GigaOM » Collaboration

Gigwalk talks mobile as future of staffing, launches Android beta

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:25:34 +0000

Smartphones are the key to making intelligent connections between tomorrow’s workforce and employers, says Ariel Seidman, co-founder and CEO of Gigwalk. At Net:Work 2011, he spoke about how the smartphone will increasingly become the connection point that connects jobs and workers, and how it’s uniquely well-positioned to do that.

Seidman talked about how Gigwalk is based on the idea of using a mobile device to match jobs that need doing with people who are well-equipped to do them. The idea is that the apps can be moneymakers for users, instead of just cash draws. He discussed the fact that mobile is also a key inflection point, which will fundamentally change how we work.

Work, at least the kind people seek through mobile means, can be one of two types, says Seidman. It can be casual and meant to cover small gaps or financial needs in a user’s life says Seidman, like helping them pay a specific bill. Or it can be more substantial, looking for a way to fill out the remainder of a part-time schedule, for instance. The spectrum includes jobs that take a few minutes to complete or longer-term contracts that can span days. Mobile can cater to both ends of this spectrum.

Mobile tech also allows companies to fill positions incredibly quickly: Seidman said that Microsoft had a 24-hour turnaround when it used Gigwalk for a recent engagement.

In the interest of opening up opportunities to even more workers, Gigwalk is launching an Android client in private beta on Thursday, which will be available on its site.

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Photo by Pinar Ozger.

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Go ahead, bring those holiday gadgets to work

Terri Griffith — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:43:05 +0000

Darrell Etherington’s predication is coming true, “Bring Your Own Device Will Usher in Bring Your Own Apps, Too.” On Wednesday, IBM announced several new social networking and collaboration mobile apps –all specifically designed to support enterprise needs around consumer mobile devices. The new software is available from most popular app stores. IBM’s goal is to bring social networking, real-time collaboration, and online meeting capabilities from behind the company firewall and into the hands of tablet users.

This is a response to demands to better manage the growing number of personally-owned gadgets being used for enterprise work.

In the press release, IBM describes how employees at the global medical device manufacturer ConMed Linvatec used the IBM Lotus Notes Traveler app on iPad devices at a recent medical tradeshow: “The app allowed ConMed employees to demonstrate its medical devices, collect sales leads, and send product information to prospective customers right on the spot….” Dale Westrate, messaging systems architect for ConMed Linvatec’s Largo division is quoted in the release: “As a result of using IBM collaboration software on iPad devices, we generated more leads, and acted on them sooner, than ever before.”

IBM is offering a variety of new tablet capabilities (availability across platforms varies):

They are also helping developers create mobile applications faster and improving the experience for the user:

Tools to build mobile apps faster and better: IBM is introducing its Mobile Technology Preview on the developerWorks website.
Tools to improve the Web experience for the user: The new software, IBM WebSphere Portal Mobile Experience, helps companies easily control the content, look and feel, and page navigation on mobile devices.

It’s exciting to see the software giant helping smooth the way for how people behave at work. Rather than putting information technology departments in conflict with their users, who are just trying to get their jobs done in times of tight resources, IBM’s approach enables natural behaviors to proceed with an enterprise-appropriate (e.g., greater security) infrastructure.

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Apps that let you work like an executive

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:40 +0000

Plantronics updated its InstantMeeting app to allow iPhone (a aapl) users and enterprise users to connect to conference calls on their calendar with one click, much like Android and BlackBerry users have been able to for almost a year. The InstantMeeting app, which is pretty darn useful for those who handle a lot of conference calls, combs your calendar and shoots you a reminder when one is about to start. On a mobile phone, clicking through on the reminder allows the user to click to call or click to say you’re running late with the push of a button.

The update brings that same functionality to those on PCs by letting them click to call through Skype or Microsoft Lync. Gunjan Bhow, VP and general manager of New Ventures at Plantronics, says the goal is to ensure employees with VoIP clients and softphones can still take advantage of cheaper rates instead of going directly to their mobile phones and racking up big charges while traveling. It’s a pretty specific use case, but Plantronics is on the cutting edge of a shift in how people work, and how smarter and more personal computers, such as mobile phones, are allowing this shift to happen.

