Unwiring IT

Customer Win: iVision, Leading Australian Systems Integrator, Selects BMC Remedy and Aeroprise

dan@aeroprise.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:22:45 GMT

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

iVision, the leading Australian systems integrator of unified communications services and solutions, is growing rapidly and needed a Service Management and mobility platform to help it maintain high service levels while expanding its product offerings. After an exhaustive analysis, iVision selected BMC Remedy ITSM and Aeroprise to enable the company's managed services team to ensure uptime for end users and their unified communications solution.

iVision's field service engineers will now be able to track service level performance, monitor system availability and approve change requests from their BlackBerry mobile devices. Integrated with the Aeroprise Mobility for BMC Remedy software, iVision will provide frontline service engineers with the technology they need to resolve issues and requests faster for even better customer service.

According to Graham Williams, managing director of iVision, "This was a very competitive tender, but ultimately BMC and Aeroprise gave us a fully-integrated service management platform to speed the delivery of our services and improve service quality. The out-of-the-box integration and mobile capability make customer support and change, asset and request management much smoother."

See the full press release here.

iVision, welcome to the family!

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Gartner: $6.2 billion on mobile apps in 2010. And that ain't half the story.

dan@aeroprise.com — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:14:34 GMT

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

The iPad launched yesterday. If you weren't in Silicon Valley, you may have missed the Cameron/Bay/Coppola-esque shockwave it created. From my perch in Mountain View I saw the Transamerica Pyramid duck and cover. Larry Ellison's "Rising Sun" surfed a 400 foot asphalt wave from Redwood City to our doorstep. 7,000 tweets per minute later, a proud, spent Steve Jobs smoked a cigar and grinned at the chaos he created. Again.

Three weeks ago, Google launched Nexus One to similar fanfare and a few weeks before that it was Verizon and Motorola launching Droid. More recently, the Red Cross forever changed crowdsourced fundraising by generating more than $20 million in 72 hours - $10 at a time. Mobile technology occupies a place in our cultural pantheon usually reserved for world war, famine, or Michael Jackson.

It's bigger than gadgets, apps, or services and nobody knows what to make of it. There's just a universal, shared sense that everything from media consumption to work to travel to parenting changed forever. Distance is measured in clicks and milliseconds. Progress is measured in weeks. Moore's Law - feh. Droid's Law now governs innovation.

Out of this primordial ooze came an interesting report from Gartner last week that grounded me. $6.2 billion will be spent on mobile apps in 2010 growing to $29.5 billion in three years. This isn't a technology fad. It isn't a social revolution. It's a market for mobile digital goods that is finally growing - at a pace that dwarfs what even the most outlandish predictions forecasted a few years back.

It seemed for some time that the mobile cavalcade left businesses behind. Virtual Zippos and shoot 'em up games defined the mobile app experience. Now 70% of the Fortune 100 use iPhone and 100% of DC power brokers use BlackBerry (an unscientific estimate but did you see all those thumbs flying at the SOTU?). And you know what? It ain't because they're throwing sheep.

It's because smartphones are business essential. One customer called recently to say his CFO finally conceded to letting employees expense mobile phones after getting a demo of Aeroprise for self-service. Another told me her CIO is glued to Who's On? 18x7 (unfortunate until she found a hack to "stay on" until 11pm every night).

It's unclear who or what will benefit most from the billions about to be spent. What comforts me is knowing the smartest people on the planet are solving our biggest problems using mobile technology and the impact it will have on all of us will make even Steve Jobs wonder why he didn't see it coming.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Why Your Service Catalog is Broken - and How to Fix It

dan@aeroprise.com — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:27:16 GMT

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

We're proud to announce the launch of our newest product, Aeroprise Mobility for BMC Remedy Self Service.

Here's the press release. Here's an overview of why this product is the most exciting one we've ever launched.

And here's a short launch video and a product demo.

