Mobile Computing Corp. Inc. (MCC) has been developing, supporting and advising on leading edge mobile field force automation and optimization solutions for more than 25 years. As a participant in BlackBerry’s Early Adopter Program (EAP), MCC was one of the first businesses to deploy the new BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. We were thrilled to connect with MCC’s CEO Camille Peters about her company’s experience.

One aspect of BlackBerry 10 that impressed MCC right away was the seamlessness of the upgrade process using BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. “Within two hours, the device was on my desk and working almost flawlessly. Typically, we have to do some tweaking when we put our app on a new device, even if it’s just an updated device,” said Peters. “The fact that the transition was seamless was a huge benefit for us. And I absolutely love the screen and clarity on the BlackBerry 10.”

MCC works with a variety of clients to develop customized and pre-packaged mobile applications for a number of mobile devices. Given the diversity of the company’s clientele, MCC was excited to offer customers with “BYOD” capabilities with the improvements to BlackBerry Balance technology on BlackBerry 10.

“Our customers need to keep their business applications secure, preserved and separate from personal content. BlackBerry Balance separates the work and personal space on one device,” said Peters. “BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 takes it to the next level and will allow us to manage any personal or corporate owned BlackBerry smartphone or tablet. It allows us to run our application from a single, secure management platform. More and more, employees want to use their own device and organizations want to provide that flexibility.”

Another positive aspect of MCC’s BlackBerry 10 upgrade process has been their experience with the BlackBerry support team. The company conducts a large amount of beta testing and field trials with hardware partners, which demands responsive tech support from partners. “We need [our partners] to understand our business and to support us when we have issues. From the very beginning, the team [at BlackBerry] has been incredibly supportive and receptive to us,” said Peters. “The level of contact and assistance exceeds any others we’ve ever worked with.”

What are your organization’s priorities when transitioning or upgrading to a new mobile platform? Share in the comments section below.

In recent weeks, we’ve highlighted several organizations that are working to incorporate the BlackBerry 10 platform into their mobile strategy, such as Air Canada and Ricoh. We’ve been pleased with the positive feedback from these organizations, along with the strong early customer reviews for both BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.

Today, we’d like to share how McCain Foods Ltd. is building on their long-term partnership with BlackBerry with BlackBerry 10. Headquartered in Toronto, McCain Foods sells food products in more than 160 countries around the globe. The company has incorporated BlackBerry devices in all of its markets.

We chatted recently with Mark Kirby, the Vice President of Global Technology Services at McCain Foods Ltd. to get his first impressions of the BlackBerry 10 platform. He discussed his ideas for incorporating BlackBerry Balance and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 into McCain’s mobile strategy, as well as how BlackBerry 10 will help address employee demands.

“Employees are…demanding the ability to be unchained from their traditional desktop or laptop environment. BlackBerry 10 is going to enhance that experience.”

-Mark Kirby, Vice President of Global Technology Services, McCain Foods

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What kind of mobile experience are your employees asking for? Share with us in the comments section below.

In the weeks since the global launch of BlackBerry 10, we’ve had the opportunity to interact with businesses around the world at the BlackBerry Experience Forum events, and to discuss the how the BlackBerry 10 platform has been built for business. We’re excited about partnering with businesses that are truly looking to mobilize their organization.

One such innovative organization is Air Canada. As an airline company with a highly mobile workforce, including pilots and flight attendants constantly on the move, Air Canada wants to offer mobile solutions that are robust and engage users. We recently had the opportunity to chat with Allen Chang, Air Canada’s Manager of IT Innovations, about the organization’s strategy for mobile security, in house applications, and the benefits of BlackBerry 10 features such as BlackBerry Balance:

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

We look forward to continuing our partnership with Air Canada and working together to develop new solutions for workplace mobility.

Does your business have a mobile workforce? How does this affect your mobile strategy? Share in the comments below.

Ricoh Canada Inc., a subsidiary of Ricoh Americas Corporation, is a document management and services provider with over 2,000 employees. A significant part of Ricoh’s business involves IT services, in which they support 45 locations across Canada providing infrastructure support for mobility, hardware and software, and management of BlackBerry smartphones.

Being involved in IT, having a history of partnering with BlackBerry, and having just developed a field services app, Ricoh spent some time considering BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. We caught up with Andy Ambrozic, Ricoh Canada’s Director of Infrastructure and Operations, to get his thoughts:

Hi Andy, thanks for joining us. We hear that you’re a big fan of all-touch devices. How you think the BlackBerry 10 touch screen and other features stack up?

