Mobile Productivity Blog

New mobile technologies can spell trouble unless you've got the right tools.

Recently we’ve seen dramatic evolution of mobile technologies, which begs the question, how does a company keep up with all the new devices and operating systems hitting the market?

Many companies have mobile applications that they use to interact with customers, partners, and employees. When things change in the industry (which we know happens on a constant basis) it makes it difficult to ensure that those applications will work with the newest technologies. With mobility comes a sense of urgency, and when your users procure the newest device or OS and your application does not comply, you have a problem.

When these complications arise, if an organization has built their own applications in-house, it can become quite difficult. Upgrading applications for new device types and operating systems is typically time-consuming and labor intensive. And for companies that built and released one-off iPhone apps within the last year, re-creating those applications for BlackBerry, Android and iPad is a tremendous amount of work.

In just the past couple of months we have had multiple device and OS releases including Froyo (Google’s Android OS), BlackBerry OS 6, Apple 4.0, and Windows Phone 7, as well as many devices with different screen resolutions, features and hardware specific to those new operating systems. As each of these big-players adds more to their repertoire (both hardware and software), applications need to accommodate the latest and greatest features and functionality. But keeping up with these advancements are tough. Each time a new device is added or an OS is changed, the code needs to be updated.

The key in this situation is being able to quantify the cost of maintaining your current applications while developing new ones to meet the needs of users a month, 6 months and even a year from now. If you’re going to develop multiple applications for multiple device types, then choosing the right development tools is key to containing costs and expanding your mobile applications offerings. That’s where a mobile application development platform comes into play: use it to configure one application and run that app on multiple operating systems. Device compatibility and ongoing support for the next generation of devices and operating systems is baked-in to the solution.

By utilizing a mobile application development platform, you can rest easy. Companies that provide those technologies exist solely to simplify your mobile development process by making it fast and easy to update applications and by ensuring compatibility with new technologies as they emerge onto the market. Pyxis Mobile currently provides a multi-platform solution that allows you to easily deploy a custom application on Blackberry, iPhone, Android, and WinMo. Can your app do that?

Chapter 1: Embracing Enterprise Mobility – Market expansions are taking off, and so is enterprise mobility – Does your organization need to get on board?

For the next nine days, Pyxis Mobile's Mobile Productivity Blog will be publishing a series of articles providing the case for enterprise mobility, along with the technical considerations and evaluation criteria for selecting a mobile partner.

Let’s take a moment to define enterprise mobility -- Forrester Research defines it as “the ability for an enterprise to connect and control suppliers, partners, employees, assets, products, and customers from any location.” Having this constant contact capability is a critical asset of business operations.

Benefits of enterprise mobility:

• Opportunity to improve productivity
• Drive Revenue
• Build and deepen relationships with customers, employees, and partners

What Market Turmoil Means for Advisors

Experts are predicting painful layoffs as a result of the financial crisis of September 2008. One commentator predicts as many as 27,000 employees could lose their jobs in the aftermath of the BofA/Merrill merger. As a result, there will be a lot of talent available, enabling stronger firms to choose from among the very best financial advisors. Firms that can show strong operating results, a continuing commitment to advisors, and savvy use of the newest technologies will be in a good position to recruit these financial professionals.

In addition, the market shake-out should benefit firms that can show how they are different from failed or weak competitors. Consumers are likely to pay more attention to independent advisors, smaller banks, and regional firms. So large firms will need to provide transparent information about clients’ portfolios and prove their strength with the latest technology and tools. And small players should strive to demonstrate that they can not only remember clients’ names and faces but also execute at a high professional level.

For every advisor, market turbulence means that clients will need more handholding. It will be more important to keep up with real-time changes and respond promptly to information requests. To reassure nervous clients, performance reporting must be more timely. Advisors will need to connect 24/7.

Advisors today need the ability to gain productivity from mobile technology. They make calls, check email, surf websites, use GPS functionality to map locations. But these devices are underutilized. There is much more possible.

