTone supports this latest release.

Gregg Ginsberg, BoxTone Enterprise Engineer
Certified Lotus Professional, BlackBerry Certified System Administrator

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Tags: Add new tag, BlackBerry, Enterprise, release
Posted in BES, Messaging Operations | No Comments »

Webinar Recap: Time to Take Control of Wireless BlackBerry Expenses (More than TEM and WEM)

June 8th, 2009

To many organizations, wireless expenses can seem like a black hole. You want all your mobile users getting the most from their devices… and your company wants to get the most for the dollars spent. But can you tell who’s doing what? Do you know where all the costs are? Are you doing everything you can to trim those expenses? Clearly cutting off all BlackBerry use is not the way to go.

BoxTone for BlackBerry TCO ROI WEM TEM

In our experience, lack of detailed visibility, tools and process often gets in the way of reigning in mobile expenses. So, on Wednesday, May 27, BoxTone hosted a webinar with analyst/editor Joanie Wexler – author of Network World’s Wireless in the Enterprise newsletter and The Voice Report’s The Wireless Pulse e-zine – to examine the evolution of WEM and how to optimize TCO.

The webinar – entitled “Time to Take Control of Your BlackBerry Expenses” – looked at how Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is now expanding to Wireless Expense Management (WEM), discussed models for calculating both ROI and TCO for BlackBerry, and then explored 3 approaches for trimming BlackBerry wireless expense.

From an ROI perspective, typically BlackBerry brings 1 hour of additional productivity per user per business day which can compute to be $15,000 or more per mobile user per year, says Ipsos-Reid. Likewise annual TCO can range between $2,100 and $2,500 per user, according to Gartner. So we see great ROI ratios but a cost we all want to trim where we can.

The webinar includes formulas that you can use for calculating your own TCO and ROI. The TCO model suggests $1550 average cost which includes $775 in carrier/external expenses (annual data plans, data roaming, support) and $775 in internal IT Operations expenses (server hw/sw, support, operations, training). Many people only think of the data plans when they think of wireless expenses, and that’s only half the pie.

Jonie reviewed results from Aberdeen Research that calculates effective Wireless Expense Management (WEM) can save enterprises $276 per mobile user each year – about 42 percent off a typical organization’s annual wireless data service plan.

But for large BlackBerry smartphone deployments, effective WEM is almost impossible because responsibility can span multiple departments with no single owner (IT Operations, PC support, and Telcom) and organizations rarely have real-time visibility into actual usage and the tools/processes to manage total cost to serve.

So the webinar details three approaches to reducing TCO:

Tracking actual in-the-field activity for data plan use and roaming
Deploying support automation and user self-service for fewer incidents with lower support costs
Tracking underutilized devices to reallocate or decommission

The cost savings potential is substantial:

Save ~ $77,500 in no-use & low-use device recapture @ 5%
Save ~ $142,500 in IT mobile support costs @ HD
Total hard cost savings of $220,000 per 1000 users (or $220 per user)

You can calculate your own cost savings potential here.

If you’re in telecom procurement, mobile messaging, finance, or head up expense teams responsible for BlackBerry services, this session is one you can’t afford to miss. To view a free replay of “Time to Take Control of Your BlackBerry Expenses,” click here.

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Tags: Best Practices, BlackBerry, Cost Savings, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Enterprise-Grade, Mobile User Management, Strategy & Best Practices, Telecom & Expense | No Comments »

WES2009: Top 10 Big News Items Reviewed in On-Demand Webinar

May 15th, 2009

BoxTone for BlackBerry @ WES2009

As you can see in our last few blog postings WES Overview and WES Blogger Panel, WES2009 was an exciting event. We promised that we had more to share, and today we deliver.

On Wednesday, May 13, Port3101.org, Crackberry.com and BoxTone hosted a 90-minute webinar – “The WES2009 Enterprise IT Highlight Reel” – during which we recapped everything that matters to enterprise mobility IT. And by “we” I mean Howie Rappaport from Port3101.org, Kevin Michaluk from Crackberry.com, BoxTone product managers Mitch Berk and John Wargo.

