ANTenna Blog -- Mobile

Cell phones have become personal productivity tools for many mobile executives. However, one challenge has been staying in touch with the home office because of email compatibility issues. One of the industry’s emerging email suppliers recently stepped up to make it simpler for mobile users to work with its applications.

Google’s Gmail has been gaining acceptance as the company has been pushing beyond its traditional search niche. While the vendor has done a good job in the consumer market, its products have not always meshed with business users’ needs. The firm is trying to address some of these shortcoming with the introduction of Web based versions of its product that run on Apple’s iPhone and its own Android devices. The latest release features a "Floaty Bar", so common actions, such as archive and delete, are only a click away. Users can also start the application, compose mail, and open recently read messages when they are offline. Small and medium businesses could benefit because their employees become more productive.

Google is trying to push mobile application device development away from a proprietary operating system focus to a more browser based approach. Ideally, that change would make application development simpler. To date, third parties have to work with different operating systems and that has made application development quite complex and driven up their costs. Moving to a more open approach could lead to delivery of more applications and eventually increase mobile executives' productivity.