A personal assistant for everyone (no, it’s not Siri)

InstantMeeting on the iPhone

Apps such as InstantMeeting, Expensify and yes, Siri are taking mundane tasks top managers might have hired an assistant to handle and making delegating them affordable for all. In the case of InstantMeeting, it means I can work right up until a minute before my conference call or hop in the car knowing I’ll get a reminder when I need to get on the call, and will effectively touch a button to connect. I do have to manually enter some conference numbers because the app can’t read the bridge information, but it’s pretty solid. It’s similar to having someone outside my office connecting my calls so I can move seamlessly through my work until the exact moment I’m needed.

Expensify lets me snap a picture of my receipts and then automatically scans them for the relevant line items to create an expense report in a few minutes. The mobile app allows me to take those pictures on my mobile the moment I get my receipt and shoot them to the cloud, where Expensify does all the heavy lifting. My days of scrounging receipts from the bottom of my bag and taping them to copy paper are over, as are my efforts to then transfer that information to Excel.

Siri, of course, takes all kinds of dictation like a pro and helps find nearby restaurants, services and other items much like a real personal assistant would. Vlingo also does some of this for Android users. There are scores of other apps such as TripIt Pro making it easier and less time-consuming to book and keep track of travel, something those lucky souls who have worked at a company with a travel bureau will be glad to learn.

This isn’t just nice; it’s necessary

Just as computers helped drive productivity thanks to replacing typewriters with word processing software and calculators with spreadsheets, these new apps will help boost productivity for the masses who don’t have an assistant at their beck and call. And given that workers are being asked to do more in a day, gaining those two or three hours back each month that it takes to pull together an expense report, or the thirty minutes required to book a trip (or even avoiding the hours lost to flight delays) is a necessity.

And as we handle more and more information coming at us, it’s harder to sink into the uninterrupted flow of work, so being able to maximize that time knowing your phone can ping you when you have to join a call and then connect you can help you relax into work. Yes, these apps all take some time to set up and learn how to use (some may require you to invest in setting up rules so the app can better learn what you need from it), but much like training an assistant, the effort pays off. And thanks to advances in natural language processing, artificial intelligence, better data processing and algorithms, employees don’t have to pay quite as much to offload non-core tasks.

For more on how apps, computing and broadband will change the way people work, come to our GigaOM Net:Work event in San Francisco next week.

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Google kills Gmail app for BlackBerry

Om Malik — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:28:22 +0000

I understand BlackBerry is not a top priority for Google or one of the other major software vendors, but to kill off a decent app that many of us BlackBerry owners used is just wrong.

Beginning November 22, 2011, we will end support for the Gmail App for BlackBerry (installed native app). Over this past year, we’ve focused efforts on building a great Gmail experience in the mobile browser and will continue investing in this area. Users may continue to use the app, if installed, however it will not be supported by Google, or available for download starting November 22.

I am guessing they want us to use the “exchange” equivalent for logging into Google Mail for Business, but for me, it was a great way to use personal Gmail account in an easy and efficient manner. Others too are lamenting Google’s move.

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What mobile apps are essential for collaboration on the go?

Simon Mackie — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:50:10 +0000

With a growing proportion of the workforce already being highly mobile, coupled with an increasing number of workers are expecting to bring their own devices to work, it’s clear that picking the right collaboration apps to keep workers productive while on the go is vital to business success. But what apps do mobile workers need to get their jobs done? A new Forrester report, Mobilize Your Collaboration Strategy, has identified eight “must have” categories of mobile collaboration apps. Here’s a run-down of all the categories outlined, together with some of GigaOM’s recommendations for apps to use in each category:

Email and calendars. Email is, unsurprisingly, still the most important mobile app. According to Forrester, 87 percent of smartphone workers use email on their devices (which leaves me wondering what other 13 percent use their smartphones for), and collectively, they do 32 percent of their email on a smartphone. While most smartphones come with their own email and calendaring tools most users will use, there are some third-party options worth considering:

Gmail and Google Calendar. If you use Gmail, it’s worth noting that the mobile-optimized versions of the Gmail and Google Calendar sites are pretty good. They are fast and have a great UI, and one of the advantages of using them is that you can seamlessly switch from device to device without having to set up IMAP details in your various devices’ email clients.
Touchdown. Brings superb Microsoft Exchange support to Android devices.