Now that we can share more details I thought I'd pass along a story a customer told me recently, versions of which I'm hearing almost daily.

A VP of IT at one of our largest customers told me last week he's frustrated by what happened since they introduced their service catalog. First, it took a lot longer to define the services IT offers than he expected. He gave a simple example: onboarding an employee is standard catalog fare yet each company he has been at has its own unique process that combines various HR, finance, IT, and operations tasks in various ways. The workflow gets complicated fast.

After nine months they finally launched a catalog to 55,000 business users with an initial set of 47 core services. The holy grail, right? Worthy of a ticker tape parade? Promotions and raises all around? Not so fast. Turns out he didn't anticipate a separate, bigger challenge: getting 55,000 employees to care.

His team did everything you'd expect to introduce the catalog. They hosted webcasts, created online training videos, posted banners with pithy slogans in break rooms, even rewarded frequent submitters. And yet, a paltry number of users even bothered to access the request portal. Even worse, six months after launch, call volume to the help desk was about the same as before and customer satisfaction with IT was unchanged.

He gathered his braintrust, surveyed users, and learned the problem wasn't with the catalog - in fact, users gave it high marks. The problem was when users had IT issues they didn't bother getting to a PC. It should come as no surprise that they did what they'd always done: pick up the phone. Which gave him this epiphany: what if submitting a service request was as easy as calling the help desk?

Enter Mobile SRM. They're now deploying an Aeroprise mobile service catalog for their BMC Remedy SRM app that is truly, finally, beautifully simple. Quicker than a phone call. Always available. Fully integrated with the business to deliver results that actually make the catalog matter. It's early to draw conclusions but he said he got stopped in the hall by an HR Director who waved her BlackBerry at him and said she just approved a request for a new PC that would have clogged her inbox for days before. That approval triggered an alert to the line manager who submitted the request from his iPhone. He said she was giddy (when was the last time you met a giddy HR Director?).

So my VP friend is fired up - and rightfully so. But what's powerful isn't the IT success story. It's the cultural shift enabled by a few forward-thinking execs and mobile technology. What's next? Probably no ticker tape parade. But maybe a raise and promotion.

Click here to see Mobile Self Service in action. Or call +1(866)809-9102 to schedule a live demo.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Happy Holidays from Aeroprise!

dan@aeroprise.com — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:13:37 GMT

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

As 2009 draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for an excellent year. And what a year it has been! Mobile computing is everywhere. BlackBerry sold its 50 millionth smartphone, the iPhone is a cultural phenomenon and Android looms large on the horizon.

Our team (and mascots) also wanted to wish you happy holidays...in their own way.

From our family at Aeroprise, we wish you and yours a healthy and successful 2010.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Aeroprise+BMC: Redefining Enterprise Self Service

dan@aeroprise.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:58:44 GMT

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

Here's an interesting exercise I tried last week: go back two years in your day planner. What were you doing? How did you do it? Pull up last Tuesday and ask the same questions. Remarkable, huh? I spent more time on the road, interacted with fewer people, knew less about their lives, and had a ton more paper in mine. Case in point: wheels up two years ago meant forced down time. Not so today. With in-air WiFi and faster, more capable devices, 5B is just an office with a view (and a fat dude snoring but that for another post).

Work and life are digital. But more important, they move faster. They're more agile, more complete - all in a way that makes them richer and more fulfilling. Extend these trends out two years and factor in the Droid generation - adolescents raised today with the expectation that anything is a click away - and it's tough to imagine what we'll be doing and how we'll do it. One thing is clear: life won't happen in front of a PC and service delays and information gaps won't be tolerated.

Inspired by that world, we recently launched our most exciting product ever. It extends the value we've always provided IT to the rest of the business. It's not a product launch as much as a reminder that technology is catching up with life as quick as life is catching up with technology. The product is called Mobile BMC Self Service and it devolves control over how and where we work to where it should have always been: the hands of end-users.

