B2B/B2C online strategy and enterprise eBusiness blog

I recently had the opportunity to upgrade to a new BlackBerry 8830. It has several bells and whistles (improved keyboard, GPS, voice activated dialing, etc.) but perhaps most importantly, I now have the ability to use my BlackBerry 8830 as a wireless modem on the Sprint wireless network with my laptop.

Internet access anywhere there’s a cell signal

No more having to pay $9.95 at each airport I sit in for Internet access. I’ll basically have Internet access wherever I have a cell phone signal!

Here’s how:

1. Install the BlackBerry 8800 modem scripts in Macintosh HD > Library > Modem Scripts
2. Pair your BlackBerry with your Mac (I have a MacBook Pro which has built-in Bluetooth functionality). To do this: Apple Menu > System Preferences > Network > Bluetooth and click the “Set Up Bluetooth Device…” button. Follow the prompts to pair your device.
3. For the Sprint wireless network, you need to enter the following configuration information in the Bluetooth settings for Modem connectivity:
   1. Telephone Number:  wap.sprint.com
   2. Account Name & Password fields can both be left blank

Apple just gets it. Today they announced the iPhone 3G, a thinner, faster, and more affordable iPhone. I continue to be fascinated by how they take difficult or time-consuming processes and make them easy. Take for example MobileMe.

How will Plaxo respond to MobileMe?

As a die-hard Plaxo user, MobileMe seems to be a fairly significant threat to Plaxo. In the wake of Comcast’s recent purchase of Plaxo, I would imagine Plaxo will be find itself in a difficult position to continue innovating as it works through the transition to Comcast ownership and business processes.

Apple has quite simply leap-frogged Plaxo in features and functionality that I currently pay $60/year for with Plaxo: Address book and calendar syncing. Plaxo also has other bells and whistles such as contact “networking” features (a la LinkedIn) and Plaxo Pulse (a la Friendster — essentially a “life stream” of your data)…neither of which I pay the yearly fee for. Calendar and contact syncing is where the value is for me.

MobileMe goes beyond address & calendar syncing

Most importantly, MobileMe will also sync email, photos, and files. As I hop between an enterprise BlackBerry, an iMac at home, and a MacBook Pro for work (running VMWare so I can play nicely in the Windows world), the MobileMe synchronization is really the best of everything. No matter which environment I’m in, I’ll have access to my most frequently-used data.

MobileMe could be the ticket

While I’m not about to switch email addresses, the photo and file syncing are very nice add-ons for the $99/year fee with 20GB of storage. Google’s Picasa photo hosting only provides 2GB of storage (it’s free, though) and DropBox (for file sharing) is still in its infancy. Is this enough to convince me to buy an iPhone? Only if it’ll work with Enterprise email. MobileMe however looks to be the ticket when it comes out (with or without an iPhone). I’ll be testing the 60-day trial for sure.

After many months of site development and many years of new product development, I’m very happy to announce that we’ve launched the new features & product on Levolor.com. Here are a few screen shots:

The updated homepage featuring new custom draperies and all of our product lines:

Preview of the inspirational pages:

Virtual Decoration: choose wall colors, trim colors, and drapery fabrics

Full product configurator: custom draperies at the convenience of your computer screen

Free samples. It doesn’t get any easier than this page.

And of course, drop-down menus for easier/quicker site navigation. What a concept!

And as with any major product or site re-launch, these few screen shots don’t come close to capturing the amount of “behind the scenes” work that went into the site — you know, the stuff that only the development team truly appreciates!

Now it’s time to start digging into the analytics to see how online visitors navigate this product category. It’s a much different process than custom blinds & shades, so the online insights will be interesting to learn from.