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Archive for the ‘mobile’ Category

Tips for Boosting Small Business Productivity with Technology

Monday, November 26th, 2012

ZDnet has a good piece on how small businesses can use IT to boost productivity. They list 5 tips on how SMBs can leverage IT to increase the productivity of their workforces. We happen to love the first two points, as they are parts of the OfficeDrop solution that our business owners are really embracing:

Digitized Workflow – we agree that having important tasks done digitally, vs the traditional (slow) paper method provides a major boost to small business productivity
Mobile Access – as we’ve blogged before, small businesses are leading mobile IT adoption, mainly because they are seeing that their employees are much more productive on the go when they have quick and secure mobile access to important files.

Check out the ZDnet video below on how small business is using technology to become more productive:

Interested in using technology to make your SMB better? One of the most compelling features of OfficeDrop’s cloud storage solution is our file search engine. For many of our clients, full text file search has become the most important tool in their company’s organizational/retreival toolbox. Anything that they need they can simply type into a search box and they’ll not only be shown the list of files matching the query, they’ll also get thumbnail previews of the files that will let their employee pick the correct one right away. Previews matter a lot when dealing with scans, because scanners don’t always pick names that make sense; many of scanned files are named funny strings of numbers based on the date that the item was scanned. With OfficeDrop, PDFs & scans are made fully text searchable, and files with text like Word documents, PPT’s and more are also full text searchable. So it’s easy to find words, numbers, phrases within my files. OfficeDrop’s web file search engine is currently our leading edge file search interface. I can easily add in search modifers like searching for files modified “yesterday” or “3 months ago to today,” by file type like “pdf” or type “audio.” It’s pretty amazing what can happen you can do cloud search on all of your files.

Posted in Document Management, mobile, Online Cloud Storage, Organization, Paperless, Small Business | No Comments »

Enterprise Software Learning from Small Business Software

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

Lots of ink (digital ink, I guess) has been used to write on how large enterprise software is the “next big thing.” The latest read on this topic was on TechCrunch. However, one thing we at OfficeDrop have noticed is that small businesses are starting to lead technology adoption – in particular mobile adoption. I think we’ll see more and more of small business mobile solutions creep into the enterprise as end users within enterprises start bringing technology in with their BYO devices. Since it’s easy for a individual within a big company to sign up for a small mobile or SaaS app, they will likely choose products that have effective marketing directed towards entrepreneurs/small business owners. On my personal blog, I’ve written about how small businesses are embracing mobile technologies; from one of those previous posts:

“2/3 small businesses have seem increased efficiency from mobile technologies and 60% believe that mobile technologies are completing functions that other technologies can not accomplish. This is pretty exciting, as it proves that mobile will create new, exciting markets that have never before been contemplated! Wahoo mobile developers!

Mobile Creates Efficiency”

Interested in seeing where OfficeDrop believes that enterprise mobile technology will end up? Check out our mobile apps! OfficeDrop’s smartphone scanner apps let you scan paper on the go and automatically upload PDFs into your OfficeDrop account. If you want to learn more about the apps, you can learn about the OfficeDrop android scanner app or the OfficeDrop iPhone PDF app here. Also, a couple of weeks ago we announced the first OfficeDrop Android Tablet App, which is a great way to not only scan paper, but access your documents from anywhere. Get the apps by clicking on either of the following buttons from your mobile device:

Posted in android, Benefits, cloud computing, Digital Office, discussions, iPad, iphone, mobile, OfficeDrop, Online Cloud Storage, Organization, Small Business | No Comments »

Is the Windows Tablet Going to Take Off?

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

We are pretty excited about desktop computing since we’ve officially launched both of our desktop sync tools, the Windows File Sync Client and Mac File Sync Client. However, our iPad and Android tablet apps are really stealing the show in terms of how our customers actually use OfficeDrop – they seem to be syncing from the desktop but then accessing via mobile devices. Small business owners are really seeing mobile computing as important.

So, as you can imagine, we are pretty excited about the upcoming Windows Surface Tablet. Will it be the real convergence of desktop functionality with the ease of a tablet? Anyways, we’ve been reading a ton about the new Surface tablet and recently came across an article on Inc about where the Surface tablet shines. The author lists 6 ways that he believes Microsoft has beat the competition. They are:

A great keyboard
Free Office apps
A good app store
Long battery life
A great screen

Have you tried out the Windows Surface tablet? What do you think?

Posted in android, cloud computing, Digital Office, discussions, iPad, iphone, mobile | No Comments »

Fast Company and Keeping Your Apps Strong

Friday, November 9th, 2012

Prasad Thammineni, our CEO and resident cloud computing expert, has just had a byline published on Fast Company on how to keep your mobile applications going strong with engaged users. Called “Keeping Your (Seriously Awesome) App Out Of Purgatory,: the article lays out a number of strategies we use at OfficeDrop to keep our apps front and center on our users’ mobile devices.