Mobile BMC Self Service gives you and me, mortals with phones, the power we've always needed. We can now submit and manage service requests, browse the catalog, and know in real-time wherever we are when our issues are being worked, by whom, and when they'll be resolved. The way to build more dynamic businesses isn't to add features or work longer hours. It's by spending more time collaborating and less time waiting. It's by making fewer calls to the service desk and more calls to action that drive innovation and create business value.

What we announced is bigger than a new product, bigger than anything we could do alone. It's the next step in the evolution of enterprise self-service. It's the culmination of years of hard work and industry leadership from BMC, Aeroprise, and RIM. You'll be hearing more about it in the months ahead but consider this your invitation to join a dialog that's just getting started and will influence how we all work and live for years to come.

Want to learn more? Check out this video of Mobile BMC Self Service in action.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Join Aeroprise at the BMC Virtual Conference October 29

dan@aeroprise.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:50:10 GMT

Join leaders from Dell, Cisco, and NetApp alongside BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp and our team of mobile ITSM experts for a full day of interactive demos, talks, and training. Hear from customers who are extending BSM to BlackBerrys, iPhones, bar code scanners, and cell phones. Learn why companies like Lennox International (NYSE: LII) and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health report 30-50% productivity gains and tighter alignment with business goals when executives, managers, and technicians proactively manage IT in real-time from anywhere.

We're excited to participate in this BMC-first, innovative, online-only event format and think you'll see why on October 29. Register here then ask for me at the booth and we'll send you an Aeroprise gift.

See you next week!

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Fortune Names RIM Fastest Growing Company: So What?

dan@aeroprise.com — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:14:08 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

Why is RIM's (NASDAQ: RIMM) ascension to the top spot on Fortune's Fastest Growing Companies (FGC) list a landmark event for IT? In part, because we put them there. But mostly because it validates what we've known for years: mobile applications are big. Big like the end of cubeville. Big like no more calls to the help desk or triage-gone-awry downtime. Big like the IT guy is Einstein with piercings.

But first, some historical perspective. The FGC list typically reads like the warning label on rat poison. To get on it, either drill for something scarce and toxic or sell loads of something that kills people slowly. Until this year. RIM hasn't cracked the top 20 in any of the past five years. Only one of the last five winners (Yahoo! in 2005) is a tech company. But now, enter mobile applications. Enter a year when Grandma bought a smartphone. Enter a year when applications made mobile devices THE must-have business tool. And all of a sudden the top spot goes to the company that is synonymous with the new way IT services get delivered. No surprise but certainly a landmark event.

Remember: what distinguishes the BlackBerry from all other handhelds isn't that the Governator uses one or Bono (Apple traitor) sings about them or half of all ever sold in the past decade shipped in the past year. What distinguishes BlackBerry from iPhone and other contenders is that it's the mobile platform for business. One that has been wildly successful because of how IT has stretched and pulled it into so much more than an email device.

Five years ago, you were at a disadvantage if you didn't have a mobile phone. Three years ago, if you didn't have mobile email. Two years ago, if you didn't text. This past year, if you weren't using mobile apps. From now on, it's mobile line of business applications that will separate organizations with a pulse and a future from everyone else.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Mobile Asset Management: "This Changes Everything"

dan@aeroprise.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:37:03 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

Frustrating experience at the pediatrician this week. The nurse measured our 19-month old daughter's head circumference, height, and weight and, type A geek that I am, I asked the same question I ask at every appointment: "can I see those graphed?" Here's the conversation that ensued:

Nurse: "No. Computer's down."

Me: "But they're networked. Can you use a different machine?"

Nurse: "No. System's down."

Me: "Huh?"

Nurse: "Tech came out three days ago. Said he didn't know we were upgraded. He’ll be back Friday."

Me: "So the whole system has been down for three days??"

Nurse: "Yeah. Real pain. We're manually updating charts like the old days. Then we'll hand-enter everything later."

