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Mobiity in Finance: recent articles from "The Mag"

Farmers Mutual of Nebraska Empowers Its Mobile Workforce

One year and an investment in technology have had a huge impact on how adjusters for Farmers Mutual of Nebraska process their claims. A year ago Farmers Mutual’s adjusters were largely working in a paper environment. They would go out to a claim site to inspect a loss, and prepare a handwritten estimate. If the loss was too severe to handwrite an estimate, they would prepare the scope notes of the damage and return to the office to complete the estimate using software located on their desktop PC.

Today, their adjusters are using convertible tablet PCs with a new tablet-based estimating solution from Symbility that allows them to perform the bulk of their work directly at the loss site.

The solution has proved so successful that 75 percent of their adjusters have actually asked that their desktops be removed from their offices.

Category(s): Mobility, Insurance

Wachovia Reaches Out To Handhelds

Although online banking keeps skyrocketing in popularity, access has been limited so far mostly to desktop and notebook PCs. To give users of smaller handheld devices a similar sort of Web experience, Wachovia Bank has now launched an initiative dubbed “On the Go Banking.”

Since its rollout last September, Wachovia’s new program has served up an average of 8,000 sessions per day to users of Windows Mobile and RIM devices. In peak periods, usage can soar much higher. During December, for example, holiday travelers and shoppers logged into Wachovia’s banking site for as many as 12,000 sessions daily.

Category(s): Mobility, Banking

Mobility’s Future

If the popularity of RIM’s BlackBerry caught corporate IT departments by surprise, the threatened shutdown of BlackBerry messaging because of the patent infringement lawsuit by NPT was a second surprise. That has led proactive enterprise CIOs to take another look at their BlackBerry dependency and explore ways to reduce their risk by finding other suppliers of handheld email.

Category(s): Mobility, Inside Microsoft

Mobility in Finance: News Briefs

Go Retro – Synch Windows Mobile 2003 with Exchange

DataViz has launched a version of RoadSync, its Exchange ActiveSync client that works with Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition software. In addition to wirelessly synchronizing e-mail, attachments, calendar and contacts, this edition of RoadSync supports new mobility features added in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) such as: direct push technology, remote wipe, global address list lookup and IT policy enforcement. These have been available for the latest versions of Windows Mobile 5.0. This new version of RoadSynch provides IT departments with the ability to support older mobile devices in a more secure and managed way.

DataViz will also offer RoadSync for Windows Mobile 5.0. This version will build upon the current wireless synchronization capabilities while adding support for new Exchange 2007 productivity features such as: e-mail flagging, online mailbox search and support for linked SharePoint files.

www.dataviz.com

Mobilty in Finance: Microsoft Resources

Microsoft’s Mobility Partners
Microsoft’s Mobility Partner Advisory Council (MPAC) brings together companies that will provide new mobile technologies, applications, and services. The members include system integrators, independent software vendors, consolidated solution providers, and hardware vendors. Here’s information on the companies working with Microsoft to provide mobility solutions.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/providers/default.asp

Mobility Research
What’s mobility going to do for my firm? Is this the right time? How do we approach it? What’s the best way to implement solutions we can live with, and benefit from, five years from now? Here are white papers and case studies to help a firm decide how to evaluate mobility solutions.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/whitepapers/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/casestudies/cs_default.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/technicalarticles/default.mspx

Microsoft Mobility Press Center
For the latest on new products from partners, information on the Microsoft Pocket PC platform, and other breaking stories, check the Microsoft Mobility press center.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/information/presscenter/default.mspx