As Prasad says in the piece, “People love apps because they’re simple, and make passing time more fun or working much easier. When apps are free, people are generally willing to take a chance on a relatively unknown product that promises to make their day better in some way. But some apps fail to catch the attention of their users and are quickly forgotten. Rarely used, never deleted, they sit in a constant state of purgatory; the kind of purgatory that haunts the nightmares of app developers: the App Graveyard.”

Some of the tactics mentioned by Prasad include using notifications, registrations, frequently updating the app, great PR and of course, having a really good app!

Do you have the OfficeDrop Mobile Apps?

See how we keep our own apps out of the App Graveyard! Our smartphone scanner apps let you scan paper on the go and automatically upload PDFs into your OfficeDrop account. If you want to learn more about the apps, you can learn about the OfficeDrop android scanner app or the OfficeDrop iPhone PDF app here. Also, a couple of weeks ago we announced the first OfficeDrop Android Tablet App, which is a great way to not only scan paper, but access your documents from anywhere. Get the apps by clicking on either of the following buttons from your mobile device:

Posted in mobile, OfficeDrop, Press coverage | No Comments »

OfficeDrop is CRN’s App of the Day

Monday, November 5th, 2012

CRN has a series on mobile applications the call the “Daily App” – and we are pleased that OfficeDrop was the Daily App recently!

The author understands the concept of a paperless office and paperless workflow, and discusses our smartphone scanner apps from that perspective. From the review: “We are undoubtedly moving towards a paperless era, although paper still exists and can present an unavoidable challenge when it comes to joining the virtual and physical. Today’s Daily App, OfficeDrop for Android and iOS, is a cloud based document management system that can help provide small businesses with an affordable way to manage their paper and digital files.”

The piece also talks a lot about using OfficeDrop’s apps as scanners, which is a principal part of the workflow that we currently see our users doing with our applications.

If you haven’t got our most up to date mobile apps then you need them! With our apps you can scan paper on the go and automatically upload PDFs into your OfficeDrop account. If you want to learn more about the apps, you can learn about the OfficeDrop android scanner app or the OfficeDrop iPhone PDF app here. Also, a couple of weeks ago we announced the first OfficeDrop Android Tablet App, which is a great way to not only scan paper, but access your documents from anywhere. Get the apps by clicking on either of the following buttons from your mobile device:

Posted in android, iPad, iphone, mobile, OCR Scanning, OfficeDrop, Paperless, Paperless Champions, Press coverage, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Looks like Apple’s New Phone is Taking Off

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

A recent study shows that the iPhone 5 is taking major share in mobile web browsing. We’ve seen massive adoption of both our recently updated Android scanning app and our iPhone PDF app, so it’s no surprise to us that this study would show that both iOS and Android are the dominate players in mobile internet access.

Mobile OS Market Share Chart

Of course, as we’ve recently blogged, our small business customers see mobile technology as very important to their future. This study basically shows that new technologies are rapidly adopted by consumers. And as small businesses behave a lot more like consumers when it comes to mobile technology adoption (and seem to be beating enterprises at mobile), we should logically see rapid adoption of these new phones by SMBs.

Posted in android, Benefits, iPad, iphone, mobile, Small Business | No Comments »

Small Business Owners See Mobile Computing as Important

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

3 Out of 4 Small Businesses Expect Mobile Tech to Become More Important to Success

A survey of small business owners by Bank of the West shows that SMBs are aggressively trying out new mobile technologies, including devices, apps and cloud services, and expect to use more and more of these services to power their companies.

One of the most interesting findings is that small business owners really think that THEY are going to be the ones to most benefit from mobile technologies – even more so than big enterprises.

SMBs Benefit Most from Mobile

Most small companies that invested in mobile technologies saw a positive return on their investment – it sounds like the time and effort was worth it for most of those surveyed. Also positive is that only 35% of the businesses had made NO investment in mobile technology – although, I’m willing to bet that at this point most are not thinking about or including their cell phones, which pretty much everyone has at this point – and which also does make people more productive.

SMB’s Get Positive Return on Mobile Investments

OfficeDrop is seeing continued adoption of our small business cloud storage apps. These are lead by our mobile apps, like the iPhone PDF scanner application and our Android scanner app – both of which are having banner months! Check them out today if you are looking for a good way to manage your small business files in the cloud from anywhere, at anytime, using mobile and desktop devices.

Posted in android, Benefits, cloud computing, Digital Office, Document Management, Entrepreneurship, iPad, Market Research, Marketing, mobile, OfficeDrop, Organization, Small Business | 1 Comment »

Modest Update to iPhone and iPad App

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Yesterday we released a small update to our iOS apps, both the iPhone and iPad apps. This update fixes a few bugs and has the Passbook integration now working. Please update your mobile app for the best OfficeDrop experience!

