What Mobile Connectivity is Right Your SMB?

Small business owners like a traveling salesperson, lawyer or accountant are on the move regularly and in this day and age when typically our main means of communication (at least in my case) is voice and email, it’s imperative to always be connected or at least have the ability to be.  You can’t walk into a coffee shop without seeing an open laptop.  These days it’s also tablets, here there and everywhere.  If you want to make a call with the Phone.com Communicator on your laptop, check your email and send instant messages you’ll need to be connected to the web.

So what are your options when you are out of the office and not at home?  What questions should you ask the sales person at the store? Plus keep in mind using the coffee shop wifi isn’t nearly as safe and secure as using your own personal hotspot.  

There are 3 options, turn your smartphone into a hotspot, a USB stick that you plug into your laptop and 3 is a MiFi.

Utilizing your smartphone with it’s data plan is a splendid option.

• You’re not adding another device to your already too heavy bag including not buying another device.
• You can share it with your coworkers or family/friends and it’s most likely always with you.
• On the other hand, it will drain your phone’s battery in a matter of a very few short hours.
• It typically (in my unscientific experience) is a bit slower than a dedicated device.
• Being that it’s not a separate unit from your phone you can’t just let your business partner borrow it when they leave the office to meet a client.

The USB stick

• It’s been a popular option for companies to issue their employees for years now.
• It’s the fastest means of getting your computer connected to the web.

That’s all the positives I can think of.

• Most of the time you can’t easily share your precious connectivity with anyone else.
• Most tablets and phones don’t have a USB port so they can’t suckle from it.
• When it is plugged into your laptop it is just begging to be bumped into and broken off (I’ve seen it too many times).
• Most of the units I’ve seen need the laptop to run some sort of proprietary driver software to use the USB stick.

The wireless portable hotspot also known as a MiFi.  Novatel is the manufacturer of the MiFi but people refer to all the portable hotspots and MiFi like people call tissue a Kleenex.  This is my prefered method and what I think is best.

• It’s very easy to share your internet connectivity with anyone in range, usually no more than 30 feet.
• It’s easy to connect to (same way as connecting to a phone hotspot).
• It’s easy to hand off to anyone else in the company for them to take with.
• It will keep you connected and not drain your phone battery.
• You can typically connect up to 5 or 10 different devices at once (the more devices the slower your internet).
• From lots of experience I can tell you that it’s fantastic to use for kids in the car that have a phone or tablet, you’ll be a hero.

Now one big drawback for the USB stick and the wireless portable hotspot is that you need a separate contract for them unlike tethering via your smartphone.  It’s typically a 2 year stint and spending all that extra money every month.  This can be a big undertaking for a small business but it may be well worth it in the long run taking into account how much more productive the user may be.  Using your smartphone as your hotspot can cost also but typically much less.  Many carriers charge an additional fee every month JUST to have the ability to tether your phone to a computer.  It’s usually around $10 per month which is much more reasonable than a dedicated device.

A few questions and topics for the salesperson…

• Discuss your data allotment.  I suggest starting small instead of large like the salesperson will try to insist on.  Carriers will typically allow you to backdate your plan if you go over your data package.
• Ask for a business plan or family plan instead of totally separate accounts for each of your devices.
• 4G LTE over 3G or HSPA+ will give you a sizeable speed boost.
• Prepaid or postpaid if you’re hesitant to get into a contract.

Being able to connect to the web is so important in this day and age.  Don’t miss out on an important Communicator video call when you’re late getting back to your office.

Do you already connect your laptop to the web when you’re out?  What method do you use?  Chat with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Customer Service From Top To Bottom

As the Director of Customer Service for Phone.com I am very much accustomed to receiving both positive and negative feedback from a variety of customers in a variety of ways about a variety of employees.  One of the most common ways we collect feedback is through the customer satisfaction survey we send out after a customer contacts support.

On one particular day I was going through the comments and came across one from a customer that said “Joel Maloff is wonderful to work with. He’s responsive and easy to communicate with.”  Normally I wouldn’t think much of this except for the fact that Joel is Phone.com’s Vice President for Channel Development and he doesn’t typically spend a lot of time interacting with customers.

I use this story to illustrate a key point.  A company does not become a customer centered company by chance.  From top to bottom of any organization it is critical that all employees care deeply for customers and understand that the customers are the life blood of the organization.  While some employees never interact directly with customers, they can provide excellent service to the people interacting with the customers.  They can also understand the way their work touches customers and do it to the best of their ability.