Document-based collaboration. Mobile workers need to be able to access their documents while out of the office on any of their devices. Cloud-based document collaboration tools need to include mobile access to be truly effective.

Documents to Go. Dataviz’s Documents to Go is a popular mobile document editing app. It’s available for a variety of platforms, including iOS, BlackBerry, Android and Palm. When combined with a cloud file sync service like Dropbox or box.net, it enables users to access and edit their documents no matter where they are.
Soonr. Soonr is a cloud-based document sync service. However, it also offers integrated MS Office document editing capabilities , which means users don’t need to use a separate app like Documents to Go.

Web conferencing. According to Forrester, 18 percent of information workers and 34 percent of senior staff use web conferencing at least weekly. Mobile access means being able to attend meetings even while away from the laptop.

Fuze Meeting. Fuze Meeting’s impressive service is accessible with mobile devices. Its new Telepresence Connect service can extend traditional room-based telepresence to iPads and Android tablets.
Join.me. LogMeIn’s simple and easy-to-use web conferencing app is accessible through iOS and Android apps.

Activity streams. Forrester thinks activity streams are becoming a critical resource for organizations that work collectively: sales teams, project teams, and executive staff, for example. Mobile support is crucial as it enables workers to stay updated no matter where they are.

Yammer. Yammer is a popular enterprise social networking tool very much like a private Facebook for the enterprise. It offers mobile support though mobile apps available for a variety of platforms.
Socialtext. Socialtext is another enterprise social networking and collaboration app that offers activity streams. It offers mobile support via an optimized version of the website.

Presence and chat. Knowing whether a colleague is available or not is a killer feature when out of the office. While this category of app lags today, Forrester expects adoption to accelerate. These types of features are often also often included in other mobile collaboration tools.

eBuddy. A multi-protocol mobile chat app that supports AIM , ICQ, Google Talk, Yahoo! and MSN Windows Live Messenger within a single interface. It’s available via a native client for Android and iPhone and there’s also a mobile-optimized website.
IM+. Another popular “all-on one” IM app that supports a variety of protocols, including AIM, iChat, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and Skype Chat, and works on a number of different mobile platforms.

Social collaboration. In this category, Forrester includes access to internal blogs, wikis, community sites, and social networks from a tablet or smartphone. Mobile access allows every professional will remain connected and part of the collaborative process.

IBM Lotus Connections. IBM’s social suite is supported on a range of mobile platforms, including Android, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia.
Jive Software. Jive Software’s enterprise social suite provides mobile access though apps for iPhone and BlackBerry.

Expertise location. Forrester says this type of application is on the rise as firms look for ways to make mobile employees productive by helping them identify experts from anywhere. This type of app brings together presence, notifications, social profiles and data from HR. Many social business tools provide this kind of functionality, including:

Video conferencing. Skype has some 170 million active monthly users, and 39 percent of those people use Skype for work. Web conferencing vendors are also adding video to their products. Due to heavy resource requirements, there are few multi-party mobile video conferencing apps, though.

Skype. Skype provides video calling for mobile platforms including iPhone and Android.
Fring. One of the first apps to bring four-way video calls to the iPad, Fring provides native mobile apps for a variety of platforms, and also has mobile browser access.

Personally, I’m not convinced expertise location is really a “must-have” category of mobile collaboration app just yet. Do you agree with Forrester’s categories of “must-have” apps, and which apps do you recommend for each category?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Yagan Kiely

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Collaborate on tasks on the go with Cohuman’s iPhone app

Simon Mackie — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:04:06 +0000

Collaborative team task management app Cohuman, which won the “People’s Choice” award in the Launch Pad competition at last year’s Net:Work conference, now has a companion iPhone app that helps keep users updated on project status, communication and tasks even when they’re out of the office.