Ambrozic: I loved the touch screen on the BlackBerry 10 device. It’s fluid to use and the predictive typing is really good. After a while you feel like it’s adapting to you and thinking for you. The device has a totally different look and feel, with some excellent advances. The size is just right as well. The larger screen is easier to use for viewing different kinds of media.

The BlackBerry Hub experience is also very good. I call it “sneak peeks” because if you’re in one screen and you’re watching a video, you can swipe slowly and get a quick look at new messages or social media updates on the BlackBerry Hub screen. It’s a true multitasking experience.

How do you think BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 supports both user and corporate needs?

The BlackBerry Balance technology that’s a part of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has the potential to be huge. Full work and personal separation on BlackBerry smartphones will make it easier for our users, but also much easier for IT administrators.

We’re also in the midst of finalizing a BYOD policy. A big issue for our users and our organization is we want to be sure personal data is kept separate from work information. Data integrity has always been paramount for Ricoh IT, so the ability to achieve that is a tremendous plus for the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 platform. BlackBerry Balance enables that separation so seamlessly.

How much has using BlackBerry solutions benefitted Ricoh Canada so far and where are you planning to go with your deployment now that you have BlackBerry 10?

There are a lot of benefits that come to mind as I look back over the past 10+ years of using BlackBerry solutions. There’s peace of mind with the security. The devices have always had a high degree of ruggedness and reliability. But mostly I look at how far we’ve evolved from paging devices to email to app driven devices. In recent times, BlackBerry smartphones have pointed to the need to develop apps that help extend our internal processes out to the field.

We’ve just developed our own Field Service Automation app on existing BlackBerry smartphones. We’ve tried it on BlackBerry 10 devices and it worked really well. We definitely plan to deploy our app on the new devices. The app gives our field technicians the ability to manage the entire service call from their devices – from dispatch information to GPS navigation, inventory, time spent on a job and so on. All the job information is then sent back to our ERP system so we have an up-to-date record of the entire service call.

How inspired are you to develop apps for BlackBerry 10 devices?

BlackBerry 10 opens up all sorts of possibilities. If you look at the design, the speed, web and browser evolution, the engine and the application development language, I think it’s going to be a lot easier to build and port apps with BlackBerry 10. We’re now looking at developing a number of apps for our mobile users. For example, we may add a bar code reader to our Field Service Automation app on BlackBerry 10 devices so our technicians can read part numbers without having to input them by hand.

Does your business have a BlackBerry app that you’re planning to migrate to the BlackBerry 10 platform? Share in the comments below.

m-Health Solutions (mHS) is a Canadian company in the emerging field of mHealth technology, a term describing the use of mobile devices for the collection and distribution of health data, remote delivery of care, and near real-time monitoring of patients. mHS provides doctors and patients with an efficient diagnosis system for detecting cardiac arrhythmia.

To speed up the process of diagnosing or ruling out cardiac arrhythmias, mHS developed the Mobile Cardiac Arrhythmia Diagnostic Service (m-CARDS), a solution for family doctors, internists and cardiologists. When a patient reports suspicious symptoms, the doctor can initiate the test right away, without sending the patient to the hospital or a specialist.

During the initial visit, the doctor attaches two electrodes to the patient and sends a requisition form to mHS. Within 24 hours, a kit arrives at the patient’s house or office containing an Event Loop Recorder (ELR) which records cardiac activity for up to two weeks, a BlackBerry smartphone and user instructions.

Once attached, the ELR starts to transmit data via Bluetooth® to the BlackBerry device. The BlackBerry smartphone sends the information to mHS’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server at its diagnostic center where it is interpreted by cardiac technologists. The company also uses the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to manage, control and push software updates out to the devices.

Results are monitored constantly and mHS’s cardiologists use a secure portal to make a diagnosis from virtually anywhere in the world. The cardiologists are able to electronically sign off on the results, which are then faxed to the referring doctor within approximately 24 hours of the patient completing the test for follow-up care.

“The investigation and diagnosis of cardiac issues was often a drawn out process,” said Sandy Schwenger, Co-owner and CEO of mHS. “After seeing your family doctor, it could take days or weeks to see a specialist and several more weeks for diagnosis. With m-CARDS, the patient is typically hooked up within 24 hours of seeing their family physician and the average time to diagnosis is eight days, meaning patients may be treated sooner.”

m-CARDS has been well-received among doctors and patients. Currently, 400 family physicians throughout Ontario have chosen to use m-CARDS to arrive at a diagnosis for nearly 2,500 patients.

“We believe this BlackBerry solution is just the beginning in helping to improve the diagnosis, treatment and management of cardiac diseases and disorders,” said Schwenger. “We are already in the process of researching and developing a system to help monitor these patients after they’ve had a heart attack, during rehab or when they’re back at home.”

