Answer: build into the phone an efficient way to sync with Microsoft Outlook (the most popular contact, calendar, and email software on the planet).
Many small and medium businesses don’t use an Exchange Server. They can’t afford one or the maintenance costs required to keep the behemoth running. Also, most folks are super-scared to host their data online. They’ve heard the tug-n-war stories between who really owns your data, and who does what with your data. They know any time you put something into the cloud, chances are it will be parsed by some robot or spider. Depending on who the spider’s owner is, that data is often used to sell services, ads, or other things.
All business people want is a phone that plugs into their business tools without having to download apps. Just make it possible out of the box – a simple way to get their email, contacts, and calendar to work in both Outlook and their phone.
Email is easy. Just set up Outlook and your phone to use IMAP. Viola. Done.
Contacts and calendar need a simple solution that’s similar to (dare we say) 15-year-old called HotSync.
- Plug your phone into the PC
- Watch your data sync automatically.
- Done. As in, “Yes, it is really that simple.”
Now that Facebook is grown up (viz. publicly traded), they need to pay more attention to business users that represent a large (and paying) market.
Take our word for it because we’ve been catering to the business crowd with mobile devices for 20 years – they just want a phone that can manage their data in a simple way without any third-party apps. If Facebook can pull off this magic, they’ll instantly win over the business crowd even though they are shipping a social media phone. How ironic would that be?