Application Software Development

Business application development needs to accelerate faster.  Some are still talking about getting IT solutions to the web.  We should be talking about how to get IT business applications WAP enabled.  As voice and data networks continue to converge, consumers are going to want new and different way to access IT solutions.  Some have struggled with web application development and WAP is going to be a little trickier because the user interface is small and will probably need to be re-worked for the smaller display. 

In part-one I shared that on this trip, the coverage on my new phone was very acceptable.  In this post I will share some of the features I have used.  One of my requirements was to have a handset that supported navigation.  On the old phone I used Navigator that has a female voice, so I named her Suzy.  My new phone has Nokia maps and has a male voice, so I will call him Coleman.   Suzy has helped me many times and I have confidence in her, so it was up to Coleman to prove himself.  While we were still in the mountains of Maryland, I programmed the final destination into both phones.  It took a few minutes for the Nokia to find our location, but once it did, Coleman gave me turn by turn instructions, ETA and other things I expected.  Even though I had cell coverage, Suzy was not able to connect at all until we were out of the mountains.  I have had this problem before with Suzy before and it’s really quite annoying when you really need directions.  The conference is at National Harbor which is been open less than a year.  As we got close, I could see the Gaylord resort, but Coleman kept insisting we make a legal U turn.  Nokia downloads map data to the phone and navigator send information through a data network.  If there is no data network, no maps.   The downside of the Nokia is it takes up phone memory.  Right now I’m call this even.  There are pros and cons to both.

My new phone is a smart phone, so there are two other options that I am aware of.  Telenav is subscription service that is very similar to Navigator.  I can also download a Google maps application as well.

Another requirement that I have is my contacts and calendar be synced to our server.  The Nokia software does a great job at this.  Another option that I need is to be able to tether the phone to my notebook for broadband internet connectivity.  I have not been able to test this on my new phone yet.

One of the goals of the switch was to save some money.  Because our new phones are smart phones, they need full data service and so I’m ending up at about the same cost. So the bottom line is we ended up with more capabilities for the same price.  From what I see so far, integrating voice and data applications and having them work well together will be the next application development challenge.