During the webinar we counted down our top 10 highlights from the big event. We’ll give you a brief snapshot here, but be sure to check out the free replay of the webinar for all the great detail. So, here it goes, broken down into Top 5 for BES 5.0 and then Top 5 technology announcements.

BlackBerry Administration Service (BAS) – The new web-based administration component of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 is a huge change in how users can manage applications and configure software.
High Availability - The new high availability features of BES 5.0 helps organizations better ensure that the mission critical platform service is always there when it’s needed.
Interfaces – BlackBerry Enterprise Server Resource Kit (BRK), BlackBerry Administration API (BAA) and BAS Plug-In are just a few interfaces that are giving users more flexibility and making it easier to manage their BlackBerry services. The BAS Plug-In is the strategic direction with big future ahead of it.
5.0 Handheld Code – While BB Server 5.0 is enabling more backend functionality, there will also be new device-side code to take advantage of all the features likely available by the end of the year. BGR has had some sneak previews.
Migration Strategies – RIM is aiding in BES 5.0 migration with the Enterprise Transporter, and we discussed discussed best practices for incremental migration to simplify and reduce risk.

Now let’s look at the top five announcements at WES:

Cloud Computing – Google’s Gmail is the one of the most popular web-based e-mail clients, and now the company is working on a connector that will let you manage Google-hosted mailboxes with BES. Kevin’s been using this for a while and is very excited about it’s prospects, and also posted on the BlackBerry Push API announcement. Plus HP announced remote printing in the cloud and new initiatives around product integration. Some detail over at IntoMobile.
Security and Compliance – A couple new products are out on the market that further improve on BlackBerry’s industry leading security. Giesecke & Devrient showcased their secure microSD cards for authentication and encryption of email. See product video on Crackberry.com. And on the voice side, Cellcrypt introduced a solution that provides end-to-end encryption for voice calling to ensure conversations remain secure at all times.
Cost Reduction – With the economy in the state it is, everyone is focusing on lowering their costs. BoxTone discussed an incremental approach popular with customers that enables BES admins to prevent problems that cause issues, shift to user self service and help desk support, and track utilization to indentify and remove unused devices.
The HUB – Bayalink’s Liberty helps encourage more productivity by giving you full access to your BlackBerry from your laptop keyboard, and enables you to use your BlackBerry wireless connection, rather than logging into a VPN, to manage documents.
Unified Communication – RIM announced the BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS) Server for Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager, which provides a single corporate phone number, one caller ID and one voice mailbox for Cisco Unified IP phone and BlackBerry. Howie has a lot of experience here and sees major positive impact for users and the business.

That’s a wrap of our Top 10 from WES2009. Also checkout more info and photos from THE LOUNGE at WES2009.

If you weren’t able to make it to the show, missed some sessions you wanted to attend, or were there and just would like to hear more about these topics, we invite you to listen to a free replay of Crackberry, Port3101.org and BoxTone in the WES2009 Enterprise IT Highlight Reel webinar on-demand.

The BoxTone Team from WES

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Tags: BlackBerry, Event, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Futures & Predictions, Messaging Operations, SLAs & Service Quality, Service Desk & Support, Smartphones & Devices, Strategy & Best Practices, Telecom & Expense | No Comments »

WES2009: Blogger Futures Panel @ BoxTone User Conference

May 13th, 2009

Five of the top BlackBerry Bloggers make their Top 3 BlackBerry Futures predictions at the BoxTone Annual User Conference 2009 co-located with WES 2009 in Orlando, FL on 5-May-09.

Hear the great predictions from Al Sacco of CIO.com’s MobileWorkHorse, Kyle McInnes of BlackBerryCool.com, Simon Sage of IntoMobile.com, Howie Rappaport of Port3101.org, and Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com. A can’t miss video including Kevin’s marriage proposal and CrackBaby Future!

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Tags: BlackBerry, Event, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Futures & Predictions, Mobile User Experience, Smartphones & Devices | No Comments »

WES2009: THE BlackBerry Event of the Year

May 12th, 2009

WES2009 and the co-located BoxTone Annual User Conference were a smash hit last week. There was so much news and information packed into the event, that we’ll have a number of posts this week to give you all the highlights. We’ll start at the top with some quick WES2009 highlights.