Useful background: we chose this clinic in part because they use state-of-the-art diagnostic tools and our test results are available online immediately. Huge selling point but this outage makes the whole operation seem fragile and forces us to question the care we receive.

Back to the story: the nurse's answer was pathetic so I sought refuge in the basement (where, for some reason, all companies sequester IT). Sure enough, a surly tech had been dispatched with obsolete information about the whole system - hardware records were years out of date, network information was misleading, software config data dated back to when high technology meant leeches in an apothecary jar on the top shelf.

So here I am in a modern doctor's office in the cradle of Silicon Valley and I can't look at my daughter's health records because some dude had no idea floor 3 had been upgraded in 2005. A silly problem with a simple solution - and an exchange that underscored what customers tell me every day: Mobile Asset Management changes everything.

Add off-the-shelf handheld bar code or RFID scanners interfaced to an Asset Management application and CMDB (all of which, by the way, the hospital purchased but doesn't use) and this whole experience is completely different. The outage that led to a week of downtime is resolved in hours not days. Nurses can focus on providing care - not excuses. And we can spend the extra five minutes spent wrestling with Dell paper weights understanding how Dara’s developing.

The days of physical inventories are over. 95% of all companies still update asset repositories the wrong way and the economic impact is in the billions. Why collect information manually that is obsolete before ever being entered and inaccurate when it finally is (which leads to more manual entry) when a simple application of mobile technology and smart software can automate the end-to-end process and eliminate human error? Never again should profit margins, productivity, or patient safety be sacrificed because too little information is known about what is owned or what condition it's in.

Dr. Levin. I hope you're reading this.

Click here for more information about Mobile Asset Management.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Twitter and BlackBerry: The Yin and Yang of My Attention Span

dan@aeroprise.com — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:34:15 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

I looked up from my BlackBerry at last week’s Tech Policy Summit just long enough to realize how much of the audience was doing the same thing - tweeting, texting, IMing, blogging and, gasp, working from mobile devices. I was half paying attention to Walt Mossberg but my mind was in a dozen other places doing a dozen different things. And I'm not ashamed of that. That's how I, er, we, work.

Dominic Papatola, a columnist for the Pioneer Press, set out to bemoan the demise of the attention span. He concluded that tools like Twitter are actually “cross-training” for other forms of communication. A nice image that captures what short attention span living does so well. With the help of mobile technology and social media, our ability to engage in rapid cognition is more than keeping pace with the ever-shrinking time we spend processing new information. Mobile is the new fixed. 140 characters is the new column inch. We are the new fourth estate.

More tweets are sent via mobile device than PC. More than a billion iPhone apps have been downloaded (an alarmingly-high 62 per iPhone!). Astonishingly, one of every seven minutes of media consumption takes place on a mobile device (source: AOL). Information consumption patterns haven't changed like this since the printing press. We're in the middle of a series of tectonic shifts we won't fully appreciate for another 20 years.

The convergence of better mobile technology with viral social applications is feeding our insatiable appetite for instant gratification. Layer on the demise of print media, the Kindle’s verbification (as in The New York Times was “Kindled”), and it's clear we've only seen the beginning.

To wit: a college buddy (proudly) no longer answers his phone but responds instantly to text messages any time of day or night. A customer told me recently he hasn't used a laptop in three months since downloading Aeroprise and doesn't plan to go back.

Mobile applications are no longer “en vogue” or only for "technophiles" or “Berry addicts”. They’re about survival. About being the one who used the ten minutes saved to close an extra deal or turn “pending” into “resolved”. They’re less about being the first to know and more about not being the last.

Don’t agree? Look around the next time you’re at an event or in an airport. If for no other reason, your thumbs need the rest.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Blogging from WES, RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium (AKA “Woodstock for BlackBerry”)

dan@aeroprise.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:40:45 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Stick 5,000 BlackBerry enthusiasts of all colors, races, shapes, and sizes under one roof for four sleep-deprived days and magic happens. Two lasting impressions from WES 2009:

1) The surreal scene at the will.i.am concert when he asked the booze-soaked crowd (tragically, most didn’t know who he was) to wave their BlackBerrys in the air like lighters. The place lit up like a Christmas tree.

