GigaOM » Collaboration

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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Does BlackBerry App World Give RIM the Web Working Edge?

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:34 +0000

As you may or may not know from reading my posts, I’m an iPhone guy. I’ve had an iPhone since its launch here in Canada, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Or at least I thought I wouldn’t, but now I’m not so sure. RIM recently unveiled their App Store competitor, dubbed BlackBerry App World, and while home visiting family for Easter this past weekend I had the privilege of installing and demoing it for my father on his Blackberry 8830 World Edition.

Believe me, I went into this with a sufficiently condescending attitude. There was no way I was going to say anything nice about this App Store wannabe, especially not in front of my two cousins, both of whom work for RIM. And I was justly rewarded when I had some trouble installing The Hockey News on my very first attempt. But other than that one minor hiccup, installing and running apps went surprisingly smoothly.

And then I realized why everyone doesn’t instantly fall in love with the iPhone. Having never owned another smartphone (although I did have a couple Palm PDAs back in the day), I’d just assumed that the many kinks that come along with the iPhone, specifically those surrounding not being able to run apps in the background, and the need to power cycle whenever you install to ensure proper functioning, were just part of the territory. It’s also hard to find the good apps.

Aside from the first issue with The Hockey News app, every other app installed and ran fine on the BlackBerry. They just worked. They ran in the background, they supported copy and paste, and I didn’t have to restart every time I purchased one. It’s true that if I’d wanted to download any paid apps I’d have to have a PayPal account, which isn’t ideal, but there were plenty of free apps that covered my needs.

With App World, a BlackBerry suddenly becomes a much more web worker-friendly device. With neither the bugs nor the potential to distract of the the iPhone, RIM’s lineup of smartphones now seem to me to be the route to take if you’re looking for a straight-up productivity aid. Which isn’t to say I’m switching anytime soon, but the iPhone is an integral part of my professional life for other reasons.

What do you think about BlackBerry App World? Has it influenced your choice of smartphone? If you’re already a BlackBerry user, do you find the new store has helped your online work? If you’re not, has it given you reason to consider switching?

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Rogue Devices: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 1

Study Shows Mobile Phone Users Want their Email

Jason Harris — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:00:06 +0000

According to Webcredible, a usability and accessibility consultancy, the most requested mobile service respondents wanted on their data-enabled mobile phones was email.

This is really of no surprise that 33% of respondents stated email was their most needed mobile utility. There are many reasons to have a data enabled mobile phone such as: keeping up to date with your schedule, supporting your social life, and being able to check traffic when driving to a meeting; but when it comes to getting business done, email is still where the rubber meets the road.

This also explains one possible reason that since the iPhone was released, it’s been the number 2 smartphone, behind Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Road warriors use technology to enable us work from anywhere, and BlackBerry is simply made for email.

The number two most requested feature was social networks with 25% of the survey results. This tells us that many mobile phone users (and most web workers, we estimate) like to get their MySpace or Facebook fix in between all those business calls and emails. It must be pointed out, however, that more and more business relationships are being fostered by using online social networks. I expect that as this use rises, social networking will take over as the number one requested mobile feature.

As a last statistic, local information requests were third on the list at 20%. These requests consist of questions such as “what’s around me?” With services such as Google Maps My Location, which tracks your location in a GPS-like service, local information requests are of great value to on-the-go workers. Imagine a situation where you are going to meet a client to discuss a proposal at a coffee shop, but the intended coffee shop is closed. With a service such as My Location, you can quickly see other coffee shops in your vicinity and easily change your meeting location without having to take too much time away from your meeting.

These mobile services add countless features to your daily working life, especially for nomadic web workers. What is your favorite mobile service? We look forward to seeing the comments!

Image credit: Gaeton Lee

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