BoxTone for BlackBerry @ WES2009

First the fast stats: About 4,500 people descended on Orlando, Fla., to share the latest in the BlackBerry Community. WES 2009 included 120 sessions in five tracks, in addition to training and certification sessions. There also were more than 125 vendor sponsors and 20 media. And there was no swine flu (a.k.a ‘hamthrax’).

The opening night reception was a full house ’sweat-fest’, with thousands of attendees connecting with peers and checking out RIM and the vendors.

In general sessions on Tuesday, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis highlighted BES 5.0 and the BlackBerry AppStore innovations. Mike said, the 12,000 Research In Motion employees are already running on this “most tested ever” BlackBerry Enterprise Server platform. Great detail in posts from CrackBerry with mp3 playback and IntoMobile with live-blogging play by play).

In general sessions on Wednesday, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced winners of the Wireless Leadership Awards: US Courts, HSBC and Ricoh/Mirifex. And Malcolm Gladwell entertained and stretched our minds. BlackBerryCool posted a full rundown.

Of particular interest to you may be the 37 sessions in the Mobile Architecture and Administration track. These included “what’s new,“ ”how to” and case studies covering topics such as BES 5.0, performance tuning, high availability, system administration, security, advanced troubleshooting and support.

A couple of sessions worth mention:

“The New BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0 – More Control, More Management, More Peace of Mind” featured a 90-minute overview of everything in BES 5.0 with Peter Walker and Jeff Holleran of RIM. We’ve posted on BES 5.0 features already including a second post on practical best practices for BES 5.0 migration.
“BlackBerry Enterprise Server Administration – New Flexibility & Power Unveiled” included the official launch of the BlackBerry Administration Service (including a new BAS Plug-in capability) with Ken Schneider and Michele Boland of RIM and BoxTone’s own Mitch Berk. Mitch demoed the world’s first BAS Plug-in with BoxTone, showing BoxTone monitoring dashboard data in the BAS screens and then how, using BAS APIs, BoxTone could remotely load-balance a complex deployment. This session was so popular that it was run a second time on Wednesday. More about that in a future post.
“Customer Panel: Cutting Costs While Improving Performance: How Citi and The Home Depot Prevent Service Issues, Simplify Support and Fix Incidents Faster” – This panel included in-depth case studies, recommended best practices and audience discussion with Bill Monks of Citi and Michael Lott of The Home Depot, who are both running major BlackBerry deployments and are avid users of BoxTone software and services. Again, more on that in a future post.
“Customer Panel: Go Big, With a Plan: Managing Large-scale, Global Deployments” – This panel discussion included two Henkel team members, Philipp Mischke and Mario Micudaj, discussing their large scale enterprise experiences and best practice recommendations, including the use of BoxTone to help achieve their goals.
And last but certainly not least, an exciting interactive panel “Bloggers Predictions for BlackBerry Futures” from top BlackBerry Bloggers. Stay tuned for the video.

This overview only scratches the surface about WES2009….stay tuned for more throughout the week.

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Tags: Best Practices, BlackBerry, Event, Management & Monitoring, Mobility
Posted in Futures & Predictions, Mobile User Management, Strategy & Best Practices, Uncategorized | No Comments »

BES v5 Part II: A Practical Strategy for Migrating to BES 5.0

April 28th, 2009

BES 5.0 Best Practices Migration Strategy

With WES2009 only a week away, it’s almost certain that we’re about to have access to a brand new version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to work with. In a previous blog post, I talked about the new features in BES 5.0. Now it’s time to talk about some best practices we’ve observed when organizations migrate from one BES version to another.

Stabilize the Existing Environment
Before any migration can begin, it’s important to ensure that the existing environment is running as smoothly as possible. It’s worth the extra effort to stabilize the existing environment before a migration rather than to deal with issues that arise when upgrading the existing environment or migrating off of it. Due to the mission critical nature of the BlackBerry platform, performing a BES migration can be compared to changing the engine on an airplane while it’s in flight – you want everything to go just right.

