Blog for Sunday:

 KM on the road: mobile applications

Judith Lamont wrote an article called “KM on the road: mobile applications” which was posted on kmworld.com. She opens the article by showing how even though a laptop is light, it is still not convenient enough for people. She points out that email is now easily accessible by phones such as Blackberry, iPhone, and other smartphones. Smartphones take less time to pull out, log on, and gain access. Although email is easy to access, what about other business applications? Businesses are starting to take a more mobile approach. The article says, “According to a study by In-Stat, growth in revenue for mobile business applications will increase 44 percent from 2007 to 2008.” 500 companies of various sizes and industry were studied for these statistics. The article also states that. “In 2007, at least one mobile data application was in place in 94 percent of firms in the study, up from 75 percent the previous year.” A third of these applications in place were knowledge management applications, and the numbers are growing. So who uses this and how can it be useful? Field service technicians and sales department staff were the first groups to start using smartphones on the job. An example of mobile devises storing information is BlueService. BlueService stores customer information, service requests, schedules, contracts and other information so that technicians in the field can view it through their smartphones. Emails and text message alerts are sent regarding schedule changes. Warranty checks can also be managed through their phones.