The ERP Lifestyle Consultant

RIM whistles past the graveyard. I believe this company will have little option except to be sold by the end of 2012. It’s hard to imagine another telecommunication company who has missed the mark as badly as RIM – except maybe Nokia.

Any of you who are BlackBerry users have likely noticed the service has been spotty the last several days. Sadly  Research in Motion (RIM)  doesn’t seem to know exactly what caused the problem, when it will be completely resolved – and presumably if they can’t understand the problem cannot promise it won’t recur.

One of BlackBerry’s key selling points is managing security, infrastructure and timely delivery of important email messages. When you take that away – what’s left?

I believe we have just seen the key event that will ultimately result in a BlackBerry sale or top management turnover. Perhaps both. This may not happen immediately but in my opinion the BlackBerry platform appears to be on shaky ground. The BlackBerry platforms key weakness is that it requires all email to be funneled through RIM servers thus introducing a potential catastrophic point of failure.

The outage will soon be forgotten as service returns to normal – however business and consumer confidence which already appears to be quickly shifting may forever be lost.

Outage may spell major trouble for Research in Motion

LinkedIn has just released version 1.0 of their application for BlackBerry devices.

This version works with OS 4.3+ and requires either a Bold, Tour or Curve model (that’s right – no Storm support at the moment).

The application is  quite good. The main benefits over the iPhone version being deep integration to the native BlackBerry inbox (try that on the iPhone!).

LinkedIN for BlackBerry resembles the Facebook for BlackBerry program.

The design is not as pretty as that on the LinkedIn for iPhone interface — though the integration goes so much deeper that you’ll probably want to use the BlackBerry LinkedIN version.

In fact I’m going to declare the LinkedIn for BlackBerry application as a key reason (for those of us on LinkedIn)  to use a BlackBerry. I believe it’s going to be an essential business tool for almost any serious BlackBerry user.

Here’s why.

Read the rest of this entry »

Has this ever happened to you?

After arriving at a client site you find that you’re missing that one CD required to complete a software installation?

In the past I’ve tried creating a master set of CDs and carefully inserted them into a looseleaf binder. The problem? I kept leaving the most important ones behind in the client’s CD tray. Then I’d go to look for it at the next client and the CD that I needed was missing!

I’ve rushed into the office on days that I knew I had to be out on-site with a client and hustled to burn the CD’s that I thought I might need. What I found is this always resulted in the client  having the exact CDs  needed and my early morning dash to the office was for nothing.

Instead I’m going to tell you how you can completely solve the problem of always having every CD at your fingertips without spending any extra time or pre-planning. It’s dirt cheap – and as a plus if a client ever calls to say they can’t find their Crystal Reports Disks (or insert favorite application disk that clients love to lose) – then you can send a copy to the client via your iPhone/BlackBerry or Android device in seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

T-Mobile today announced they’ll be releasing their latest BlackBerry – the 8520 – on August 5. I suggest you skip this model. The camera is a step down (only 2 MP)  from the just released BlackBerry 8900 (3.2 MP camera) and there is still no 3G data capabilities. On the plus side RIM have included some fancy multi-media buttons at the top of their newest Berry.

But really, who buys a BlackBerry to play music?

This is slated to be T-Mobile’s low end BlackBerry and you’ll be able to find it widely available for free. The problem is the service isn’t free and you’ll pay top dollar in monthly voice and data only to be attached to a low end BlackBerry that takes crappy photos.