I am here to tell you that Phone.com is such an organization.  This example of great feedback about Joel is one of many from the leadership at Phone.com.  I can name countless times when I have asked upper management to interact with a customer and in all cases I’m met with extreme willingness.  They understand that if Phone.com is going to be successful, it starts with amazing customer service.

Jeremy Watkin is the Director of Customer Service for Phone.com and co-founder of CommunicateBetterBlog.com  (and on Twitter: @commbetterblog ); a blog dedicated to learning about good and bad customer service with the intent of providing amazing customer service for Phone.com.

Free In-Network

Free In-Network Calling allows all Phone.com customers to talk to each other for free.  Meaning if you have 10 extensions on your account everyone can call each other within the company at no charge.  My friends office has grown so much they are in 4 separate office spaces in the same building, they have a lot of square footage and it’s not reasonable to walk the entire floor just to ask a few questions so they call each other all the time.

This is a huge benefit for companies that may be in multiple locations, different cities or spread across the world.  It’s also a savings if you know another company uses Phone.com as well because you can call them for free.  Saving money is always good so call your coworkers to your hearts content.

Free In-Network Calling is just one of the many features Phone.com offers our customers.  Here’s  our Features page, take a look and see what else you may like.  Always remember if you’re interested in Phone.com we offer and 30 day free trial.

Crystal Ball Gazing Into 2013

By Stuart Zipper

At the end of the year it’s somewhat of a tradition for every commentator, columnist, blogger, would-be guru and crystal ball glazer to either write about “that was the year that was” or bravely make their predictions for the coming year.

Two such predictions that have been bouncing around, from respected research houses, particularly interest me.

The first comes from In-Stat and it’s a prediction for 2013 that was made back in 2010. At that time In-Stat predicted that by the end of 2013 some 79% of all businesses will have converted to VoIP. When the prediction was made, business VoIP penetration was only at about 33%, with an estimated 42% of U.S. businesses having VoIP in at least one location.

Interestingly, over the past 24 months, few soothsayers have updated that In-Stat prediction, and dozens have repeated it. Personally, I’d buy 79% of all U.S. businesses having VoIP in at least one location. But I’m not quite ready to expect to see that percentage applying to ALL business telephony.

Still, it’s easy to see a majority of all business telephony having migrated to VoIP by the end of the year, as realization of the benefits of business VoIP, virtual switchboards and the cloud computing paradigm that makes VoIP work penetrate ever more deeply into the business world.

As for the second prediction, that’s one made by Juniper Research a couple of weeks ago, in which it said 2013 would be “The Year of Microsoft” in the mobile industry. That’s based on the release of Windows 8 mobile, the mobile OS with which Microsoft hopes to finally make up a lot of lost ground in the mobile industry.

Indeed I’ve already seen several predictions over the past year or so that Windows mobile will become the number two operating system for mobile phones by the end of 2013 or 2014, trailing only Android. That of course means that Apple will fall from its leadership position in smartphones, just as BlackBerry did before it.

As to whether Windows 8 really is good enough to live up to that prediction, I should be able to pontificate in a short while. I’ve just obtained a shiny new HTC Windows 8 phone (I guess AT&T owns my mobile soul for another two years). And it is an LTE phone, so I may soon get to play with Voice over LTE (VoLTE), the upcoming “killer” version of wireless VoIP.

This wasn’t, by the way, done for the sake of this blog. It’s the result of my clumsily dropping my phone in a hospital parking lot. Some kind soul found it and turned it in to the hospital lost and found but, alas, the device had already been fatally injured by an errant vehicle.

Joel Talks About Phone.com on the VUC Video Podcast

Our very own Joel Maloff was recently interviewed on the highly regarded VOIP User Conference (VUC) most recent video podcast.  Joel expounds on what Phone.com is as well as about our Channel Program.
One of my 2013 goals is to listen to more podcasts so I can learn more while I’m in the car.  Here’s a link to the general page where you can decide how and where to listen to the podcast.  Joel isn’t the only guest but his part starts at the 58 minute mark.

Change Your Settings for the Holiday Week

The most popular vacation time for small business owners starts this evening so I wanted to remind you to change your voicemail and maybe even your phone menus.  Nothing worse then not returning calls to clients that expect to hear back from you.

