An effort to give smartphones a more integral role in business communications will expand collaborative features for WebEx users. Announced at the Cisco Live conference this week, new features planned for the third quarter of next year include…

The availability of employee presence information while a smartphone is in use.

Speech-to-text voicemail while users are participating in a WebEx conference. This non-intrusive measure will allow users to carry on a text conversation and offers the ability to invite the sender into the conference.

Anchored connections in case a user loses mobile service while in a WebEx conference, which will allow easy re-connection when service is regained.

Additional features include the ability to visit a remote office and map your location via Wi-Fi, which will also allow detection of available resources such as meeting rooms and equipment.

WebEx introduced an iPhone app earlier this year. As these new initiatives continue to develop Cisco plans to upgrade these features and offer intuitive interfaces across multiple smartphone platforms.

Source: PC World

Today Intel Corp. and Nokia Corp. publicly announce a partnership to “define a new mobile platform beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks, enabling the development of a variety of innovative hardware, software and mobile Internet services.”

While details are still in the works the two companies have said the new devices “will marry the best features and capabilities of the computing and communications worlds and will transform the user experience, bringing incredible mobile applications and always on, always connected wireless Internet access in a user-friendly pocketable form factor.”

The plans are to include open source mobile Linux projects along with an Intel acquisition of Nokia’s HSPA/3G modem IP license.

Source: Sacramento Business Journal

You voiced opinions about the new iPhone 3G S pricing on Twitter, and AT&T listened. Recent news regarding a $200 charge for many current iPhone users to upgrade to the new 3G S model stirred up a swarm of negative feedback posts across the Twitter platform. After hearing what you had to say, AT&T has reconsidered it’s pricing strategy and is now offering discounted iPhone upgrades to more customers.
 
Those of you who may not use Twitter or don’t really understand what it’s all about need to check out Twitter’s search page. Due to the massive adaptation of Twitter you can search for a keyword such as “iPhone” and find the latest talk on the subject. The true power of Twitter is real-time search. So while many people are talking about what they had for lunch and what they’re planning to do this Friday night, many are also telling you where they had lunch, how the food was, what movie they’re going to see tonight, and what they think about Apple’s new iPhone. This is powerful information that companies and marketers cannot ignore.

Apple this week released the first edition of the iPhone OS Enterprise Deployment Guide which targets system administrators. The 83 page manifesto exhibits Apple’s will to penetrate the business smartphone market. The guide provides comprehensive instructions for iPhone and iPod touch deployment within the enterprise. The scope of this blog is not technical, however we’ve presented the full list of iPhone 3.0 enterprise features below and attempted to categorize them by not so technical degrees of technicality (hmm). With that in mind let’s get down to what features are available for enterprise iPhone 3.0 users and the system admins that support them.

Less technical…

• CalDAV calendar wireless syncing.
• LDAP server support for contact look-up in mail, address book, and SMS.
• Configuration profiles can be encrypted and locked to a device so that their removal requires an administrative password.
• iPhone Configuration Utility 2.0 now allows you to add and remove encrypted configuration profiles directly onto devices that are connected to your computer by USB.
• Additional device restrictions are now available, including the ability to specify the length of time that a device can be left unlocked and disabling the camera.
• Local mail messages and calendar events can be searched. For IMAP, MobileMe, and Exchange 2007, mail that resides on the server can also be searched.
• Microsoft Exchange users can invite others to meetings.
• Microsoft Exchange 2007 users can also view reply status.
• iTunes can now store device backups in encrypted format.
   

Somewhat technical…

• Additional mail folders can now be designated for push email delivery.
• Web clips can now be installed using a configuration profile.
• Exchange ActiveSync client certificate-based authentication.
• Devices can now be authenticated and enrolled over-the-air using a Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) server.
• APN proxy settings can now be made specified using a configuration profile.
   

More technical features now supported…

• On-demand certificate-based VPN connections.
• VPN proxy configuration via a configuration profile and VPN servers.
• 802.1x EAP-SIM
• Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) for certificate revocation.
• Additional EAS policies, along with EAS protocol 12.1.
   

Download the complete iPhone OS Enterprise Deployment Guide from Apple.

Apple announced the iPhone 3G S at it’s World Wide Developers Conference Monday in San Francisco, the fastest most powerful iPhone yet. Upgrades in the new iPhone include video recording, 3-megapixel still camera, Voice Control, faster processing speeds, up to 32GB of storage, and more.

New video recording capabilities allow you to shoot and edit video and then upload directly to YouTube all from your iPhone 3G S.

The 3-megapixel camera includes auto-focus functionality that lets you focus in on a certain area by simply tapping the screen.

Voice Control, iPhone’s new voice recognition software, allows you to audibly request names from your contacts list or songs from your iPod.

Applications load up to 2x faster with the new processing power of the iPhone 3G S, along with improved 3D graphics to enhance the iPhone gaming experience.

Prices for the iPhone 3G S will range from $199 to $299 for 16GB and 32GB versions. Also the original iPhone 3G will still be available with 8GB of storage for just $99. Apple’s aggressive pricing strategy is undoubtedly in response to the release of the new $199 8GB Palm Pre, which has been dubbed an ‘iPhone killer’.

Other notable features of the iPhone 3GS include a built-in digital compass, cut, copy & paste capabilities, a landscape keyboard, and multimedia text messaging.

The iPhone 3G S will be available in stores on June 19th, 2009.