Rather than trying to cram in all of the functionality that’s present in the web app, the iPhone app concentrates on the tasks that a user is likely to need when out of the office. Matthew Work, Cohuman co-founder and CEO, notes that the app was developed for “those times when we’re getting ready to go to work or have just left the office — usually the times when we’re the least connected.” The app concentrates on providing access to tasks, co-workers and activity; the home screen offers users five options: Add Task, My Tasks, Cohumans, Projects and Activity, but there’s no access to calendars or search functionality, as there is in the web app.

I tried the app on my iPhone, and it works well, enabling fast and easy access to team members, upcoming tasks and updates to projects — all of the data I’m likely to need while away from my laptop. Tasks added using the app can be delegated to other users, commented on, added to projects and have due dates set, just as with the web app. Files attached to tasks can be viewed in the app, but there’s no facility for uploading files. I can imagine the lack of a search feature being an issue for users with lengthy task lists or large numbers of co-workers; those users will probably need to use the web app to access the search feature to find particular tasks or co-workers. The app should also theoretically work on the iPad, although I haven’t tried it. It would probably look odd, as the app is designed for use on a smaller screen and it cannot be used in portrait mode. I’d recommend sticking with the web app for iPad users.

The Cohuman iPhone app is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. An Android app is also in the works and should follow in a few months. To use it you’ll need a Cohuman account. A Cohuman Basic plan offers 1 GB of storage and is free. A Cohuman Pro plan provides greater control over permissions, HTTPS connections and offers 10GB of storage at a cost of $19.95 per month.

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Soonr Brings Cloud-Based MS Office Document Editing to the iPad

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:04:47 +0000

The iPad can be a handy remote working tool, but only to a point. So far, tablet computers seem to have been more useful as “data consuming” tools than genuine work devices. One stumbling block I’ve found is the inability to easily edit documents that you’ve stored in the cloud. Until now, that is.

Soonr is the first cloud file storage service to offer integrated editing for Microsoft Office documents on the iPad. Unlike cobbling together of file storage apps such as Dropbox and SugarSync with editing apps such as QuickOffice and Documents-To-Go, Soonr brings it all together so you can directly edit any files stored in the cloud using a single app. No configuration, no hassle, no cross-app interdependency. It also works offline when you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection and will sync back up when you do. And you can store, share, access, search, edit and sync your files from any tablet securely through Soonr.

Available both on iTunes and the Android Market, Soonr offers a 30-day free trail. A Premium account costs $7.95 per month for three users with 10 GB of storage, while Soonr Pro is $19.95 per month for five users and 40 GB of storage. Soonr supports Mac and PC, and mobile devices including Android, iPhone and BlackBerry; and iPad and Android (Honeycomb) tablets. The Soonr editing feature currently supports Microsoft Office 2003 (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) and Microsoft Office 2010 (Word only) files.

Here’s a short video demo of Soonr’s editing function:

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Digital Filing Service OfficeDrop Now on Android

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:00:04 +0000

OfficeDrop, an application for scanning, accessing and sharing paper and digital files via the cloud has been rolling out onto a variety of platforms. The company has announced that the OfficeDrop Paper-to-Go app for Android is now available, in addition to existing applications for Mac Windows and iPad.

The free Android app can be downloaded through the Android Market, and will soon also be offered through the Amazon App Store. It provides more functionally than the current iPad app as it allows you to take a photo with your phone’s camera in lieu of using a scanner, giving you more flexibility while you’re on the go. The text contained on the documents you photograph becomes searchable, in the same way that text in documents scanned in through the OfficeDrop desktop app do.

Using OfficeDrop, you can connect a scanner directly to many cloud storage apps, including Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs and OfficeDrop’s own digital filing cabinet, which allows users to organize, search, share and access documents from anywhere. If you’re concerned about security, the Android app and the other OfficeDrop apps and services use a fully encrypted system to protect your files and data.

OfficeDrop also offers mail-in scanning services, similar to Shoeboxed, where you can mail documents to the company and have them scanned and added to your account. Its online Digital Filing System starts at $9.95 per month for 10 GB storage ($44.95 per month for teams). Mail-in scanning services start at $19.95 per month for home office use and up to 50 scanned pages per month, going up to $99.95 per month for the Paperless Team account.