Here are some videos to help you.

Recording and Updating Greetings:

Call Forwarding:

Lastly Voicemail Transcription is a great feature that allows you to read voicemail that people leave for you.  This is great for family time so that your spouse doesn’t see you with a phone to your ear.  Reading something on the phone is one thing in my house but being on a phone call during family time is another.

Happy holidays and if you’re going on vacation, enjoy!

VoIP And The Fiscal Cliff

By Stuart Zipper

Nowhere have I seen mention of VoIP anywhere in the billion or so words written so far about the potential effects of the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” but indeed the VoIP industry does face a significant potential loss … in the range of $500 million or more … if the political horse trading goes the wrong way.

At stake is a program to transform the U.S. Army’s communications system from its current stone age POTS (plain old telephone service) technology to UC (Universal Communications) technology, the stuff on which VoIP runs, by 2016. The Army spent $131 million on that program in FY 2012, and is hoping to increase that amount to $142 million for FY 2013, although realistically the most it will get, according to most analysts and gurus, is the same as it got for FY 2012.

But that’s without taking into account the fiscal cliff, and its sequestration requirements. The UC program is part of a $13.3 billion “other procurement” line in the military budget which is where the most draconian cuts are expected to occur, at least $1.2 billion of them. And it’s all too easy to see some politician harping that the last thing the taxpayers need to pay for is a shiny new $500 million telephone system (that’s roughly the total amount to be spent preparing for Army-wide VoIP by 2016, given the annual run rate and anticipated size of various contract awards involved).

The irony of it all, as any business VoIP user is well aware, is that a pure VoIP system will save the Army, and thus taxpayers, far more than it costs to implement the UC system. In the medium to long term taxpayers will have to ante up far more money than if the investment in UC is made in the short term.

Meanwhile the VoIP industry, including hardware manufacturers, software vendors and carriers should be sitting on edge, and perhaps even lobbying their congressmen, before the loss of a huge amount of investment that will undoubtedly help fuel the continued growth and development of VoIP.

Tips For Starting A New Business On A Budget

By Jeb

With the holiday season upon us I always end up talking about entrepreneurship and starting businesses with family at our gatherings.  Sometimes starting a new business is scarier then running the business and I can only imagine the companies that haven’t started because of the fear of getting started.

I thought some of our Phone.com customers might like to read this.  Most of it is spot on and rings true to me.  I read it on Young UpStarts.
Here are some tips for starting a new business on a budget:

• Avoid expensive rent  - Use your garage or spare bedroom
• Delay hiring employees – If necessary hire remote workers
• Embrace social media – Save money on advertising and use social media
• Create your own website – I’m not sure about this one, if you have a knack for this kind of thing then go ahead, if not spend some money on it.  One thing to consider is using a blog template instead of a traditional website if you go the DIY route
• Take the law into your own hands – It’s easy to incorporate a business (at least in California), just make sure you obey the laws and take advice for your state in particular, not for the next state over
• Handle your own finances – There are so many free online options for this kind of thing and if you have to do payroll or more complex financing there are inexpensive web based services
• Sell products online – Depending on what your company does this is a great way to gage interest in products and variations of each product
• Take advantage of networking opportunities – I recently read to never turn down networking opportunities, I’m trying to live that now but it seems like sound advice

A few of more suggestions are:

• First and foremost – Get a business number to keep your work and personal life separate.  Obviously we recommend Phone.com
• Use the Phone.com PC Communicator for your empoyees.  It will work on their computer so you don’t have to buy them a desktop phone.
• If you buy computers for employees buy used
• By supplies for the entire office not for each desk, not everyone will ever need to use the 1 office stapler at once
• A great suggestion I read from Jason Calacanis a few years back is to  buy a cheap desk (for example a 6ft table or 2) and spend a little more on a chair.

Starting a small business is a process and not an overnight endeavour.  It will take a lot of work to get things going but Phone.com would be happy to be a partner in your business and serve many of your communication needs.

Building Small Business Credit

By Jeb

Many small businesses have trouble attaining lines of credit or loans because they don’t have established credit scores. Now what comes first the chicken or the egg… You need successful transactional histories to increase credit scores, but many suppliers shy away from doing business on credit if your credit scores are too low or nonexistent.