Update you OfficeDrop iPhone and iPad App here.

Our smartphone scanner apps let you scan paper on the go and automatically upload PDFs into your OfficeDrop account. If you want to learn more about the apps, you can learn about the OfficeDrop android scanner app or the OfficeDrop iPhone PDF app here. Also, a couple of weeks ago we announced the first OfficeDrop Android Tablet App, which is a great way to not only scan paper, but access your documents from anywhere. Get the apps by clicking on either of the following buttons from your mobile device:

Posted in iPad, iphone, mobile, Product Updates | No Comments »

Social File Sharing on iPhone and iPad

Monday, October 8th, 2012

The updated version of OfficeDrop’s iPhone scanner app and iPad scanner app have a great new feature that will let you get your important files in the hands of your friends and co-workers quickly – social file sharing. Using the share button on your iOS 6 device you can now share via Twitter, LinkedIN and Facebook. You can share files and also share entire folders of files via a simple link.

Here is how social file sharing works on your Apple mobile device

Social File Sharing Video

You’ll see the sharing on the iPhone is really easy. You can share either from the thumbnail view by expanding the file options with the down arrow and then hitting the share button, or you can share when looking at the document by selecting the sharing button.

Once you’ve shared a file it will be visible on your social network as a link, plus what ever description you’ve put along with it. Sharing is easy, start today!

If you haven’t updated your iOS app do so now!

Posted in Benefits, iPad, iphone, mobile | No Comments »

Improved iPhone and iPad Scanner Apps Include Voice Search and Social Sharing

Monday, October 1st, 2012

We are really excited to announce major improvements to our iOS apps. These updates take advantage of several huge improvements to the new iOS 6 recently released by Apple, including social sharing and the improved camera on the newest iPhones. An even bigger update includes Voice Search! That’s right, you can now do file search with just your voice!!!

“The OfficeDrop iOS 6 updates are some of our most innovative yet,” said OfficeDrop CEO Prasad Thammineni. “We wanted to take some of the existing features iPhone and iPad owners are excited about and tie them into the app in a functional way. Both voice search and social sharing fit with OfficeDrop’s mission to create a dead-simple way for small businesses to go paperless and find what they need in an instant.

Voice Search on the iPhone and iPad

Here is a quick video that shows the power of OfficeDrop’s iOS voice search. With this voice search you can find words, phrases and numbers in your files and file names right from your iPhone or iPad.

Social Sharing with iOS 6

iOS 6 is built for sharing on social networks, and the updated OfficeDrop iOS apps take advantage of these sharing features. Apple included Twitter and Facebook sharing, which our app can now tap into. We added our own, business focused, sharing connection into LinkedIN. Now, if you want to tweet out a scan or file, or post an entire folder to LinkedIN you can do so right from your device. Here is how it works:

Better Scanning with the iPhone and iPad

Our smartphone scanner apps just got a lot better with Image Enhancement, perspective correction and auto-edge detection for your iOS device. This brings the iOS devices scanning capabilities up to par with our Android scanner apps’ recent update.

Read the full update below in our press release:

OfficeDrop Updates iPhone and iPad Scanner Apps

Includes New Voice Search, Social Sharing and Other Major iOS 6 Updates

October 1, 2012 — Cambridge, MA — Today, OfficeDrop is announcing a brand new version of its popular iPhone and iPad scanner apps for iOS 6. Using the same technology that powers Siri voice recognition search, users can now find documents within OfficeDrop’s online cloud storage system with voice commands. The new update also includes social sharing, so users can instantly send document access links and updates from their OfficeDrop account to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The OfficeDrop iOS 6 updates are some of our most innovative yet,” said OfficeDrop CEO Prasad Thammineni. “We wanted to take some of the existing features iPhone and iPad owners are excited about and tie them into the app in a functional way. Both voice search and social sharing fit with OfficeDrop’s mission to create a dead-simple way for small businesses to go paperless and find what they need in an instant.

Siri Search, Social Sharing and a Lot More!

Finding documents just got a step easier using Siri-like voice recognition technology paired with optical character recognition (OCR) search technology. OCR means that when a user scans a document, OfficeDrop can ‘read’ the PDF image and retrieve it in seconds. Now, users can speak a voice command of a word or phrase, such as “Marriott invoice from Charlotte, North Carolina,” and instantly pull up any document scanned into their account containing those words. Watch a demo of the new voice search feature here.

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Posted in android, cloud computing, Customer Satisfaction, Digital Office, Document Management, Document Scanners, Home Office, iPad, iphone, mobile, OCR Scanning, Online Cloud Storage, Organization, Paperless, Product, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates, scanning software, Small Business | No Comments »