6. Security & Device management

This should be no secret to your IT guy, but you’ll be pretty pleased to know that Lumia smartphones meet the essential IT security requirements. That doesn’t mean you can be laissez faire about where you leave your phone. But if you do realise that it’s not where it should be, then actions can be taken by you or your IT team to wipe or lock your phone so that confidential information is not accessed by others.

There’s also leak protection with Microsoft Information Rights Management, which secures email and encrypts Office documents, adding another layer of business security. Other than this, a robust variety of encryption, malware protection and device management tools and applications from leading vendors are supported to ensure that company data is protected.

7. Nokia Drive

Nokia Drive is now part and parcel of Nokia smartphones. For globetrotters who travel frequently for business, Drive goes a long way in cost saving. If you usually rent a car and need to navigate your way to your hotel or meeting venue, you can save yourself and your company a pot of cash.

Before your trip, download the map of the country that you’re visiting (Settings > Manage Maps). If you’re visiting a large country, you’ll get the option to download maps of cities rather than the whole country. Then, when you’re in your car, simply go offline by toggling your connection (Settings > Connection), but you’ll still be able to make your way to your destination – without the bill shock.

8. Lync Mobile

Instant Messaging has become so popular that its acronym, IM, has become a verb! Raise your hand if you’ve found yourself saying “IM me,” “I’ll IM you,” or “Oh no, why is my boss IM-ing me at this hour?” Whatever it is, IM at work is a blessing and lets you reach colleagues easily and almost instantaneously… If they choose to respond right away, of course.

Thanks to Lync Mobile, which is available from the Windows Phone Marketplace, you can see who is online, busy, away or simply does not want to be disturbed.

Change your status on your PC or Lync Mobile, and the other automatically updates to reflect your status. Invite and chat with multiple colleagues at the same time, or join conferences with a single tap. Search the company directory for contacts that aren’t in your phone book, and you can even call or send them an email directly from Lync. If you’ve avoided IM-ing at work, with Lync Mobile on a Lumia, you’ll find that it’s actually quite a handy app to have.

9. Office 365

You’ll find the word “cost” peppered throughout this post, because these days people want to do more for less. There’s nothing wrong with that, which is why there’s Office 365.

Imagine this: you’re ready to set up a business for that billion-dollar idea that’s been sitting in the back of your head, and unless you’re planning on running a small bank for the world’s 50 richest people, the last thing you’d want to do is throw your money at IT services, especially when you need money for office space, hiring people, getting Microsoft Office licenses and email accounts, and so on.

Office 365 is a godsend for small-and-medium-sized businesses. Without incurring expensive hardware and software licenses, it gives owners all the necessary tools needed – including Microsoft Office, email accounts, instant messaging with Lync, and file sharing with SharePoint or your team site. And with just a couple of taps and entries, you can make it all happen and start operations by setting up your Office 365 account on your Lumia smartphone. Setting up a business is hard work, so let your Lumia make it a little easier for you.

10. Four nice devices to choose from

The Lumia range – consisting of Lumia 900, Lumia 800, Lumia 710 and Lumia 610 – aren’t just appealing to look at. Sure, the distinctive Nokia designs, colours and user experience have brought in accolades from around the world, including the Best of CES 2012 Award for the Lumia 900, Best of Mobile World Congress 2012 Award for the Lumia 610, and Mobile News Award 2012: Innovative handset for the Lumia 800 in the UK.

The real beauty is in how the Windows Phone technology is made so simple to use. The user experience is incredibly fast and easy, and people appreciate the departure from the standard grid of icons that you see on other smartphones.

And most importantly, you have four beautifully designed devices to choose from, depending on your budget and style. If you want the high-end stuff, then go for the Lumia 900 or Lumia 800. If you’re not too fussed about the screen size or the polycarbonate unibody, and cost is definitely a consideration, then you have the Lumia 710 and Lumia 610 to choose from. But no matter which Lumia smartphone you choose, you’ll know that it works for business.

Agree? Disagree? Anything to add to the list?

Image credit: @boetter

Here are five reasons why:

1) Outlook Mobile

It’s no secret that many of us are obsessed with our email accounts. The first thing I do when I get a new phone is set up my email – all three. And thankfully, it takes mere seconds on the Lumia. It doesn’t matter if you have one or more accounts – Lumia smartphones support multiple POP/IMAP and ActiveSync accounts.