Here are 3 quick and easy ways to start to establish small business credit from an interesting new site I’ve recently come across called YFS Magazine.

1. Remit Early Payments
Many manufacturers and suppliers offer discounts for paying in cash or for paying early.
Taking advantage of deals, such as “2% 10 or net 30”, can help a firm in multiple ways. Suppliers are more inclined to give this type of deal than a cash discount, and these deals are a great way for you to save money and build credit if your cash flow can sustain early payments.

2. Pay off Liabilities Before Maturity
Many reporting agencies boost the credit scores of businesses who pay off their liabilities before they mature. This is a quick and easy way for businesses to boost their credit without creating new lines of credit or increasing their total liabilities.

3. Convert COD to Business on Credit
Another great way to establish small business credit is to convert current cash on delivery transactions to business on credit.
This has a few benefits, one of which is that it frees up cash. The business remains more liquid so it can take advantage should an investment opportunity arise. However, it is important to remember that not paying suppliers and vendors on time will hurt your business relationship and creditworthiness; on-time payments must be prioritized.
Some suppliers may be hesitant to convert CODs to business on account since it means they won’t have cash as quickly. You can alleviate some of their hesitation by first running a business credit report. This credit report calculates your business’s probability of default over the next year. If you present it during negotiations, it’s a great way to show suppliers and creditors that you are in stable financial health and that you can meet your financial obligations.

Business credit is an asset that a business can secure lines of credit with, lease equipment, finance a company vehicle, and obtain business loans and credit cards without putting personal credit at risk.

It’s important to remember, the greater the business credit, the greater the worth and potential return you will receive if you choose to sell the business in the future.

Caller Analytics- Break down and analyze calls to your Phone.com numbers

Recently Phone.com added Caller Analytics as a feature for our customers. This is an entirely new way of looking at data with insight into your customers age, gender, education and income level. This data can be broken down by time or date range and you can view the traffic in terms of technology used, landline or cell phone.

This means that you can have an insight into your clients/callers that you’ve never been able to before. Knowing you’re talking to a 75 year old millionaire with a college degree who likes to call in between 8 and 9 am for a chat with your company is quite different than at 21 year old who’s still in college and is in debt up to their ears. They both deserve a top notch customer experience but by knowing a little background information you have a much better chance of having a successful call.

With Caller Analytics you can even track the success of social media marketing, whether it’s a campaign or just daily interactions we can analyze calls by social channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even email.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in you should take advantage of our 60 day free trial. There’s no obligation, just log in to your administration control panel and add Caller Analytics. If you’re a new customer start off signing up from our homepage at www.phone.com. Remember the first rule of business is knowing your customers. Getting to know them will make you and your company more prepared to interact with them and isn’t that usually what we want?

VoIP On Vacation

By Stuart Zipper

As any VoIP user should realize, a critical key to good VoIP service is good broadband service. Lately I’ve been experiencing regular glitches in my service, which Century Link finally thinks they’ve tracked down to a problem with my DSL Modem. My modem isn’t responding to their diagnostic test queries, a clear indication that something is wrong, they think. Put another way, my monitoring of key issues such as latency also shows a problem with my Internet connection, which I certainly hope a new modem will eliminate.

Thus, a shiny “new” (well, actually “reconditioned” according to the box) modem is sitting on my desk in my home office, waiting for the acid test. The only catch is that the office is in Denver, and I’m currently in Florida, so it will be another couple of weeks until I can complete the test. Meanwhile, my Phone.com virtual switch is sending all of my calls to either my cell phone, or to my wife’s, at the caller’s discretion. As I wrote last week, setting that up was child’s play.

The situation also brings to memory what I find an amusing story.

The last time I got a new modem from Century Link it was sent in error, but once again I was headed out of town, so it sat on my desk, that time about six thousand miles away from where I had temporarily hung my hat. However Century Link attempted to bill me for the modem.

In the “old” days that would have meant an expensive international phone call to argue about the bill – simply not paying it was out of the question since I certainly didn’t want my DSL service disconnected. But as it happened, I had been beta testing Phone.com’s new Communicator software, which lets me use my laptop as an extension on my business VoIP system. So, using Communicator, I placed the call, at zero extra cost for the international connection. In essence Century Link was thus helping beta test the new VoIP software … being used by a customer who had dropped their landline service in favor of the far less expensive VoIP from Phone.com.

