Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Wireless E-Mail Advice Wanted
This is totally preliminary, but I thought I’d start asking around.
The plan is to improve my mobility in terms of business communications. Right now, e-mail from my big client goes out to the internet, to a mail account I receive both at home and at the office, and can check via the web from anywhere I have web access. I can be reached by e-mail to my cell phone, but that is limited, and has to be addressed specifically. If I know I will be on the road or such, I’ll tell people they can reach me that way if needed.
What I would like is to have a device that every client e-mail arrives on, no matter where I am, and can be answered on the spot. A lot of my support work is answering e-mailed questions, or starting the troubleshooting via e-mail to get to where I know I need to call or materialize there. I am not always in the office or at home where I can easily monitor things. I anticipate this becoming more common, a topic for another post.
Web access from a portable device would be a bonus. Ease of typing would be appreciated, though I can be surprisingly fast even on the cell with the T9 system. Wide coverage is pretty much imperative. Obviously I am not talking something laptop sized, though it might be fun to have wireless internet service and a small notebook computer that rides in the truck with me everywhere.
I plan to switch from my old prepaid cell, which is Verizon service, with which I have been thrilled, to a “real” cell, preferably two of them. One would live at the office, perhaps being forwarded to the other phone when nobody is here, and be usable by anyone else working here, covering for me, or by me if I manage to leave the other phone home. I may skip the second one if it’s going to cost too much. At the same time, I would be tempted to get one for Deb as well. It would be great on the road, as an emergency phone, and useful for the aspects of business she helps me with.
A wireless e-mail device that is also a phone would be a possibility, which is why I mentioned the phone aspect too.
Anyway, thoughts? Experiences?