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Smartglasses Face a Blurry Future

At the 2012 Google I/O conference, the big “reveal” was Google Glass.  A team of Glass-wearing skydivers live streamed their descent toward the roof of the San Francisco Moscone center where the event was underway.  It was an awe-inspiring…
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Southwest Airlines Figured Out How to Deploy 14,000 Devices So You Don’t Have To

I had not thought about how much our service contracting customers have in common with Southwest Airlines until I read an article about the airline issuing iPad Minis to flight attendants to streamline operations. Ok, so their territory is pretty…
photos in iphone album
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Technology Tip: Move Photos from your Devices to Google Photos

How many photos are stored on your smartphone right now? I have 1,438 photos that take up 4.8 GB of storage space -- but this is pretty low compared to some of the folks around ServiceTrade. Carrying around more than 1,400 images is pretty…
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Mobile Device Management for Service Contractors

Smartphones, tablets, and mobile applications have finally reached both a price and a level of functionality that make them an absolute no-brainer for service contractors.  Aside from the obvious risk of device breakage (read our earlier…
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Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 4: Where to Buy

In the final installment of the Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors we will address the final decisions you’ll make before purchasing. Should you provide devices for your technicians or should you have a bring your own device…
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Don’t Limit your Techs to Just One Tool – or Just One Mobile Application

If you’ve been reading our blog for a while (thank you, by the way), you’ve heard ServiceTrade advocate a connected IT ecosystem of business operations applications for your customer service, accounting, inventory, CRM, payroll, email marketing…
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Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 3: Smartphones, Tablets or Both?

Once a service contracting business makes the decision to adopt ServiceTrade, the conversation almost always shifts to making device decisions. We covered one factor of this decision, Android or iOS in Part 2 of this series. In Part 3, we…
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Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 2: iOS or Android?

As I ponder the differences between mobile device platforms, I wonder if this blog post is like dispensing parenting or political advice? Is this one area where we all have our preferences and nothing anybody else says will change our opinions…
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Smartphone Buying Guide for Service Contractors, Part 1: Rugged vs. Consumer Devices

So-called “rugged" smartphones are appealing to service contractors because field technicians work in environments that aren’t always electronics-friendly.  As we've found in our own testing and heard from our customers, that durability…