Tuesday, May 29, 2012

vodaphone tech forum

Last night, attended a short session at Vodaphone's Northland (Christchurch) store. The main audience for the forum was corporate IT managers and technicians. The objective was an update on Vodaphone's latest offerings that would be useful to the corporate market.

Mobile has moved rapidly and telecomunication companies really have their work cutout to keep up with the increase in smart phones and tablets (in NZ over 50% of Vodaphone customes have smart phones and 90% of corporate clients issue smart phones to their staff). The 'bring your own' device is high on the list for corporate IT support and something we in education are continually challenged with. However, there were assurances that sometime in the near future, corporates having to cope with a multiplicity of operating systems, will be a thing of the past - through cross platform device life cycle interfaces.

There was a short presentation of one of Vodaphone's four 'innovations' - infield support systems with the others being machine to machine, mobile marketing and mobile wallet.  Also a demonstration of the 'airwatch' app from ipad to monitor. After that, a chance to play with the many tablets and smart phones on offer. Having become familiar with the iOS on my ipad and the android OS on the Toshiba Thrive tablets, I decided to have a good look at the Windows 7 mobile OS on a Samsung Omnia W and a Nokia Lumia. A nice responsive touch screen with three buttons - a go back, a start and home. Integration to standard microsoft word, powerpoint and excel and given. So roll on windows 8.