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First Look: Google Docs App for Android

Charles Hamilton — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:32:16 +0000

My company has been using Google Apps for a few years now; it provides a simple way to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets, and it’s easy to share documents with clients. Google has now released a Google Docs app for Android to complement the web app. I’ve installed it on my HTC Evo 4G, and it looks like it will be a useful tool, offering the ability to create, edit and collaborate on documents while on the go.

The app installs quickly, and it’s reasonably sized at around 2.5 MB. Unfortunately, it can’t be moved to an SD card.

When I first launched the app, it didn’t ask me to log in to my Google Apps account, since my phone already syncs with my account. It took a few minutes for the documents in my account to appear in the app’s home screen. You can scroll down to see previous documents, or click the search icon.

Once in a document, you can edit it by clicking on the “Edit” button, which appears to take you to the mobile web version of Google Apps, but it’s so tightly integrated with the app that it’s hard to tell. You can also upload documents from your phone, print documents through Google Cloud Print, and access a web-based help function.

Editing word processing documents is pretty easy; just click anywhere in a document and the current paragraph will be outlined in blue and the keyboard will pop up. Editing spreadsheets is a bit trickier, but still reasonably easy to navigate. I’m not sure I would care to write an entire document in this editor, but it’s fine for minor edits.

The Google Docs app also lets users create documents from photos taken with the phone’s camera, and even tries to convert them into text using optical character recognition (OCR). Just click on the new document icon and select “document from photo.” Take a picture with the camera, give your new document a name (or let the app assign one), then wait a few seconds for the new document to appear in the document list, or go off and do something else. The app notifies you when the conversion is finished.

Unfortunately, the results were less than stellar. Here’s a sample of a document created from an 8″ x 6″ card that I happened to have, about a solar charger I recently wrote about. As you can see, Google Docs only managed to recognize a couple of lines. Results weren’t any better with several other printed documents and business cards that I tried. It’s hard to say whether Google’s OCR system is limited (although Simon has previously reported reasonably good results from using Google Docs OCR), or whether the photos my camera takes just aren’t good enough, but at least the Google Docs app also includes the original image in the document, so you can edit it manually as needed.

There’s also a widget with direct links to open the app, go directly to starred documents, take a photo to upload, and create a new document.

I’m impressed with the app so far, with the exception of its OCR capabilities.

The free Google Docs app is currently available in English and works on Android 2.1+ phones. It’s available by scanning the QR code, or by visiting the Android Market.

Have you tried the Google Docs app? What do you think?

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RIM Acquires Scheduling App Tungle

Simon Mackie — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:59:56 +0000

Tungle, a popular meeting scheduling app that we’ve covered previously, has announced it has been acquired by Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry handsets and the PlayBook tablet.

The purchase seems like a smart move for RIM. Tungle offers an attractive set of features for RIM’s core customer base of enterprise users, and should enable the company to bolster the calendaring tools it offers under the BlackBerry brand. Tungle provides a very easy-to-use online meeting scheduling app that lets users propose multiple meeting times to one or many people, inside or outside their organization and across time zones. It also allows for users to broadcast their meeting availability on a publicly accessible page; others can then schedule meetings. The app integrates with a variety of calendar, email and scheduling applications, including Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Entourage for Mac, Lotus Notes, BlackBerry Yahoo, Windows Live, Facebook, TripIt and Plancast. There are Tungle mobile apps available for iPhone and BlackBerry.

Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but the Tungle acquisition is the latest in a string of productivity and UI-related purchases RIM has made recently. It bought social contacts service Gist back in February, and prior to that, had acquired connected navigation company Dash, WebKit browser experts Torch Mobile and UI shop The Astonishing Tribe. These purchases should enable RIM to augment and improve the kind of applications — email and calendar tools — that appeal to the BlackBerry’s core set of business users. Perhaps a renewed focus on productivity and UI will be enough to stave off the threat of Apple and Android, which have already gained a significant foothold in an enterprise market that was once dominated by RIM.

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