How do you use mobile technology for managing your personal health? Tell us in the comments section below.

Bancolombia is a group of financial services companies with more than 130 years of industry experience in Colombia. The bank offers a wide range of products and services to a diverse clientele of over seven million customers, both individual and corporate.

Bancolombia wanted to provide their executives and sales representatives – both of whom are frequently on the road – with uninterrupted access to email, documents, and other important functions. In addition, the bank wanted to provide corporate customers and other individuals in the financial sector with consistent access to financial reports and the Colombian stock market.

To improve internal communications, Bancolombia equipped over 2,200 employees from 800 branches with BlackBerry smartphones, including built-in email, calendar and task management functionality. “Our employees can now use email as if they were sitting in front of their desktop computers,” said David Zuluaga Arango, Infrastructure Analyst at Bancolombia. “In addition, our managers can approve vacations and other administrative processes by email and our sales force can update their calendars and close agreements with customers, all with their BlackBerry smartphones.”

Employees now communicate with their work groups using BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). The organization has added additional users from other departments, including sales and administrative staff, and has implemented the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to manage their BlackBerry smartphones.

“The BlackBerry solution is a solid collaboration tool for the executives, who now have remote access to their email and calendars. It has simplified their access to information, offering a mobility they didn’t have before,” said Zuluaga.

To better serve customers, the bank launched a mobile banking application for BlackBerry smartphones, developed with TODO1. The Bancolombia App can be downloaded from BlackBerry World or by scanning a barcode located on the bank’s promotional ads.

In addition to its mobile banking functions, investors can use the app to obtain up-to-the-minute information on the Colombian financial market. Customers can also search for information on bank branches, ATMs, bill pay centers, and Correspondent Banks with the app, which has been downloaded over 104,000 times to date.

“We thought about what our customers needed to have in their pocket and saw that having almost immediate access to financial information from anywhere would help them make decisions, such as buying and selling currency or treasury bonds,” said Diana Marcela Arysmendi, Mobile Channels Management Analyst, Bancolombia. “I believe the Bancolombia App has brought us closer to our customers because we are more aware of their needs.”

Does your business have a BlackBerry customer success story? Share with us at success@rim.com.

Revista Proceso of Comunicación e Información, S.A. de C.V. (Revista Proceso) is a leading weekly magazine in Mexico covering political news and general topics. The publication currently has a national circulation of approximately 140,000 copies.

Revista Proceso wanted to expand its readership by making its magazine content more widely available and accessible, particularly to younger readers. While its weekly printed version was successful, the company believed that a mobile or web-based format would increase the publication’s appeal among young readers.

To reach a more diverse readership, Revista Proceso introduced a mobile version of its magazine for BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Called Proceso, the mobile app was developed by BlackBerry Alliance Member Latino Mobile, and can be downloaded from BlackBerry App World or by scanning a QR code in the print version of the magazine.

With the app, users can access news from the convenience of their BlackBerry smartphones or tablets. The cover of the magazine is displayed on the screen of the device, with a drop-down menu of the magazine’s main sections.

Users see images and text for a set number of news articles, and articles are updated automatically from the magazine’s server via RSS feeds. The app also allows users to share articles with friends by email and through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

“The application is intuitive and easy to use. You don’t have to click very much to be able to get to the content you want to see,” said Cristian Segura, BlackBerry Development Director for Latino Mobile. “Users are always telling us that they appreciate its simplicity, which lets them get news while mobile on their BlackBerry device.”

In addition to its traditional audience, Revista Proceso now reaches thousands of young readers who access content primarily through their BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. The magazine has a new revenue stream, since it can offer mobile subscriptions at a lower cost than the print magazine.

“With the mobile application, users get quick access to important news of the day no matter where they are located,” said Maria Scherer, Assistant Business Director for Revista Proceso.

Since its launch over a year ago, the application has had great success, with more than 100,000 downloads collectively to BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

Do you use your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to read magazines or watch TV shows and movies? What makes the PlayBook a great device for consuming media? Share in the comments below.

Qubit.tv is an Argentinean telecom company that offers video-on-demand services for movies and documentaries. Founded in 2011, the company initially offered its services exclusively through its website. After identifying that users between the ages of 18 and 34 increasingly use their mobile devices to watch movies, Qubit.tv determined that they could grow their business by offering a wide variety of free and pay-per-view movies on mobile devices.

In order to expand its market reach, the company deployed Qubit.tv, a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet application available for download from the BlackBerry App World storefront. Developed by Sondeos, the application sends an email confirmation to users who download it and register, and then allows them to run the app and choose from a menu of free and pay-per-view movies.