Pyxis Mobile's 6.1 Launches

We're live at Pyxis Mobile's internal launch party for our version 6.1. This is an exciting release including a number of new client features including "Snap to the App" (image capture from within an application, which is huge for Property & Casualty), Exploding Rows (to deliver more information unless space), Click-to-Sort, Televav support, Blackberry Bold support, enhanced font support, and more.

The new features, along with server and Application Studio enhancements, provide better usability to firms across Financial Services, Insurance and Banking. The upgrade-able nature of their applications is seen by their customers as a huge differentiator for Pyxis Mobile. Even Pyxis Mobile's earliest customers are able to upgrade to the new 6.1 version without having to create a new app or config.

Today's meeting is bring chaired by product manager Nikki Pall and engineering team lead Jeff Ladino (both pictured above). For more info on our applications, visit our main site at www.pyxismobile.com.   

Now Is The Time for Financial Mobility

Now? You mean "now" when the Financial Services industry is in turmoil? Everything is crazy and unpredictable, and budgets are being slashed...

Understood. The current economic conditions require that firms cut costs, reduce  administrative overhead and focus on servicing, adding and retaining  customers. But what seems clear today is that financial professionals, from all over the industry, need the freedom to sell, supported by mobile access to their firms' critical enterprise data. Mobility has  NEVER been more valuable that it is right now.

Thomson Reuters Releases Thomson ONE Mobile for their Investment Management Customers

Thomson Reuters today announced the launch of Thomson ONE Mobile for Investment Management.It is an out-of-office companion to the Thomson ONE suite of desktop offerings for buy-side professionals. It delivers competitive financial information, including estimates, events, research and a host of market data and news on global equities, indices and personal portfolios, directly to a Blackberry handheld device.

Thomson Reuters Markets is working closely with Pyxis Mobile of Waltham, Mass., a leading provider of wireless applications known for flexibility and rapid development, as it expands mobility across the Thomson ONE solution suite – including Investment Banking, Wealth Management and Corporate Services.

Wait... there's more!

Mobile Business Intelligence at Eaton Vance

Eaton Vance's executive distribution team now has real-time wireless access to core business intelligence metrics through an intuitive, mobile composite application that makes the enterprise data actionable.

From the press release:
"Over the last four years, Eaton Vance Distributors have expanded our use of Pyxis Mobile from a point solution for wholesalers to the mobile platform for our entire enterprise," said Brian Taranto, Director of Distribution Administration at Eaton Vance. "We've expanded our use across multiple sales units, and recently deployed Pyxis Mobile's business intelligence dashboard to our distribution management team. We continue to review the possibility of wirelessly enabling our IT support and analyst groups in the future."

Mobile Applications Drive Insurance Claims Productivity

In this report from Tower Group, they examine usage of wireless handheld devices in the US insurance industry. Specifically, they are detailing two use cases: Sales and Claims. In this post, we'll look at the findings, and specifically, the benefits of mobility for these users.

The Freedom of the Mobile Support Application

Marc Rosenbaum, Professional Services Manager at Pyxis Mobile submitted the following post from his mobile device:

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Dennisport, MA

I blog to you from my beach chair on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The air is crystal-clear and holding steady at 80 degrees. The light breeze is just enough to keep the sand around me from getting too hot.

Sorry, I don’t mean to rub it in. I hope the view of the parking lot is nice from your cube.

As I wrap up my vacation here on the beach, I realize that I am fortunate to have a pretty powerful tool at my fingertips.

You see, one of the things that makes the post-vacation return to the office difficult is knowing that I have a week’s worth of emails, phone calls, and customer correspondences on which to catch up. I'm sure that anyone reading this knows the value that a mobile device can add when you want to check in or need to address an urgent issue. But I am fortunate enough to have an additional tool that gives a 360-degree view of what my team has been up to in my absence: I'm armed with a custom-configured mobile application. Read more after the jump >>>