Identify BlackBerry Orphans
Over time in any BlackBerry environment, BlackBerry users can end up in a state that places undue stress on the BES. This would happen, for example, when a user leaves the company and is removed from the messaging system, but not the BES; a user who has been added to the BES but never activated the device; or a user is defined in multiple BES domains. Before beginning any BES upgrade or migration, all of these burdensome users should be removed from the BES. You will want your BES humming away at peak efficiency, doing as little work as needed, before, during and after the migration.

Eliminate Under-Utilized Resources
Some users have devices that they don’t really use or don’t use very much. Before beginning an upgrade or migration, many organizations prune low- or no-usage BlackBerry users from the BES. This helps cut overall costs and reduce the number of users affected by the migration. There’s no need to put them through the process if their device is not being used.

Assess Migration Readiness
Some users will require special handling during a migration, there’s no way around it. It could be that they’re VIP’s, but it also could be because the user is using a device or running a BlackBerry Device Software version that cannot be migrated using automated tools. Each migration project usually begins with a complete end-to-end environment inventory to identify unsupported devices, inaccurate IT Policy application and users that have devices (and are using them) but shouldn’t because of their job responsibility or level within the company.

Migrate in Batches
The Help Desk call load is likely going to peak during the migration, there’s no getting around that. To mitigate any issues related to customer satisfaction and response times, many organizations migrate their users or upgrade their BES in batches, spreading the changes across time rather than all at once.

Measure, Measure, Measure & Compare
Many organizations have recognized the value of understanding the effect transitions such as a BES migration can have on system and end-user performance. Before the BES migration begins, BES and end-user performance should be baselined then regularly measured and compared to the baselines created both during and immediately after the migration. Administrators have to be ready to adjust the configuration or allocation of resources to ensure that overall system performance doesn’t degrade because of the upgrade or migration.

Regularly Optimize Resource Allocation
Of critical importance for a BlackBerry environment is the ability to optimize the distribution of BES, Mail Servers and users. End-user and BES performance will likely suffer when a BES is processing mail and PIM data for too many users or across too many mail servers. A smoothly running BlackBerry environment has an even distribution of users and mail servers for each BES.

At the conclusion of a migration, most organizations end up with an even distribution of users and/or mail servers across BES. As users are added and removed from the BES or as users move from one mail server to another, this even distribution can be disrupted. When one BES is handling more users or talking to more mail servers than another, message delivery times and user satisfaction can suffer. Organizations must plan to regularly assess resource allocation and adjust for optimal performance.

Coming to WES 2009? I’d love to hear your BES migration best practices, and what you’re looking forward to in BES 5.0. Stop by the Mobile User Management Lounge. And don’t miss The Lounge Birds of a Feather discussion on BES 5.0 Migration Strategies on Thursday at 9:00am.

John Wargo, Product Manager

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Tags: Add new tag, Best Practices, Enterprise, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Messaging Operations, Mobile Applications, Mobile User Experience, Mobile User Management, SLAs & Service Quality, Strategy & Best Practices | No Comments »

BES v5.0 Part I: What’s New in BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0?

April 20th, 2009

BoxTone for BlackBerry BES 5.0

Back in February, RIM rolled out BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0 to the media and indicated that it would be available in the second quarter. It’s the second quarter and WES2009 is fast approaching, so it’s probably safe to assume it will be out soon. This two-part series will cover the highlights of what we see is most important for those managing, monitoring and supporting the BlackBerry platform: what’s new with BES 5.0 itself and then what’s new with BoxTone for BES 5.0.

So, why should you care about BES 5.0?

The software has been in development for a very long time and it implements many of the suggestions made by BlackBerry customers all over the world. The focus has been to make the BlackBerry environment easier to manage and includes some features that are really going to make a BlackBerry administrator’s life easier. Here are some of the key features recently announced:

A brand new web-based BES administration tool using the BlackBerry Administration Service (BAS). BlackBerry administrators will like this because it means that they will be able to administer the BlackBerry environment from any PC with no additional software required. Don’t miss our next post which will dig more into the new BAS.
More reliable BES infrastructure using the BES High Availability feature of BES 5.0. BlackBerry administrators will be able to configure BES pairs (primary and secondary) where the secondary takes over for the primary if the primary fails – with no interruption of service for mobile users. We’re big fans of monitoring end-to-end user experience and system health, and like RIM’s approach of using ‘heath scores.’
Over the Air (OTA) BlackBerry Device Software upgrades. BlackBerry administrators will be able to upgrade their mobile user’s device software (Operating System and associated files) without having to physically touch the device or trying to get the users to do it themselves. Upgrades can be throttled and set to run off hours too. Of importance is the restriction that only BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry Device Software 4.5 and higher will be able to take advantage of this feature – so there’s a compelling reason now to upgrade your handheld code if you haven’t already.
Dramatic improvement in the BES application deployment process. BlackBerry administrators will be able to deploy BlackBerry applications with a level of flexibility that has never been available before. Now mobile users receive applications through group membership (users can be members of multiple groups) and the apps are deployed from a database rather than a complex folder structure. This feature will help accelerate adoption of enterprise applications for BlackBerry simply because they will at long last be easy to deploy.
Scheduling of IT Tasks. BlackBerry Administrators can now schedule many of the off-hours administrative tasks they normally had to perform by hand. What this means then is that it is very likely that the BES administrator can enjoy even more of their evenings, weekends and holidays.
Enhanced Roles & Permissions. BlackBerry administrators will have finer control over what IT Personnel can administer/affect in the BlackBerry environment. This will allow organizations to segregate administration tasks on a user/group level and will give larger organizations the ability to limit the scope of control assigned to different parts of the IT organization.

For those that want to learn more, here’s a roundup of other online resources for BES 5.0:

So that’s a quick rundown of what’s new in BES 5.0… very exciting indeed! In our next post we’ll highlight what’s new for BoxTone with BES 5.0. We’ll look at how BoxTone software and best practice recommendations can help BES Admin’s simplify and speed their migration to take advantage of all these great new capabilities, fast. And perhaps a sneak peak at some new BoxTone for BES 5.0 technology…

John Wargo, Product Manager

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Tags: Add new tag, BlackBerry, Enterprise, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Enterprise-Grade, Messaging Operations, Mobile Applications, Mobile User Experience, Mobile User Management, SLAs & Service Quality, Security & Compliance, Service Desk & Support, Smartphones & Devices, Strategy & Best Practices | 2 Comments »

Sneak Peek: BoxTone Domino Sessions this week at The VIEW Admin 2009 and Lotus Developer 2009 Conferences

April 13th, 2009

Not to date myself, but I’ve been a Notes/Domino developer for a long time – a certified Lotus Notes developer, administrator and instructor since Notes 2 (long before buttons were

BoxTone for BlackBerry at The VIEW Admin and Lotus Developer Conferences 2009

even in the product). So, I’ve spent lots of time at Domino related events, including the annual Domino Administrator and Lous Domino Developer conferences, hosted by The View magazine. During the last two years – while representing Research in Motion and BlackBerry smartphones – I spoke at these conferences, and I thought that now that I’m with BoxTone, I’d submit some abstracts for the 2009 event, which is next week – April 15-17 – in Boston. I developed three abstracts – one for administrators and two for developers – and all three were accepted. Needless to say, I’ve been very busy lately getting ready for the conference, but I wanted to share some more information about each session, and what you can learn:

Extending your Domino Applications to Mobile Devices (Wednesday, April 15 at 2:15 p.m.) – This session digs into industry trends in mobile applications, including a discussion of the capabilities of the different mobile platforms. During it, I’ll outline the steps a Domino developer must follow to mobilize an existing Domino Web-based application. I’ll also highlight some tricks I created to optimize the display of Domino data on mobile devices. If you’re looking for ways to optimize the mobile web experience for your Domino applications, I highly recommend this session.

Preparing for the Mobile Applications Onslaught (Thursday, April 16 at 2 p.m.) - This session is an updated expansion of the presentations I made at the Mobile Professional Network (MPN) meetings New York and Atlanta last year. The idea behind this session came from one of our customers who told us how he was able to block the deployment of mobile applications in his environment. During this session, I’ll outline the possible negative impacts that mobile applications can have on an environment and provide recommendations on how to minimize the consequences. If you’re starting to get some pressure about deploying mobile applications and you want to know as much as you can about the impact, this will be a great opportunity to get the full picture.

