Any macs left?

-John

I’ll take our iMac, too.

-Sam

I’ll take ours — Zoho.

-Raju

It says it’s a trial (you can also access hoovers and linked in), but we are not currently ending “trial’s” at 30 days, so enjoy… Not meant to be a promo in the blog, given that we don’t want you to pay, so hopefully that is ok. By the way, this allows you to pull account information, contacts, log a meeting or a task etc. I’m a frequent user and I rarely log in to Salesforce.com directly…

After you register, you can use the following:

mailto:cmSFMyLeads@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve the list of the leads (up to 20) assigned to you

mailto:cmSFAllMyLeads@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve the list of the leads (all) assigned to you

mailto:cmSFMyTasks@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve your list of tasks

mailto:cmSFAccountInfo@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve account information

mailto:cmSFAccountOpportunities@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve information on opportunities assocoiated with an account

mailto:cmSFContactInfo@mobile.clairmail.com
Retrieve contact information

mailto:cmSFLogCall@mobile.clairmail.com
Log a call with a contact

mailto:cmSFLogMeeting@mobile.clairmail.com
Log a meeting with a contact

mailto:cmSFNewTask@mobile.clairmail.com
Add a new task to your task list

See you at the event…

Thanks for the information. I’ll have to take a look at this.

A new product called Relational Junction might be helpful to you. It can synchronize databases and create table joins between different databases. If you have a local SQL backup of your Salesforce.com data, you can at least access it with database-driven applications when you are off the Web. Once you have local data, putting it into a form where you can import and synchronize it to your handheld devices becomes easy. A recent Rails project of ours involved setting up Relational Junction to provide local access for an extended schema, and doing the synchronization correctly with SFDC.

Salesforce.com also has a nice API that could be leveraged to create a data synchronization application in Python, Ruby on Rails, or similar Web 2.x tools.

Best regards,
 -Strata

The switch to Mac is a lot easier than it looks, so I would recommend the MacBookPro. And beside, you can run Microsoft Windows on a Mac now, so I cannot think of any reason why not to get one. But if you cannot, the Sony VAIO laptops are a lot better than the Dell ones. Much better industrial design in general.

Regarding your question on supply chain, the only advice I can give you is this: keep it simple. Try to streamline the actual business process as much as you can, then use simple IT tools to automate and track parts of it. The simpler you keep it initially, the easier it will be to make it evolve down the road.

As far as data synchronization is concerned, this is a pain. Nothing new there.

I’ve been traveling for a while, unable to keep up with IT|Redux until now.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1. I am looking at replacing my old Gateway laptop and I am on the fence between the Sony SZ and a Dell Latitude. Lately I have really been mesmerized by the MacBookPro, but I have a hard time deciding on making the switch to Apple. Any thoughts on that? What hardware are you using and why? I seem to remember you also have a little Sony VAIO — I love these.

2. More importantly — I have a new job working for a high tech start-up and my area of responsibility is developing the manufacturing and supply chain capability to scale up from pilot testing to large scale commercial operations.

My question is, from a BPM point of view and in your opinion, what are some of the things I need to watch out for, so that later down the road I can integrate the supply chain with a BPM system? I need some B2B integration with customers, but I would also like to manage supply chain processes that may not by covered by the B2B side of things, such as internal processes, etc.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Ryan

PS: I had a Web 2.0 “twilight zone” experience when I lost my connectivity for a few days, and I could not access my Salesforce.com contacts. I’m still trying to figure out a way to download my contact list to my Blackberry.

The other guys in the Blogger’s Corner are posting great coverage…

That’s a very good idea. We’ll think about something.

Perhaps you could hold one of the machines back for a quiz/competition.

I agree with you Ismael about the article identified by Andy

It did raise some points that I have pondered over.

Very good article indeed.

I found an interesting review (via digg) here.

The fact that the bulk of the article focusses on what they are and what they do, rather than whether or not it’s a good idea that they exist is a step in the right direction.