2) I saw a great demo yesterday of a BlackBerry that is also a projector. Not an input to one but an actual functioning LCD projector fitted with a surprisingly sharp, bright laser that projects whatever is being presented on the device onto a 17” window on the wall.

When we first attended WES in 2003, it was in a basement in Chicago. Us and a few other ISVs traded war stories and wondered aloud if we had bet on the right pony. But mostly we crouched in lotus positions near windows or outside in the pouring rain trying to get a Mobitex or DataTAC wireless signal (yeah, well, it wasn’t funny then). Today, there are hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of customers, and hordes of media-types all clamoring for a peek at the next big thing – and, in so doing, creating it.

It’s not just a great time to be part of the BlackBerry community. It’s a way to watch a cultural phenomenon evolve from the inside. We exhibited with BMC and were amazed by how many conversations started with “Finally! My manager’s instructions were to find a way to use Remedy on BlackBerry and here you are.” Great energy but that wasn’t the most notable part of the show.

It was the reminder that even though there is only one RIM and many ISVs that develop BlackBerry applications (well north of 500 at last count), it remains the case that BlackBerry (the device, company, and pop icon) is every bit as dependent on its partners as we are on RIM. No mobile OS has an enterprise ecosystem even 1% as evolved as BlackBerry and what was clear this week is the gap is only getting wider. Call us the clownfish to RIM’s anemone. It would all seem hero-worshipy if it weren’t genuinely symbiotic.

RIM’s success is the result of years of paying close attention to unmet customer needs, not competing with its partners, and aggressively expanding its platform by focusing on the things we value – a stable device that is second-to-none with the best security model, battery life, a crack team of experts at our beck and call, and solid developer tools.

The iPhone, you say? A phenomenal device and a ground-breaking app distribution model – but a black hole for enterprise ISVs. RIM is light years ahead when it comes to go-to-market strategies, carrier sell-through, partner sales support and, most importantly, experience supporting large enterprise customers. But what was most motivational about WES is that despite years of torrid growth, five minutes in the exhibit hall confirmed we’ve only seen the opening act of a show none of us can afford to miss. Bring your BlackBerry.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

BMC's Service Desk for BlackBerry from Aeroprise Drives RIM Quarterly Earnings

dan@aeroprise.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:11:49 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Jim Balsillie, RIM Co-CEO, announced banner earnings a few weeks back. Call it Novocain for Wall Street. A (now-clichéd) green shoot signaling the worst may be over. For RIM, that's only part of the story.

7.8 million BlackBerry smartphones shipped last quarter. Impressive considering it took six years to sell the first three million. The company just sold its 50 millionth smartphone (in 10 years compared with 17 million iPhones in 18 months), generated 3.5 billion dollars in the past three months, raised earnings guidance for 2010, and is gaining steam thanks to a stock price that has nearly doubled since March.

For years, each quarter RIM has silenced doubters but without Jobsian fanfare. Before achieving each milestone – email, battery life, security, screen resolution, camera, touch screen, WiFi, app store – skeptics said the company had met its Waterloo (yeah, pun intended). So maybe I'm a BlackBerry fanboy but there are many of us and for good reason. Every day is Christmas at RIM right now and, by association, for all of us in its orbit.

What’s more, it’s clear the competition with Apple is only bringing out the best in RIM. If you’ve been to HQ (AKA “hit Toronto and turn left at BFE”) then you know the place buzzes with type A, hyper-competitive, wicked smart Canadians who thrive on their second fiddle status in the smartphone street-cred war. Put it all together and you get a cultural phenomenon the likes of which we haven’t seen since Atari or Michael Jackson in the 80s.