Just enter your email address and password, and in some cases your username and domain, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to stare at the phone while waiting for your mailboxes to synchronize. Let the phone take care of that while you move on to more exciting things like setting up Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or downloading apps.

To make your life easier, you can link your email accounts so that you don’t have to click on separate tiles to read your emails. Everything’s behind one tile, and in the same conversations view. Appointments from different accounts are also packaged in one view and can be colour-coded, freeing you from the pain of dealing with multiple calendars.

2) Apps

Immediately after setting up my email accounts, I move onto apps, because let’s face it, a smartphone isn’t much without apps. Apps favoured by business users in genres such as messaging, productivity, document management and viewing, news and information, CRM and field force automation are starting to grow in number in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Business-relevant apps for Windows Phone that were announced just last month (May 2012) include LinkedIn, with some functionality (companies and jobs) better than the apps for iOS and Android, and Prontoforms, a mobile forms app that eliminates costly, slow and error prone paper form processes.

Good Technology’s Good for Enterprise app, bringing secure access to corporate email, contacts, and calendar, went live in April. And the list goes on. With Windows Phone gaining in popularity, expect to see more of the world’s leading business apps appear in Marketplace.

3) People Hub and Live Tiles

No man is an island… Not even if you’re a one-man or one-woman operation. You have clients, agencies and other sorts of teams to deal with. That’s where the People Hub comes in handy.

Once you’ve set up your work and social accounts, the Lumia merges your address book with your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter contacts so that everyone is accessible from a single tile. 

You can also create groups of contacts, such as Teammates, Agency XYZ, Suppliers… Or by any other name that you refer to them, and pin those tiles to your  start screen to see real-time updates, get notifications of messages, or reach them all via sms or email at one go. It’s a lot easier than adding people one by one from your phone book to your email or sms.

And if you have a favourite person that you deal with every day – say your boss – you can pin his or her tile on the start screen, so there’s no excuse to say “I couldn’t find you in my phone book.”

4) Office Hub incorporating Office Mobile, OneNote, SharePoint and SkyDrive

The Office Hub is accessible with just one tap of the Office icon, giving you immediate access to a bunch of business goodies. Create, read or edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Because Office Mobile was created by Microsoft, it’s no third party app, which means it’s absolutely safe to use at work, and what you see on your PC is what you get on your mobile – and vice versa.

OneNote is an easy way to keep track of things, whether it’s personal or work-related. And if you’re living in 2012, you’ll know that notes are no longer just boring words on a boring blank sheet.

OneNote lets you take a photo, choose an image from your photo album, or even record voices and sounds, which you can then keep on your phone for future reference, or share right away with your team. You can also save your files in the cloud using SkyDrive or your company SharePoint, making them accessible by others.

5) Cloud services

It seems like we hear a new business buzzword every other day. The ‘cloud’ is just one of them. Lumia smartphones bring cloud services right to business folks with Office 365 and its connectivity with Microsoft Exchange, Lync and SharePoint online services.

SkyDrive is another cloud service from Microsoft that allows you to store and share files, as well as access them from your PC or smartphone.

But the real benefit from cloud services is the cost saving that it brings companies, no matter what the size, as the need for physical servers is eliminated. Better still, Microsoft’s cloud services for Windows Phone comes with all the appropriate layers of security and compliance. Not bad for a service that you can’t see, don’t you think?

Check out another five reasons why the Lumia is great for business.

image credit: Dwonderwall

The Nokia Lumia 610 has been at the centre of a heated discussion these last few weeks – resulting in both positive and negative stories and comments – thanks largely (or no thanks) to the fact that certain apps like Skype and Angry Birds won’t work on it.

The plain and simple truth is this: the Lumia 610 is our most affordable Windows Phone device, bringing the power of the platform to a wide-ranging audience – students, corporate users, soccer mums, tiger mums, and everyone else in between – and to regions where the cost of other models is prohibitive.

But what are you getting when you buy a Lumia 610? In many cases, a better deal than what you can get on other platforms. And let’s also be completely transparent about what you’re not getting.

