Smartphone
A digital assistant for your business
By Drive-
Today's small business owners have a marked advantage over proprietors of the past: the Smartphone. In today's market, 1 out of every 3 small business owners uses a Smartphone, and those numbers are expected to increase dramatically within the next year. Regardless of whether you use a PDA, a PocketPC, a Palm, Blackberry or iPhone, here are the reasons why Smartphones are a small business owner's ally.
Cutting Chords
Wireless means freedom and mobility. Having access to email, calendars, contacts and documents anywhere and anytime allows the hectic day of small business owners to be more manageable, wherever business takes them.
Having a PDA Smartphone means a person's desk travels with them in a handheld computer. Customers no longer have to wait for service or answers until the owner is back in the office. Contracts, order forms, spreadsheets and even sending and receiving payment can all be done on the handheld. The additional bonus is that all of these files can be synchronized with those on a laptop or desktop PC, making continuity between devices seamless.
Professional Productivity
Managing a business from the road eliminates idle time, allowing for efficiency and less late nights at the office. Regardless of which Smartphone software you use, Blackberry, Palm, Apple and Windows CE all cater to reading and creating Office documents and accessing company email document servers, and each offers add-on software options for increased efficiency in the areas of communication, travel, budgeting and contact management, just to name a few.
With the new iPhone 3G release, it seems apparent that even GPS navigation will be a part of every Smartphone soon. Businesses that need navigation will find this feature priceless in value. Access is the key to productivity and Smartphones allow small business owners continuous access.
Endless Entertainment
Smartphones allow the business owner to mix productivity with pleasure. Listening to personally selected music in MP3 format, audio books or even watching feature-length movies is well within the grasp of the Smartphone owner.
Playing games of cards, fantasy or strategy is also possible with the ease of a download. These can also make business trips that involve flying seem much shorter. Internet browsing is a welcome addition to the wireless world as well, offering website access and additional opportunities at entertainment.
For all these reasons, small business owners are flocking to the use of Smartphones in their endeavors. To allow competitors to take advantage this technology without using it for oneself is the opposite of smart!