Phone.com Customer Spotlight: Context Travel

When the Context Does Not Include an IT Department

Context Travel is not a run of the mill walking-tour company. Context has a network of scholars, professors, researchers and specialists who lead in-depth walking seminars of the world’s cultural capitals for small groups of intellectually curious travelers.With offices in the U.S., U.K., Italy, France and Turkey, the staff needs an absolutely reliable phone service 24/7/365, wherever they are.

Context Travel uses the Phone.com service to create a world-wide umbrella over their entire company, allowing their employees in France or Asia, to be able to communicate with their clients through Global Numbers that ring to their individual cell phones. They can then transfer calls from London to another tour guide in Vienna by dialing their extension directly. With so many options available, Context Travel always stays connected as if they were all in the same office building.

When Context Travel was evaluating phone services, it wanted something that was affordable and easy to use and manage, and why they chose Phone.com.They got exactly what they needed. “We needed a central way to connect our phones systems, and a system that offered international numbers in the countries where we operate,” said Carolyn Macuga, U.S. Operations Manager at Context Travel. “Phone.com was able to offer that to us and that’s wonderful.”

The thing is, with a staff deeply educated in the arts, history, culture and architecture; Context Travel doesn’t have an IT department to run their communications needs.So, after two years of using Phone.com, the best surprise was the amazingly attentive support they got whenever they needed it.Macuga says, “When we have tech issues, Phone.com immediately helps us.Because we’re a small company, we don’t have our own tech support department.Having the support and tech teams at Phone.com being so responsive is a huge benefit to us”.

For more information about Context Travel, visit their website:

If You Lose Your Phone What Can You Do?

I want to remind people to back up their devices and install some sort of find/lock/wipe software.  My friend Chase was in a cab Saturday night and when he got out his iPhone slid out of his coat pocket.  That was it, gone.  Of course he was upset about losing an expensive phone but he was more upset about losing his calendar and contacts.

Chase is now borrowing one of his brother’s old phones but he’s lost all of his most important data.  Plus his pictures and text messages are gone and all of it is in the hands of the cabbie.
When I spoke to Chase on Monday I asked him about syncing and wiping his phone.  But like too many others he didn’t install the Find iPhone app on his phone. Now imagine if you will that you lost your phone or tablet today.  I’d be devastated but my calendar and contacts sync to Google and I have the Find iPhone app on my Apple devices as well as LookOut and Plan B on my Android phone.

Luckily I’ve never had to use LookOut or Plan B both from LookOut Mobile Security but if I did I would know I can passcode lock my phone easily, then locate it (hopefully) and lastly if necessary wipe it clean of all my data.  I had to do this with my iPad last week using Find iPhone, though luckily I knew were my iPad was and it was safe but I still locked it while sitting in traffic on the freeway.  I knew no one could read my post to the Phone.com Twitter or Facebook accounts.
If I lost your phone today and you didn’t have any of these apps on it, potentially a thief could access my email, DropBox and Box accounts.  Post Tweets and Facebook messages as well as see my calendar, travel schedule and get access to all of my work documents in Google Drive and EverNote.  I’m not even looking through my phone and those are the first things that come to mind.  I would be infuriated and frustrated knowing someone may be looking through my private documents including patent applications, business ideas and pictures of my children.

What would happen to you?  Could someone get your bank account numbers and passwords?  What about access to your Amazon app, can they make purchases you will be billed for?  Or if they got into PayPal they could drain your account.
We all hope this never happens but do you have a plan if it does or if one of your employees loses a phone with work related info on it?

I’m not endorsing anyone besides Phone.com but Find iPhone and LookOut Mobile Security apps are examples of apps I suggest you install on your phone and your employees phones or tablets if they have any type of work related content on them, even if it’s just email.

Oh – and there is another benefit to having a Phone.com account:  if you lose your phone you can easily forward your calls to any other phone you borrow (even your mother’s old phone) and still receive calls on your phone number.

We Care About Our Customers

By: Ari

Does a phone service provider really care about its customers? You bet. We at Phone.com truly care. From our first day of operations almost five years ago we have been listening and communicating with our customers. We have designed features and applications based on customer feedback. We have worked with customers to offer them a unique app that might not be available online and we do our best to explain our development process.

Our developers and our customer support managers constantly communicate with one another and address customer questions. It may seem like its just a phone service but yet there is so much to learn from how and where our customers use our services.