1.     Fast access to all your information. The signature Live Tiles mean you can see all your notifications, launch apps and surface the information that’s relevant to you really quickly.

2.     Full email support. From Exchange Server, to Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail to a humble local ISP mail account, they’re all fully integrated into the Nokia Lumia and offer the best email experience on a mobile phone.

3.     Social from the start. Plug in your social networking details to have status updates, picture uploads and friends’ details right across the built-in apps on the phone.

4.     Unique location services. Nokia Lumia smartphones come with state-of-the-art Maps, Drive for turn-by-turn, voice-guided navigation, and now Public Transport planning available for free.

5.     Nokia entertainment services. Also free: turn your phone into a book with Nokia Reading or stream millions of music tracks from Nokia Mix Radio – which even works offline.

6.     Gorgeous design. The Lumia 610 is a fine looking piece of kit, available in four different colours, and with traditional Nokia build quality.

7.     Good camera – this is a 5-megapixel, autofocus camera, with a large f2.2 aperture and an LED flash for superior performance in lower light. Turn your photos into works of art with the Nokia-exclusive Creative Studio software.

8.     Office connectivity. Getting work done on a Lumia goes way beyond email. Read, write and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations with the Office suite and use SharePoint or SkyDrive for sharing and storage. And if you run a small to mid-sized business, Office 365 gives you secure email and everything you’ll need to that run that business.

9.     More than 80,000 apps from the Windows Phone Marketplace to expand and adapt your Nokia Lumia in almost every direction.

10. What’s the catch? If we’re selling this phone for around a third of the price of Nokia Lumia 900, then there must be something missing, right?

The main functional difference is the amount of RAM. (RAM is the ‘working memory’ of the phone, as opposed to the ‘storage memory’ where it keeps your documents, pictures, music and apps). The Nokia Lumia 610 comes with 256MB of RAM rather than the 512MB found on the rest of the family.

What’s the impact of that? Well, when it comes to the regular operation of the phone and all the features we’ve mentioned, none whatsoever.

It’s fast and functional, just like the other Lumias in the family. But more affordable. 

However, the lower RAM means that some third-party apps can’t be used. These are a tiny minority – less than five per cent of the contents of the Marketplace. They include the beta version of Skype available for other phones and a number of the most memory-hungry games, including Angry Birds.

 That’s about it. Your choice depends on your needs and your budget, as always.

If having Angry Birds and Skype is a make-or-break factor in your phone choice, then the Lumia 610 isn’t for you. The next most affordable model is the Nokia Lumia 710, which has the regular 512MB of RAM.

Otherwise, if you want a great, good-looking smartphone with a whole host of unique, valuable features, the Nokia Lumia 610 is a steal for the price.

Until now you could only get the full Microsoft Office Mobile app on Windows Phone, but not anymore. We are happy to announce that from today, the Nokia 701, Nokia 700, Nokia 603, Nokia E7, Nokia X7, Nokia C7, Nokia Oro, and Nokia C6-01 will also get this much sought after collection of productivity apps. You can get them using the Nokia Software Update tool on your smartphone, or connecting your phone to the Nokia Suite on your PC.

Office Mobile apps will also be available from the Nokia Store in just a few weeks.

In February this year, we announced that OneNote, Lync 2010, Document Connection and PowerPoint Broadcast were available for Symbian. Now, Word Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile and Excel Mobile are the latest applications to join the suite of Microsoft Apps built especially for the latest Symbian smartphones.

Office Mobile apps gives you quick access to your documents so that you can get more done while on the go, or when you’re not using your laptop. And because these apps were created by Microsoft, the functionalities are as close as possible – if not the same – to the Microsoft Office apps on your PC.

If you’re a Word user, you’ll appreciate the fact that with Word mobile, you can save or send documents while preserving tables, SmartArt and charts, or the pinch/zoom functionality to easily view and edit documents.

In PowerPoint mobile, you can edit presentation texts and speaker notes, or use the Outline view to quickly browse through slides. With Excel mobile, you can create charts, or insert formulae and view rich data and charts from anywhere.

Another really convenient feature of Office Mobile is that it gives you a single view to documents – whether they’re stored on your phone as files, as email attachments, or on your company SharePoint site.