All true, you say, but BlackBerry is getting trounced on the consumer side, right? Actually, what’s most notable about last quarter’s earnings is that while the BlackBerry enterprise juggernaut tightened its iron grip on wireless budgets (more on that next post), once-ridiculed consumer devices like the Pearl and Curve are stealing market share from Symbian and iPhone. Hey, even Hannah Montana’s a power user. What once was a 90-10 enterprise-consumer split for RIM is now more like 60-40 even as enterprise market share increases.

All of which is why here at Aeroprise we’re proud that when Jim Balsillie described what powered growth the past few months he singled out BMC Remedy Service Desk for BlackBerry, the product we launched recently with RIM and BMC and the first of many exciting initiatives to come from the partnership. So Jim, thanks for the kind words but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Get to know wireless. Your career may depend on it.

forums@developer.bmc.com — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:45:27 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Turns out these days the way to a CIO's wallet isn't through a diagram with clouds or a CMDB or a quad-core anything - it's through a BlackBerry.

We have a customer that was acquired recently by a large technology company. As a result, they're in the process of integrating IT systems and considering which applications stay and go. For a global IT organization with more than 350,000 employees, that's no small project. In fact, they issued an RFP for a new ITSM system months back and have entertained a steady stream of suitors since then. I'm an outsider but from what I've heard several things haven't surprised me about the process (and one has).

Vendors are savvy and differentiate themselves based on analyst ratings, customer success stories, after-sale support, and global reach. No surprise there. What surprised me is that with the exception of one feature, product enters the discussion infrequently. Why? ITSM products are so similar these days that going through the alphabet soup of ITIL this and SLM that is a waste of time. The one feature that comes up in every discussion is – you guessed it – wireless.

There was a time when wireless was heated seats and an extra cup holder. Now it's the steering wheel and engine. Not just an essential part of the sales pitch but the difference-maker that distinguishes strong from weak products, whole from partial ones. It turns out these days the way to a CIO's wallet isn't through a diagram with clouds or a CMDB or a quad-core anything - it's through a BlackBerry.

For this particular customer, wireless means productivity and a lot more. They've narrowed the field to two players, based almost solely on the strength of their mobile solutions. The vendors without a solution at all were easy to eliminate. The ones with immature or incomplete solutions sent the message that they're not innovative and don't see where the market is headed. According to the customer, vendors that lead with the strength of their mobile solution have the "it" factor. The others, not so much.

Customers need to feel confident that vendors meet today's basic requirements and, more importantly, get where computing will be tomorrow. Call it a tip. Call it a warning. Call it whatever you want. All I know is I’ve seen the future of enterprise software and PCs are asleep at the wheel.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

The Airplane Test

forums@developer.bmc.com — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:44:18 GMT

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Ever look around when phones need to be powered down before takeoff? I call it the Airplane Test. Great way to take the pulse of the handset market. Of course, fliers aren't representative of the overall phone-using population when it comes to mobile habits but they're not a bad cross-section of business users.

On today's flight from Houston, for the first time feature phones failed the test. Incredibly, of the ten devices in my field of view every single one had a keyboard and not one was made by the top three global handset manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung). A few years ago, smartphones failed the test (in fact, a few years ago the lady next to me failed it - "What is that?" "Uh, a BlackBerry, ma'am." "How does the person on the other end know what you're typing?" [Awkward pause.]).

These days, the friendly skies look more like the neighborhood Fry's. Between Kindles, smartphones, and iPods, the plane has become a thumb gym full of treadmills for digits. The only thing notably absent are laptops. And when they're out it's to watch DVDs or use PowerPoint. Wireless data is evolving: first, it infiltrated schoolyards. Now airplanes. Next cube-ville. Mark my words.

Take the Airplane Test and let me know what you find. Next up: I've hatched a plan to convince the FAA there's no scientific basis for the 10,000-foot ban on electronics. When was the last time an itty-bitty book light took down a 747?

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.