Over the years we have received many unsolicited thank you emails and we publish some of them on our website and some you can see on our Facebook Fan Page.

Recently, after Superstorm Sandy we wrote an email to all our customers (I posted it below).

Dear

Moving Your Phones Should Not Be Difficult

By Jeb

I was moving offices over the weekend and was reminded again how Phone.com makes my life easier.  One of my oldest friends (let’s call him Josh) is moving his office very soon and I asked what he’s doing about his phone system.  He was ashamed to admit it but he’s paying someone to move over and set up his entire phone system again.  He’s paying them to dismantle the phones along with the dedicated server and set them back up again.

Josh was not happy when I told him what I was doing to move my phone system.  I’m literally just unplugging the power supply to my IP desktop phone as well as the ethernet cable from the back of the phone, that’s it for the physical phone.  To move my Communicator I just have to close the lid on my laptop and walk away holding it.  Lastly to take my Mobile Office app with me I just put my Android phone in my pocket.

Moving offices with Phone.com is a piece of cake, no hiring IT people to disassemble a PBX system and no need to create a dedicated server rooms with sprinkler systems and tempreture controls (like Josh has).  We’re literally a plug and play solution with the a vast array of features and 24/7 365 IT help (only for our systems) in the form of our customer service reps.

OTT Services Will Drive Businesses To Go Beyond Pricing

By Jeb

In the world of mobile things move at the speed of light except for change.  Everyone is trying to compete on the lowest price but what happens when they get to the breaking point?  Choosing a mobile carrier will be left up to coverage and OTT (over the top) services.  I don’t have much insight on coverage, Sprint works here but T-Mobile doesn’t work there, that’s not in my realm.  But what I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately is what are the carriers going to offer to make them stand out above the others.  The biggest thing for me right now is that AT&T has rollover minutes.  They’ve had it for years and I think it’s a big draw, keeping your unused plan minutes for the future in case you have an overage.

More recently HTC had a promotion that anyone on AT&T (and a few other carriers in the US) that purchased one of their One X handsets would get 25GB of free storage with DropBox for a year.  Buyers of the Samsung Galaxy S 3 are able to download free music when they tap their phones to NFC enabled posters.  I really like this type of promotion, using the NFC on the SGS3 is a great way to get consumers using this technology.

I think handset manufacturers and carriers are making significant headway in adding benefit to using their devices ONLY and not the competition.  This is important in a world where every Android phone can do the same thing as the next and all iPhones run the same firmware whether they’re on Verizon, AT&T or Sprint.  There needs to be a differentiator and something making one phone on one carrier more attractive than same the phone on a different carrier.  Now where are the other OTT services that could easily be provided.  Why don’t AT&T business accounts get 1 free TripIt Pro account for every $100 increment on their bill?  Or why don’t I get free a free download code for a movie from iTunes from my carrier every Wednesday like Orange did for a while in England?

Over the top benefits and services are what’s going to set devices, their manufacturers and carriers apart from the competition and I hope they recognize that.  The fight to the bottom on price may be a short term strategy but what happens when they get there.  There has to be something else that drives the customer and that will be benefits like free music from Samsung and space on DropBox.

This should teach small business owners and operators a lesson, it’s not always price that matters but what you have to offer that’s different from the rest.  We have the best phone service, 24/7 US based customer support, big name musicians/bands for our hold music and many other services that set us apart from the competition.  I wouldn’t get laser eye surgery from a doctor with the lowest price or a buy 1 get 1 free offer, so what besides price sets you apart from  the competition?

Talk to us on Facebook and Twitter to let us know what you think.

Zoho Is Going Mobile Like Phone.com

By Jeb

I just had the most amazing mobile experience.  Everyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with mobile technology and communications.  I was reading an article online today that mentioned Zoho Invoice which I’ve been using for years.  The article mentioned that there is finally a Zoho Invoice app.  I immediately grabbed my iPhone, downloaded the app and emailed off the qued up invoice I had waiting for me.  Zoho is a great suite of services for small and medium sized businesses.  I’m not endorsing them or suggesting anybody use them but I wanted to share that now I have the capability to create and send invoices to clients from my mobile phone which I was just talking to someone about recently.

I complain regularly about there not being enough change in mobile and I really don’t think there is but I’m happy to see Zoho taking steps in the right direction to allow users to do all their computing on mobile devices.

