I was on an interesting call with a fellow media professional yesterday and we discussed the convergence of telecom + data. The underlying question is – are the telephone guys and the computer gals dating yet? Will it ever happen? As we approach the third-year of this newsletter – we’ve got our fingers crossed – it’s truly a marriage made in heaven.

So part of that journey is indeed the SMB Voice newsletter. Today I speak towards the mobility configuration for Office 365, and the BlackBerry outage last week. We just call ‘em like we see ‘em.

And GO TEXAS in the World Series!

Cheers…harrybbbb

PS – join me in Boston/Waltham this THURSDAY (October 20, 4PM-6PM) for an SMB Nation BeerFest sponsored by VU Telepresence!!!!

PPS – what is your favorite Geek gift for the forthcoming holiday season – I’m writing an article on this topic…what toy do you want to get?

Harry Brelsford | Founder | SMB Nation, Inc. | www.smbnation.com

Part V: My Office 365 Journey Continues…MOBILITY!

A day doesn’t pass without a conversation about MOBILTY!!! Computing has truly changed – I think for the better – with customers being empowered with an array of mobile devices. Speaking for myself as a ferry rider by sea and a road warrior by land and air, the mobility paradigm has made my professional life complete.

As you likely know, I am writing a series of articles on our internal migration to Office 365 E3. This submission focuses on the mobility setup when implementing Office 365. I have good news! The support for the mobility features in Office 365 is very robust! As of this writing, I have literally configured every type of phone and “pad” made available to me to utilize Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Obviously the specific keystrokes for configuring your exact mobile device will vary by manufacturer. So what I offer below are the generic mobility settings in an Office 365 scenario.

• E-mail: insert your e-mail address here
• Server: m.outlook.com
• Domain: insert your domain here (e.g. smbnation for my company)
• User name: insert your e-mail address here as that is the default user name in Office 365.
• Password: ****** (this will be sent to you from the system)
• Use SSL = ON
• Description: insert your e-mail address here – or some text description that is meaningful to you

For more information – visit the following page when you logon to Office 365.

Figure #1: Visit the Setting up email on mobile phones page as part of your journey!

By Regina Ciardiello, Editor, SMB Nation

For the last two years my BlackBerry and I have been through all kinds of situations, conversations and exchanged many intimate, upsetting, happy and sometimes frustrating pieces of information.

When I graduated 2 years ago from a traditional (yet fully functional and practical flip phone) to the sleek new BlackBerry Curve, I thought I had gained entry into a VIP A-List Hollywood party. To me, having my own private “CrackBerry” was almost like being the popular girl at the party or joining an exclusive sorority. I felt like I was now part of this elite group of individuals who could easily check email, update my status on Facebook, post photos, connect with colleagues on LinkedIn, text easily with a full keyboard (remember having to type the same key several time on the flip phone before you got the correct letters spelled out?) and have 5 simultaneous conversations via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) with friends. It was almost too much for me!

I even snubbed Apple’s iPhone as it came out each year with a new version and upgrade. That’s why when I heard of the recent negative stock and outage reports surrounding my device, as well as its manufacturer, Research in Motion, I became a little sentimental. I didn’t want to ever abandon my BlackBerry, especially when so many of my friends and colleagues used the same device.

However, times have changed recently, and of the 3 people I communicate with the most, 2 have fallen by way of iPhone and Android devices, respectively. By the way, I have tried Google Talk, AOL Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with these ex-BlackBerry users, and maybe I am being biased, but they don’t hold a candle to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

Alas, it pained me yesterday to find out that my thoughts had rung true when I read the reports of a widespread service outage across the U.S. and Canada for BlackBerry users. I noticed something was amiss on Tuesday evening when I wasn’t receiving my Facebook notifications via BlackBerry. My emails were coming in and so were the texts, but Facebook seemed to be acting up. I figured maybe it was the app or the site was having issues.

When I got up yesterday morning, and saw various Tweets and Facebook updates via my laptop about the outage, my heart sank. My fears were confirmed this morning when I read the following in an article posted on MarketWatch: “In a statement Wednesday morning, RIM said that “BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience.”

I am due for an upgrade on my smartphone, and I am deciding if I want to stay with my old standby BlackBerry, which has visions of its Bold 9900 model in my head. This phone is a no-brainer for me, especially since it will be deeply discounted due to my loyalties as a Sprint customer for the last 7 years (not to mention that I will be willing to sign another 2-year contract) with the carrier. However, I also saw in the same MarketWatch article the following item that made me think twice about my decision regarding the service interruption and my new phone choice:

“The timing of the outage is particularly bad, given that it comes just two days before the launch of the iPhone 4S, the latest smartphone from Apple Inc. , which racked up preorders of 1 million units in its first day alone,” Apple reported.

I am mulling my decision, and will let you know. I surely won’t be one of the consumers camped outside our local Sprint store for several hours before its special 8 am opening tomorrow. However, I will have to make my list of pros and cons to see which phone will have the privilege of spending the next 2 years of my life with me…stay tuned!

P.S.: For more information on BlackBerry and Research and Motion’s service restoration efforts, click here to view a video statement from Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion.

Polycom Acquisition of ViVu Allows for Easily Embedded Web-Based Apps

By Regina Ciardiello, Editor, SMB Nation

As you know, our new technical niche at SMB Nation is “telepresence” and it is something we use every day. Not surprisingly – we track the industry very closely, including Polycom’s announcement made yesterday that it has acquired ViVu, Inc., a privately held video collaboration software company. The Cupertino, Calif.-based ViVu develops innovative video collaboration software that can be easily embedded into Web applications such as enterprise, social, and vertical industry applications to enable instant Web-based HD video collaboration.

The acquisition of ViVu is set to provide Polycom a fast-track to embed HD video into Web-based applications through an OEM model, accelerating time-to-market and adoption of Polycom HD video collaboration solutions, and to deliver HD video collaboration for social media and vertical market applications.

With ViVu now part of Polycom, the acquisition furthers the company’s software strategy (previously announced last month), and is expected to be a key enabler for Polycom to continue to provide customers with the highest quality and scalable video collaboration solutions across the broadest range of business, video, mobile, and social networking applications. Polycom will leverage ViVu technology in the Polycom® RealPresence™ Platform.

"ViVu is a compelling acquisition for Polycom as their technology provides a scalable architecture to quickly deploy rich video collaboration for a range of web-based applications for social, business, and industry-specific applications, such as those for healthcare, finance, and customer service,” Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom’s executive vice president and general manager of UC solutions and chief development officer, said in a media statement.

The ViVu software enables instant video collaboration in any web-based enterprise application, and is device independent. Example applications include: customer service – faster helpdesk resolution; healthcare – doctor and patient conversations via video; and finance – improved trader to client collaboration. Polycom also plans to leverage ViVu technology to accelerate embedding video collaboration into social business applications.

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