There are a variety of third party apps or native apps on other platforms that go as far as allowing you to edit, but in my opinion, it’s just not the same. If you’re working on a Word document, nothing beats using Microsoft’s own app. If Excel is your thing, then you will not settle for anything less than the ability to modify data by accessing more than 110 formulae.

It’s also useful to know that these apps aren’t just for show. Using apps that were developed, certified and tested by Microsoft to read your work email, share notes, chat with colleagues, download and edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files, and send them – just to list a few of the most common things that people do these days with their smartphones – ensures that your documents are compatible when you switch from your PC to the mobile phone, and that you’re not introducing any viruses that may linger in third party apps.

In tech companies, we refer to apps that are deeply ingrained into the platform or which were built specifically for a platform as ‘native apps’. The person who runs IT in your company refers to them as ‘safe apps’. If you use them, you may simply refer to them as ‘really useful apps’.

Couple these apps with all-time Nokia favourites like Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Public Transport and more than 100,000 apps in the Nokia Store, and you have a smartphone powerhouse in your hands.

What do you think? If you have a Symbian smartphone that falls into the list mentioned in the first paragraph, tell us more about your experience. If you have a Nokia N8, Nokia E6 or Nokia 500, we will announce availability for these smartphones later. The Nokia 808 PureView will also come with all these apps when it begins selling. For more information on Mobile Office apps or the full suite of Microsoft productivity applications, check out the Nokia for Business site.  

This software version for the Lumia 800 (1600.2487.8107.12070) brings significant improvements in battery performance and power management. Originally scheduled for 18 April, we’ve now managed to bring the schedule forward.

But before you get all excited and reach out for that cable to connect your Lumia 800 to your Mac or PC, there’s just one more thing to know: the update will not span the globe all at once. It will be queued up over 4 weeks, beginning today (28 March) for the first batch. Subsequent phased updates will be on 4, 11 and 18 April. Click here to see if the update is available for your country or your operator. 

Why updates are like herding sheep

If you don’t see your country or operator listed in the first batch, or even the second one, you may feel like you’ve been passed over, but there is a reason for this. Firstly, every software update for Windows Phone has to go through Zune (or its alter ego, Windows Phone 7 Connector, on the Mac).

The real-life analogy that I can think about to describe this is herding sheep through a gate. For a Windows Phone partner, developing a smartphone is like that: there’s always a balance to be struck between what you can do and what you’d like to do, between what you can offer now and later. But due to the urgent need to get this update in the hands of people, we were able to bring the schedule forward, although not all at the same time.

And since the new software needs to go through the mandatory testing and approval from each and every operator, the variant for your network will be slotted into a batch as soon as it’s ready.

Now that we’ve established the software update schedule and the reasons for the phased rollout, let’s get into the juicier stuff – what the software update brings you.

We’ve heard your feedback and comments: better battery performance is what you really want. And that’s exactly what you’ll get. We put the software through rigorous tests, and what came out was an update that shows significant improvements in battery life, whether it’s for talk time in 3G networks, browsing over WiFi, music playback, or simply, the overall usage time. Our internal testing also showed that for smartphones with similar battery capacities (the Lumia 800 sports a 1450mAh battery), the Lumia 800 was now among the top performers in battery life for the key measures that we concentrated on.

Full power ahead

Since I updated my phone, my personal experience – on average these last two weeks – has been between 25 to 30 hours of battery life with my daily usage pattern: numerous phone calls and text messages, browsing, push email on three mail accounts, some music to and from work, some GPS (Drive and Maps) – and with the phone in flight mode for about 5 hours when I sleep. I must admit, though, I can’t claim to be a power user in any area, but I’m no lightweight either.

Along with battery, we’ve brought enhancements to the bass in the audio so that you get better voice quality and even more enjoyment out of Nokia Music. We’ve also ensured that the soft keys illuminate at all brightness levels settings.

I know some of you are keen to know when features like WiFi tethering will be available.  We can’t confirm at this stage exactly when it will be delivered, but rest assured it is on its way.  I hope you will agree that we’ve prioritized those enhancements that will give everyone the most enjoyment out of their Lumia 800.

In case it’s your first time, here’s a video explaining the update process:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy the new software update, and as always, we’d be happy to know what you think.