Beyond the Browser: Building Mobile Rich Client Applications to Access your Domino Data (Friday, April 17 at 10:15 a.m.) – The purpose of this session is to show how you can extend Domino applications using something other than the browser. I’ll demonstrate how to build a Web service in Domino and consume it from a rich client (non-browser) applications running on multiple mobile devices. If all goes well – and you know how the demo gods can be – I’m going to be building five different mobile applications that talk to the service using some of RIM’s tools, Windows Mobile and Java Micro Edition (JME). If you’re like me and don’t believe the browser is the perfect client for all applications, or if you’re interested to see how a rich client can talk to a Domino database, you’ll want to attend this session.

If you’ve ever seen me speak, you’ll know that each of the sessions will be very high energy and contain a lot of detailed information for you to take home and use. If you’re at the conference, please stop by and say hello, I’ll likely be in the big RIM booth when I’m not presenting. See you at the show!

- John Wargo, BoxTone Product manager

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Tags: Best Practices, Event, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Mobile Applications, Mobile User Experience, Mobile User Management, Strategy & Best Practices, Telecom & Expense | 2 Comments »

Webinar Recap: Helping the Help Desk Slash BlackBerry Support Escalations and Costs

April 7th, 2009

Do you know how much each BlackBerry-related trouble ticket is costing your organization? If you don’t, then the answer might be “more than you can imagine.”

BoxTone for HelpDesk BlackBerry Support

Last week BoxTone hosted a webinar – How Your Help Desk Can Slash BlackBerry Escalations by 80 Percent Instantly – in which our experts showed the hundreds of attendees the costs they’re incurring in help desk operations, and how to help their organization minimize them.

In terms of costs, in a poll of the attendees, we found that more than 55% of attendees did not know the costs of a trouble ticket escalation. And for those that did know their costs, more than half reported high trouble ticket escalation costs of $50-$150. So, we spent time walking through help desk metrics, goals, challenges and benchmark costs.

Benchmark data is always useful, so let’s run through that briefly. While there haven’t been studies done to estimate costs specifically for mobility support, the Help Desk Institute [HDI] has calculated that, in general for desktop support, Level 1 support costs $25 per user, while costs soar to $100 per user for Level 2 and $275 for Level 3. These costs can add up, when you consider that, in the typical organization, >50% of mobile support calls are escalated and resolved at Level 2 and >15% are escalated and resolved at Level 3.

Take, for example, the case of a large multinational media company. This group has approximately 5,000 BlackBerry users and 15 BES, and, prior to deploying BoxTone, was averaging about 300 help desk calls per month that escalated to Level 2 and 3. The organization tracked its internal costs to be $100 per escalation – or $30,000 a month – because its help desk didn’t have the visibility and tools resolve issues on the first try.

Then the organization deployed the BoxTone Service Desk module, which enables even junior help desk staff to resolve 70-80% of the issues themselves, the first time. By having one-click access to the status of service, root cause of the problem, and simple resolutions including BoxTone’s unique 1-Click Fix-It, the help desk staff was able to cut escalations by more than half in just the first 60 days of deployment, saving more than $15,000 a month.

With this in mind, during the webinar we discussed two approaches to reducing help desk escalations and costs.

Provide automation to the help desk through the BoxTone Service Desk Module so they can fix most issues in just a few minutes. This includes hundreds of issues like activation/provisioning, send/receive errors for numerous different reasons, device errors like low memory and out of coverage, mail server errors like Exchange mailbox full and Domino state database problems, carrier issues, network and ActiveDirectory issues, and more.
Provide automation to the mobile user themselves through the User Self-Service module called myBoxTone Expert– which CIO.com calls the “on-device IT help desk.” This is a smartphone-based application that alerts the mobile user to issues and provides simple step-by-step fixes, which prevents the help desk call in the first place. And if for some reason the mobile user needs to call, it includes remote troubleshooting and diagnostic tools to speed the resolution.

