Giving your employees a cell phone

This post first appeared on Droid Portal.

As a new business experiences growth new projects will become viable and providing cell phones to it's employees is a common goal small business owner want to accomplish. Before handing a cell phone to any employee a business owner should write policy to define the terms of use with the business phone. There should also be a strategy in place that focuses on keeping costs in check.

The first question a business owner should ask themselves is corporate liable or employee liable.

Corporate Liable - The wireless bill comes addressed to the business and is the responsibility of the business.
Employee Liable - The employee pays the wireless bill directly and is later reimbursed by their company. There are benefits to both options mentioned above so first let's look at Corporate Liability.
The business is the complete owner and party responsible for payment of the bill. A company that goes with corporate liability is most likely looking for control, visibility, and security. In this case a corporation doesn't have to solely rely on their cellular use policy to govern how the service is used. A corporation retains ownership of the cell phone, has the right to put security software on the device, and can always look at the account in depth.

One of the negatives especially if you are dealing with a relatively new employee is lack of flexibility. If you purchase a phone and sign an agreement for a new employee and three months later they're gone then you are stuck with an extra phone. For a business that is implementing their first cellular use policy the corporate liable option may not be the best choice.

Employee Liable offers much freedom and flexibility.
Just because the employee is purchasing their own equipment and has service in their name doesn't mean that the corporation loses all control. This is what your Cellular Use policy is for. In this scenario your employee will sign a copy of your Cellular Use policy which entitles you to govern certain aspects of your employee's use of cell phones. In both instances you should have a well written CU Policy but here you rely more on your employee choosing to follow those policies. In your CU Policy clearly state what the ramifications are for not following parts of your policy. An employee could lose reimbursement for their cell phone or depending upon your policy could be terminated. Termination sounds extreme but placing it there gives you protection in the event an employee uses their cell phone negligently that could potentially harm your company.

One of the great benefits of employee liable is if you have to terminate an employee or they quit then you are not responsible for their wireless bill.

The corporate liable option gives more direct control over the cell phone. However that level of control may not be necessary and may be cumbersome at times. A strong Cellular Use policy will be more than sufficient in an employee liable case and will not have the same risks of overburdening your budget.

Why you shouldn't buy the Samsung Droid Charge

There's a lot of exciting things happening in the world of Android right now. We have phones that will soon be coming out with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology so you can buy a soda with a pass of your phone. The Nexus has come to Sprint which means that it has CDMA technology which gives me hope that it could come to Verizon soon. We currently have multiple phones that will be able to run on 4G which is the next generation of wireless high speed data.

So why is it that a lackluster phone costs $299? Yes, the Charge has 4G capability but so does the LG Revolution and the HTC Thunderbolt but you don't see them asking for an arm and a leg! Since there's really nothing that sets it apart from the two fore mentioned phones the $299 forces me to look at all of the negatives.

It lacks a dual-core processor which is starting to be a standard on new devices. Even on a reasonably priced device I would want one of these chip sets. They are really only effective on Gingerbread and above but still you're phone is going to become obsolete faster without one.

It comes shipped with Froyo and not Gingerbread. It may be a little too soon to be expecting Gingerbread pre-installed but this is a huge sore spot for me with Samsung. It is up to the manufacturers to update the software on their devices and Samsung recently blocked updates to their user's phone to try and finagle money out of the carriers. This was just a poor move on their part, they didn't get any extra fees and the customers were the ones being hurt.

Another sore spot for me is "bloat-ware." Bloat-ware is software that comes pre-installed on the phone and cannot be deleted. What is really frustrating is that this crap is marketed as benefits of going with the device but in the end is only reason to stay away.Unfortunately bloat-ware is on every phone but with the Charge I couldn't help but feel that there was an above average amount of bloat-ware. One of the included apps is a video service app but rather than building one from the ground up they should just focus on getting Netflix and Hulu on the device.

The Droid Charge is Samsung's first LTE phone for Verizon but a long list of drawbacks makes one laugh at the $299 price tag. Samsung's poor track record in the world of Android, inclusion of many unwanted and uninstallable apps, and lack of a dual-core processor are just some of the reasons not to buy the device. There are currently much better choices and even more phones will be coming out this summer so don't even give this phone the time of day.

Please support the site! Click on one of the ads, it only takes a second.

Passionless IT guys

I have to admit that there's plenty in the world of IT that I'm not an expert on. I consider myself a jack of all trades in the world of technology. While I pride myself on having a broad understanding of technology I still become dumbstruck when I'm talking to an IT Director or an owner of a company that is technology based and they aren't up to date on news in their industry.

Fortunately I have met a good share of IT support people that truly enjoy what they do. Those are the guys that tell me that when they go home after work they're still playing with computers. I can relate, I talk about phones all day and go home to read about them on the internet. I feel that however that some of the tech guys out there just happened to get their degree in IT and they have pigeon holed themselves into something they don't have a passion for. While this may be an excuse to not be giddy about going into work it cannot be an excuse to be ignorant about your industry.

Recently I met with the owner of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to talk about cell phones. We were having a great conversation and I asked him about his thoughts on Net Neutrality. He stared at me blankly and asked what Net Neutrality was. Think of what it would be like to ask a GM dealership owner what he thought about GM having to get money from the government to just survive and he looks at you blankly. Not good.

In case you dont know net neutrality is a movement that ISP's can't put unfair stipulations on the internet you receive. It keeps ISP's from being able to throttle the speed of your internet connection just because you're taking advantage of your asterisked unlimited plan. Comcast, one of the largest ISP's, wants to be able to restrict access to Netflix because they're a competitor and any law pertaining to Net Neutrality will likely prevent that. Is it starting to seem like something the local ISP owner should at least be aware of?

That is the most recent case of ignorance or ambivalence. Seriously though, how many IT guys are just glorified support people because they're not staying involved. There's a plethera of innovation and companies are missing out because there is no one with that drive in their organization. Seriously guys, if you're not where you want to be then you only have yourselves to blame.

Getting paid made easy

Today I had a chance to use Square for the first time. Square is a personal payment company that makes credit card billing accessible to the average person. Head over to www.squareup.com for details and to sign up for free.

Signing up initially was very simple and painless and it didn't take long at all to link my personal bank account with my Square account. Less than a week later I received my free Square credit card reader that works on both iPhone and Android. The final step was to find someone willing to give me money via their credit card.

That opportunity came tonight when I sold a personal cellular device to a customer. After I typed up a receipt and we both agreed to a price she handed me her credit card. Knowing that it was not store inventory and was in my personal possesion she still expected to have the ability to pay by card. For the average sales rep this would be impossible but thanks to Square our transaction went through without hesitation.

I am currently using an iPhone (for testing purposes only) so after plugging in the card reader to my phone I went to the Square app. The first thing that was asked was the amount which after I typed it in I was asked to swipe the customer's card. I quickly got an approved message and the customer signed her signature on my phone with her finger.

I was a little nervous to use the app at first since I was having to go through everything without any practice but it couldn't have been any easier. Gone are the days of sending customers to ATM's to retrieve cash.