The SMB Tech Report

Consumer Electronics Show Included Products for SMBs, Reports NuWire Investor

NuWire Investor reported on a list of new technologies for SMBs exhibited at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Among these technologies were several credit card scanners that work with smartphones, including the Intuit GoPayment App for the iPhone4 that supports a direct interface with the Mophie add-on credit card scanner and integration with QuickBooks. Nuance Communications demoed its FlexT9 Mobile Input App, a keyboard tracing technology that lets users trace the path between letters on a virtual keyboard to sketch words for entry into e-mails, chat messages, and other text systems on smartphones. SugarSync showed an online backup system that includes a free 5 GB block of online storage accessible from nearly any device. more

Retrevo Announces Gadget Accessory Marketplace

Consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo.com has announced a new accessory marketplace that consumers and small businesses can use to find compatible, fashionable, affordable accessories for cell phones, cameras, camcorders, MP3 players, and other gadgets. more

Business Social Media Site Plaxo Adds Blackbery App

Business and career building social media site Plaxo has added an app for the Blackberry to its apps library. The app allow access to the user’s address book for single-sourcing business contacts. It features two-way synchronization, browsing and management with auto-dialing and e-mail. more

Microsoft Offers Office Mobile for Windows Phone 7

Microsoft has announced Office Mobile for Windows Phone 7, allowing users to edit and share Office documents on Windows Phone 7 smart phones. The software allows users to create, edit, and share documents, speak, type, or snap a photo note, and view PowerPoint presentations on their Windows Phone 7 smartphones. more

ZTE Peel Lets Sprint Customers Call and Text Using the iPod Touch

ZTE Peel from Sprint is a sleeve for the second-and third-generation iPod Touch that connects it to Sprint’s 3G WiFi network. The sleeve gives the Touch the ability to use Sprint's 3G with Line2’s service, which replicates the iPhone features, including conferencing, call waiting, visual voicemail, and carrier-grade SMS texting. The service costs $29.99/month for the PEEL plus $9.95/month for Line2. more

Free DriveCarefully App Reads Text Messages on Smartphones Aloud

The new DriveCarefully app for various smartphones lets users listen to e-mail, text, and PIN messages by automatically reading them aloud through any bluetooth headset or in-car kit while the user drives. The app provides hands-free and eyes-free operation and works in English, French, and Spanish with automatic language detection. It is automatically activated by GPS and can provide a custom auto reply message. The app is available for Blackberry and Android; iPhone and Nokia versions are in development. more

Hewlett-Packard Offers Unlocked Palm Pre 2 to Small Businesses

According to a report in PC World, Hewlett-Packard has announced plans to sell the unlocked version of its Palm Pre 2 smartphone to small businesses as well as to mobile application vendors. The term “unlocked” means the phones will be sold directly by Hewlett-Packard and not through a cellular carrier and will not be “locked” to any carrier's service. The purchaser can buy a data plan for the phones from the carrier of his (or her) choice or use the phone without carrier service as pure PDAs that connect through WiFi hot spots only. The company is already selling the Pre 2 through French mobile operator SFR and has announced plans to sell it through Verizon Wireless in the United States and through an unannounced carrier in Canada. The unlocked version of the Palm Pre 2 will work on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) networks, the 3G variant of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) used by AT&T and T-Mobile USA in the United States. more

Proctor & Gamble Chooses Xerox Mobile Print Solution for Employee Smartphones

Procter & Gamble will add the new Xerox Mobile Print Solution to its standard corporate mobile environment, allowing more than 20,000 employees to print e-mails, presentations, and other business documents directly from their smartphones. P&G unveiled the new Xerox mobile print technology as part of its Enterprise Print Services strategy at its Goldmine event May 6. more

Microsoft Debuts Communicator Mobile for Nokia

Microsoft Corp. and Nokia have introduced the first fruit of their alliance in mobile productivity, Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices. This unified communications client connects directly with a company's communications systems to streamline mobile collaborations. Users of Symbian-based Nokia E-series smartphones can download the English version from Nokia's Ovi Store. more

Juniper Predicts Huge Growth in Mobile Phone Payment Use

The just-released Mobile Payments for Digital and Physical Goods report from Juniper Research predicts by 2014 half of all mobile phone users worldwide will use their phones to pay for digital and physical goods. This is a growth of nearly a billion users from 2010 levels. more

Aruba Fingerprinting Optimizes Voice-over-WiFi with BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5

Aruba Networks Inc. has introduced application fingerprinting technology that optimizes voice-over-WiFi calling with the new BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 (BlackBerry MVS 5) from Research in Motion. MVS 5 allows BlackBerry smartphones to make calls over corporate telephone systems. more

Hewlett-Packard Offers HP ePrint Demo at WES 2010

Hewlett-Packard is offering a free demo of the HP ePrint printing-on-the-go application for BlackBerry smartphones to attendees of Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2010. HP ePrint enables users to print presentations, reports, e-mails, travel documents and other items to networked printers inside their companies and to certain public print locations. more