BlackBerry for Work: Productivity for Professionals

The BlackBerry is cool, and the BlackBerry is fun, but the BlackBerry also means serious business. For those of you who bought your BlackBerry to help get your life organized and free yourself from the ball-and-chain of desktop computing, BlackBerryfor Work: Productivity for Professionals is the book to show you how. There are plenty of general-purpose BlackBerry guides, but this book shows you how to complete all the traditional smartphone tasks, like to-dos, calendars, and email, and become even more efficient and productive. You’ll learn mechanisms for developing effective workflows specific to the features of the BlackBerry and also efficient strategies for dealing with the specialized aspects of business and professional lifestyles.

After giving a professionally targeted introduction to the built-in applications and configuration options, this book details the BlackBerry’s enterprise features. This book also delves into App World, the BlackBerry’s source for third-party software. It discusses some of the best business and vertical applications, and shows you how to take advantage of this wealth of add-ons and professional functionality.

• The only business-specific guide to the BlackBerry.
• Improve your productivity with innovative mobile workflows that free you from the desktop.
• Make the BlackBerry work for you so you can work better.

The authors of BlackBerry for Work have decided to direct their share of the proceeds from the book to a charity in India. The Mitr Foundation is a trust founded in the city of Hyderabad, with the objective of contributing its might towards the empowerment of the girl child through education. Somewhere between the elite and the underprivileged lies the core essence of our endeavor. Shikha Gupta has pledged to undertake the responsibility of educatingthree children.

What you’ll learn

• How to purchase a BlackBerry and configure it specifically for business
• How to integrate built-in BlackBerry platform features into an everyday professional workflow
• How to access enterprise-wide data and computing features
• Specific organizational tips and sample workflows for different types of professions
• How to deploy the BlackBerry platform across groups both large and small
• The secrets of BlackBerry platform customization and personalization

You have already purchased or are considering purchasing a BlackBerry. You know it’s the most reliable smartphone around, but you actually want to use it to make your professional life more efficient, productive, and lest we forget, fun! The BlackBerry has inherent uses for a broad range of professions, including management, sales, medical/dental, legal, real estate, training and education, human resources, and information technology, so there are many of you (or should I say us?). Some of us are novice mobile device users, and others are highly experienced mobile pros. No matter, because every professional BlackBerry user across this continuum of experience wants to learn to work smarter, better, and more efficiently. This book shows you how to use your BlackBerry to do this.

Table of Contents

1. BlackBerry Models and Purchasing
2. Setting Up Your BlackBerry
3. BlackBerry as a Phone
4. BlackBerry for E-mail
5. BlackBerry for Text and Multimedia Messaging
6. Calendaring on Your BlackBerry
7. Contact Management on Your BlackBerry
8. Web Browsing
9. Exploring Other Built-in BlackBerry Functions
10. BlackBerry as a Modem
11. Google Apps on Your BlackBerry
12. Maps
13. BlackBerry as an iPod
14. Understanding App World
15. General Business Apps

The BlackBerry’s success is undeniable, and among professionals, BlackBerrys have become the SmartPhone of choice. It’s highly functional, reliable, and supported by most enterprise IT departments. But do professionals get the most from these incredibly capable devices? This book shows business and professional users how to integrate their BlackBerry into a daily work routine. In short, BlackBerry means business and this is the only book specifically for the professional BlackBerry user.

Kunal Mittal serves as an Executive Director of Technology at Sony Pictures Entertainment where he is responsible for the SOA and Identity Management programs. He provides a centralized engineering service to different lines of business and consults on the open source technologies, Content Management, Collaboration and Mobile strategies.

Kunal is an entrepreneur who helps startups defining their technology strategy, product roadmap and development plans. With strong relations with several development partners worldwide, he is able to help startups and even large companies, build appropriate development partnerships. He generally works in an Advisor or Consulting CTO capacity, and serves actively in the Project Management and Technical Architect functions.

He has authored, and edited several books and articles on J2EE, Cloud Computing and Mobile technologies. He holds a Master’s degree in Software Engineering and is a instrument rated Private Pilot.

With a B.Sc. Degree in Electronic Media, Shikha Gupta works with Learnsmart India Private Limited as a content developer for online education. This comprises content creation for the Indian student, aimed improving grades at school as well as general knowledge. Her background includes script writing for some of the leading channels and production houses in Mumbai, India - Zoom Television, United Television (UTV) and Miditech Production House, respectively. A student of the Arts, her other interests include theatre and literature.