So let’s walk through a simple scenario of this one-two punch for reducing help desk calls and escalations. Benchmark studies from Gartner and our own customers show that in the average organization, a mobile user may call help desk 4 times per year. With BoxTone’s User Self-Service module, that should eliminate at least 1 of the 4. Of the 3 remaining, with BoxTone’s Service Desk module should enable the help desk to resolve 2 to 3 of the issues themselves. That means at best only 1 issue or 25% is escalated. That’s clearly a better life for both the service desk team and for the messaging team – and a better overall experience for the mobile user. In the webinar we walked through a sample financial module that you can take and use in your organization.

If you would like to learn more about calculating – and significantly reducing – the costs associated with your organization’s help desk, you can take a look at our ROI calculator and we’d like to invite you to listen to a replay of our webinar which you can now run on demand.

The Brians

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Tags: Add new tag, Best Practices, Cost Savings, Event, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Mobile User Management, Service Desk & Support, Strategy & Best Practices, Telecom & Expense | No Comments »

Show Me the Money: What I Learned at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations Conference

April 2nd, 2009

BoxTone at the Dow Jones Wireless Conference

New applications and the new mobile App Stores – for both businesses and consumers – and are fundamentally changing the wireless market. Earlier this month, I had the chance to attend and present at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations 2009 conference. It was interesting to hear what both VC and entrepreneurs believe are the innovations and opportunities that will stand out in this year and the years to come.

With a slate of impressive speakers and 60 presenting companies , the conference resulted in quite a bit of lively discussion. About 300 representatives from private industry and government – Bank of America, Kraft Foods, Verizon and the Department of Defense, to name a few – were in attendance to check out the hot new technology companies focusing on mobility.

Perhaps the most informative – and candid – panel discussions at the conference were the venture capital ones that bookended the event. These panels included partners from venerable VC firms, such as Accel Partners , BlackBerry Partners Fund , BlueRun Ventures and Sequoia Capital . What was most interesting was their perspective on what types of wireless companies can find funding. Specifically they said:

Tough to pick a winning consumer app – it’s very difficult to know which consumer application will meet with the most success, so VCs prefer to focus on companies that support firms that are building real business useful applications , such as stalwart salesforce.com mobile or startup xobni.
Free services = no VC money – Companies that are building their business on an advertising-backed model, in which the service is offered for free, will not be successful in finding VC money.
Silicon and equipment deals are tough – Because their businesses are capital- and time-intensive, VC deals featuring wireless silicon and equipment companies are very hard to get done.
Words of wisdom – the best way to achieve success – and get funding – in the wireless/mobility market is to get profitable fast and manage expenses.

Other panel discussions and presentations looked at what the economic slowdown means for the wireless sector, and specifically wireless start-ups; what will become of all the mobile apps companies that have or are being created; key wireless markets, including voice, network management and security; what’s working in mobile advertising and the markets that drive it; exit opportunities for wireless companies; and the outlook for liquidity in 2009 and beyond.

In my own 15 minutes of fame pitch, I echoed many of these words of wisdom that we have learned in the marketplace. Here are the highlights:

The cornerstone of my talk was the mega trend we call “The App-lification of the World” where we have application platforms thousands of apps and dominated by two players: BlackBerry coming from the Business Experience and iPhone coming from the Consumer Experience.
The key learning point is not which mobile platform or which app store, but rather if — and only if — the mobile application is “MISSION” CRITICAL to the lives of enterprise and consumer users, then it can be monetized.
The debate about cloud-based delivery vs. enterprise-based delivery of mobile services is really two sides of the same coin. Ultimately those mobile applications and the app platforms they run on will only be successful for the app makers and the carriers — and VCs — if they are BOTH mission critical and provide a great user experience.
BoxTone is uniquely positioned to be successful because only BoxTone brings together user experience management with application management. User Experience Management to understand the flow of data to and from every device in real-time so that you can manage the actual End User Experience. Application Management to understand the health of the applications and the mobile platform that serve the End User so that you can manage the total mobile environment.

On a personal level for BoxTone, we appreciated the shout out from Alan Brenner, a senior VP at RIM , who mentioned the innovative products from BoxTone during his keynote address .

Alan Snyder, CEO

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Tags: Applications, Enterprise, Event, Management & Monitoring
Posted in Mobile Applications, Mobile User Experience, Mobile User Management | No Comments »

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