Business Mobiles: Hungry for an Apple? Shake The Tree First.

Our team has been painstakingly comparing the top business mobile phones, and the news isn’t good for the folks who think life isn’t worth living if you don’t have some fruit in your pocket.

Yes, we know. You want an iPhone. Everybody wants an iPhone. You’ve probably already spent your kids’ Christmas fund getting yours, or are in the process of choosing a suitable limb to donate in order to get one.

Now let’s get something straight. We all love the iphone. It’s the techno-style icon of the decade. iPhone looks cool, it does cool things, and you could spend a cool half-grand getting one. At long last, the upwardly mobile people who remember the ‘80s finally have a worthwhile replacement for their Filofaxes.

Putting our “Mustavan iPhone” predjuces aside for a just a little while, we locked ourselves away in a small, well-lit room to consider some of the other possibilities for business mobiles before jumping on the bandwagon (or applecart). There’s lots and lots to choose from. We looked at eleven business mobiles in total, ranging from the no-nonsense Nokia 2730, right up to the latest blackberry and smartphone offerings and, er, the iPhone.

Starting at the “no nonsense” end, the Nokia 6303 turned out to be a very respectable mobile phone, with compact dimensions, a good 16-million colour display, 2000 contact records, and with email and internet browsing thrown in we figured you couldn’t go wrong. To label it “entry level” would be grossly unfair. It has a number of other goodies thrown in, but the camera sparked our interest most of all. It’s 3.15 megapixel resolution is the same as the iPhone 3G and with a low price it’s superb value.

It wasn’t long before resistance weakened. We played briefly with the Blackberry phones, solid, trustworthy as ever, be we really wanted to get our hands on the smartphones. It was time to categorically prove iPhone as the best and then ask the management to issue them to us and all the staff. Things didn’t quite go to plan. Aren’t Smartphones all about touchscreens? Well, one of them hit us with a secret weapon: an additional pull-out QWERTY keyboard. The Motorola Milestone has a very capable 3.7-inch touchscreen AND a very smart and useable pull-out QWERTY keypad with proper buttons. This brings instant relief to our city-worker friends who are fed up with fumbling with screen-based keyboards whilst being bounced up and down on the tubes and buses.

There were soon two clear leaders. The Motorola Milestone and HTC Desire have good internal memory storage plus a microSD card slot, allowing owners to add memory storage as and when need dictates. With iPhone you get two fixed storage options and no expansion memory slot, which has always seemed a bit restrictive. Our two upstarts also have 5 megapixel cameras as does the iPhone 4, the connectivity options compare favourably with iPhone, talk time and standby time about the same, and those nifty applications are supported too. And now for the big one: the Motorola and HTC phones have microsoft-based software applications including instant messenger and are easily integrated with Microsoft Exchange. Perfect for business. Then we hear that HTC are about to release their own physical keyboard answer with even more useful goodies, and so are Nokia. Our Mac-friendly Apple began to fall from the tree.

Our wayward fruit hit the ground soon after with a thud when we looked at costs. The HTC and Motorola smartphones were priced about the same, which was about half that of an iPhone. Price is definitely where the iPhone towers above all others. So we put the iPhone carefully back, handed the HTC and the Motorola to two of our field-based sales guys and told them to go and play.

Feedback was good for both phones, with HTC seeming to win by a nose. Although the Motorola had the strongest specification and looked best on paper, HTC had superb ergonomics and slightly better build quality, but that’s just our opinion. Try them for yourself. What can’t be denied is that both the HTC Desire and Motorola Milestone fit modern business superbly and your choice will be down to personal preference. New model enhancements on the horizon make them even more attractive and the smart business mobile option.

Unless of course, you stoop down to pick up that Apple.

Southern Communications were established in 1965 and provide complete business telecoms solutions including business mobile equipment and mobile contracts for all sizes of businesses. We offer free consultancy with unbiased advice on all aspects of business communications.

The Cost Of Calls: Freephone and Friends

Non-geographic telephone numbers, or NGNs, have been with us for years. The two that we know best are 0800 (freephone) and 0845 (local-rate) numbers, but what are they? Why would we want them? How do they work? How do you get them and how much do they cost?

“Call Us NOW on FREEphone 0800…”. Did somebody just say “FREE”? Even now in our hard-nosed, been-around-the-block capitalist Western world, the word still gets our blood pumping. Without doubt, FREE is the top word for marketeers, a ruthless predator they will release whenever the financial bosses say it’s ok to open it’s cage. “Cheap” is in second place by a number of lengths, which is why 0845 still gets our attention with it’s low rate, about the same as a local call.

Back in the days when doing anything clever with phones meant spending a king’s ransom, 0800 and 0845 numbers were the realm of large corporate businesses. Firms used NGNs to show size, quality, stability and national presence. If a company was prepared to pick up the cost of your call to them, they must be delivering a good service, right? And don’t forget the “free” bit with it’s narcotic attraction.

They work very simply. When your customer calls an NGN, the phone exchange simply “points” the call at your normal landline number. Effectively, you run your existing numbers in parallel with your NGNs. Clients who are used to ringing your old advertised number can continue to do so, and you may choose to advertise your NGNs in the press, or on your website, etc.

As well as the obvious advertising benefits, there are a number of other advantages. NGNs usually come with itemised phone bills, so you can see how successful your advertising campaigns are. Many companies use multiple NGNs associated with a range of services and products. Modern phone system technology even allows staff to answer calls according to which NGN has been dialled. NGNs can also be combined with services such as fax retrieval. A fax-to-email number simply sends you an email with an image of the document attached, instead of using paper and a fax machine.
Another big advantage is that non-geographic numbers are never fixed to a single location. If your business relocates, or if you need to divert the calls to a different number in an emergency, your NGN can be reprovisioned quickly before your callers even notice.

NGNs are easy to get hold of, and even easier to set up. All it takes is a quick call to your telecoms vendor, pick the numbers you want from a list and they should do the rest for you.

Costs are much more affordable now and will vary, but you should expect free set-up for just about any non-geographic number. Rental should be free too, and the cost of incoming calls should be around the same as a national call for 0800 numbers, and even lower for the likes of 0845, 0844, 0870 etc. Rates vary so check with your vendor. Some NGNs such as 0844 can even generate revenue for you, handy if you take a lot of calls and want to reduce your phone bills further.

The great thing about NGNs is that now, like everything in telecoms, you can get them for next to nothing and the marketing power is still as strong as it ever was. With deregulation and extreme competition in the UK telecoms industry, now is the time to take advantage of NGNs, and the telecoms vendors are falling over themselves to give them to you.

Southern Communications provide 0800 freephone and 0845 numbers with free set-up and rental. 0845 number inbound call costs are also free. For more information on our business calls and lines services visit us at www.southern-comms.co.uk or email sales@southern-comms.co.uk