I can imagine a small business owner in his or her car finishing a call (on their Phone.com Mobile Office app of course) and thinking, the faster I get the client the invoice for the big deal they just closed the sooner I get paid and the sooner I can start the project.  Why wait until their back in their home office, do the invoice now in the car.  It’s the same thing with Phone.com, don’t wait to make a call in your office, make the call from wherever you are in the world on your cell phone.

Employees Can Use Their Cell Phones For Work But Let Them Go Off The Clock

One of the great features of

Supporting Small Business in New York City

Last week Phone.com had the opportunity to be one of the sponsors of the first NY Business Expo at the 69th Regiment Armory in NYC. The event was a two day expo showcasing a peppering of companies including startups and well established brands alike. As a sponsor, we were thrilled to offer all attendees Phone.com’s Virtual Office solution free for 1 year. Needless to say I’m sure plenty of startups found this a rather useful piece of expo “schwag”.

Anyone familiar with NYC’s armories is aware of the enormity of these field house sized spaces, and to NY Biz Ex’s credit they were able to mostly fill the Armory with exhibiting companies, seminars by established business executives & venture capitalists, and one rather unique room for mentors. Not that I’m any expert on trade shows and conferences, but this was the first time I had seen a mentoring program being held as part of a trade show. Startups and entrepreneurs had the opportunity to schedule one-to-one mentor meetings with an A list of successful business executives. But as the API guy at Phone.com, my focus was to hunt down companies who’s applications were communications enabled, or those companies who’s applications could benefit from being communications enabled. So here’s a couple company highlights of mine from the show:

Spacesplitter.com – I have three roommates. Splitting all of our collective bills on a monthly basis, plus getting everyone to pay in full and on time can sometimes be a challenge. So for me SpaceSplitter sounded like a home run. Although still in development, SpaceSplitter allows users to order household goods (through Soap.com) and split the bill any which way. But the features I’m waiting for, and am told are in development are integrations with ConEd and TimeWarner allowing me to use the same service to pay and split bills across other utilities. Once that happens, you can bet I’ll be using SpaceSplitter. Very cool service especially for NYC where so many people share apartments and lofts. I also expect SMS notifications and reminders being integrated into SpaceSplitter.

Herematch.com – This company was founded by a guy I’ve known for many years Neil Levine & his son. The problem Herematch tries to solve, which is a big problem and often my largest gripe with networking events, is how to effectively pair those people with services, products, & jobs with those people in need of said services, products, & jobs. Herematch allows individuls to create profiles based on what they’re looking to get out of networking, and through check-ins the application will pair those individuals up surrounding a specific event. Again, thinking about API’s this application is a perfect use case for Text Messaging where individuals can either connect via SMS, or be notified of a “match” via text or call.

Other exhibiting businesses also included professional services organizations like accountants, law firm, and financial planning. All in all I would rate NY Business Expo a success and will keep an eye out for what they plan to do next year. And expect to see Phone.com participating in events all across the metro NYC area for the foreseeable future!

By Aaron Rosenthal – API Product Manager

Our Mobile Web App Allows You To Use Phone.com On Most Smart Phone

By: Jeb

A mobile web app is an app that runs on the web in your browser instead of being downloaded and run on your phone or tablet.  Our mobile web app looks very much like our mobile phone apps but it’s browser based.  It has the ability to access your Phone.com address book, review phone logs, check voicemail and send/receive text messages as well as most importantly make phone calls.  You can also use it to call into your conference call bridge.  This is one very robust app and I want to make sure you know about it.

If you visit m.phone.com from your phones browser you can check out the mobile web app.  You’ll need to log in with your credentials, phone number, extension and voicemail password.  Once in you navigate with the Menu button on the top right where you’ll find all the options.

Our web app is ideal for people who don’t download apps on their phone, many older Android phones ran out of memory.  It’s also great when traveling outside the US because it uses a call back system and very often in foreign countries incoming calls are free, if you have a local sim.  Also if your data connection is slow or too costly our app isn’t heavy on the graphics so on slow speeds it will still work and it only uses a very small amount of data.

To populate your address book if you haven’t already you’ll have to sync or upload them from the Address Book section of your control panel.

Our mobile web app is a great service and ready for you to use now.  Go check it out and let us know what you think on Facebook or Twitter.