Qubit.tv’s app provides users with a variety of options: they can select a free movie, access over 700 movies available for rent, or subscribe to a pay-per-view service by paying a fixed monthly fee for on-demand mobile video access. Users can either watch movies directly on their BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or enjoy a “home theater” experience by connecting the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to a television using an HDMI cable.

“We worked specifically with BlackBerry PlayBook tablets because the user video experience they offer is fun and user-friendly, and from a hardware and software point of view, it gives users an excellent video streaming experience,” said Javier Guevara, Marketing Manager at Qubit.tv.

Offering a mobile tablet application has helped Qubit.tv reach a younger and tech-savvy market segment. “Thanks to the app on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, Qubit.tv has been able to penetrate a highly competitive market and attract new customers,” said Guevara.

The application has also helped Qubit.tv provide a consistent user experience. “With the app for BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, our customers have a more rewarding entertainment experience, with better transmission and minimal video interruptions, which we see reflected in the app’s high usability rates,” said Guevara. “Now, they can use their tablets to easily navigate and watch their favorite movies wherever they are.”

How does your company or organization use the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for business? Share in the comments below.

The capability for custom applications is an important element of the BlackBerry Solution. Business applications such as the one developed by DIRECTV in Argentina can improve customer experience and generate further sales opportunities.

DIRECTV needed an innovative solution that allowed customers to access TV programming, request new products and manage their account remotely. The objective of the solution was to deliver quality service through easy, direct customer communication.

To do so, DIRECTV created a custom application called DIRECTV™ Móvil, which offered subscribers in Argentina access to DIRECTV services from their smartphones and tablets, including BlackBerry smartphones – with operating system 5.0 and above – and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

The app is designed to let subscribers view a program guide, search for movies, order premium programming packages, rent movies or Pay-per-view programs and check their account status. When customers order a Pay-per-view program or subscribe to a premium channel with their BlackBerry smartphone, they get immediate access to their programming and receive a confirmation of their purchase.

“Our customers don’t need to be sitting in front of a TV or computer to consult the program guide or record a program. If they are out of their home and forgot to record their favorite sports match, or the series program or movie of their choice, they can record directly from their smartphone or tablet,” said Florencia Franchini, Manager of Customer Engagement and New Media, DIRECTV. “DIRECTV Móvil app is as easy to use as the TV remote control. We’re constantly working on developing innovations that make our customers’ lives easier while giving us a competitive edge.”

The company plans to expand the functionalities of the mobile application to include competitions for customers, benefit programs and games, among other ideas.

How does your business use custom applications to connect with customers? Share in the comments below.

This month, 36-year-old Neall Hards of Ottawa will compete in his first ‘World’s Toughest Mudder’ challenge, a grueling 24-hour course that he has been training for over the past two years.

“The course is designed by British Special Forces and is designed to drain every last bit of drive and desire you have in your mind,” said the father of three. “It’s dark, it’s cold and you’re alone for hours at a time.”

Hards has been a BlackBerry® smartphone user since 1999. From a business perspective, he has long benefited from features like mobile email access, calendar integration and enterprise security.

But it wasn’t until the spring of 2011 that the longtime runner started to use his BlackBerry smartphone to help measure his training progress. Hards purchased the runtastic PRO application through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, which uses his BlackBerry smartphone’s GPS functionality to track his running distances, kilometer paces and time averages.

“The runtastic app on my BlackBerry smartphone acts as a coach and as a running mate,” said Hards. “Whether it tells me that I’m running at a great pace or that I’m lagging, the constant flow of information motivates me to push even harder.”

Whether Hards is training or competing, his family and friends can track his progress on his online runtastic profile and send cheers of encouragement directly to his BlackBerry smartphone in near real-time.

Hards prefers his BlackBerry smartphone to other training and measurement devices because it allows him to give his undivided attention to the course ahead of him. It has also proved to be remarkably durable, despite exposure to extreme environments.

“All I need is a waterproof bag and my backpack,” said Hards. “My BlackBerry smartphone swims with me, rolls around with me and gets muddy with me, and I’ve never had any issues.”

As a family man, business professional and race competitor, Hards uses his BlackBerry smartphone throughout the day. Whether using BBM™ to connect with fellow Tough Mudder participants, syncing calendars with his 15-year-old daughter or using the GPS feature to find his son’s football games, Hards appreciates the full functionality that his BlackBerry device offers.

“There isn’t a day that goes by, or an hour that goes by, where I don’t pick up my BlackBerry smartphone and use it for something,” said Hards. “I just can’t put it down.”

Do you use BlackBerry smartphone apps for personal training and fitness? We’d love to hear about it in the comments section below!