The MyOffice Blog

There’s a new breed of laptops on the block … ulta light, ultra portable devices called UMPCs (Ulta-Mobile PCs)

I’ve been trying the new Asus EeePC 900 to see how well MyOffice runs on it … and the answer is ‘very well indeed’. My Eee PC came pre-installed with Windows XP so installing MyOffice was simply a matter of downloading the software from our web site.

The best part about the Asus is its size and weight. It weighs in at only 0.92kg and has an 8.9 inch screen making it really portable. Its definitely a competitor to my Pocket PC. Whereas the Pocket PC makes hard work of sending emails, the EeePC is a true notebook with a screen and keyboard large enough for ‘power’ use. And when it comes to travelling it’s certainly small enough to pop into a flight bag whereas I’ve never been happy about lugging a heavy laptop onto a plane.

It also has a solid-state hard drive which means that bumps and shocks are no longer an issue. Connection to the internet is either by wireless or the RJ-45 port.

I’ve been logging on to MyOffice for several weeks now and using it in place of a powerful desktop and I’m delighted to say that’s it’s really usable. I can’t have as many windows open as I would on the desktop but the 1024 x 600 displays all the MyOffice windows adequately. All the main windows (Diaries, Contacts, Emails, Tasks etc) display fully on the screen, making it a genuine alternative to a larger PC or laptop. By now you’ll probably have guessed that I’m impressed with my new toy … except that its not a toy .. its a real notebook that you can use all day.

 That’s the first of the lightweight UMPCs that I plan to test over the next few months. Next on the list is Acer’s Aspire and Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9.

I was talking to a friend who was moaning about his Blackberry and he said ‘So what’s different about your MyOffice Mobile then?’. I’m not a salesman so I stuttered a bit and then mumbled something like ‘We’re not trying to be like the Blackberry but because Windows Mobile is more powerful than the other Mobile operating systems and it uses our favourite .NET Compact Framework we’ve been able to make MyOffice Mobile more than just a PIM but a proper mobile collaboration application’.

So why is it ‘a proper mobile collaboration application’?

We started out make to MyOffice Mobile much the same as the Windows desktop version so it does all the same sharing of diaries, contacts and emails etc. 

So like the desktop version, when you add or edit something on your mobile, you are editing it ‘online’. That means when you add or change appointment in a diary, the rest of your users will see the changes on their mobiles, desktops or web browsers almost immediately. As you edit the record, it is locked and noone else can change it. You can’t change a record that someone else is editing either. So no more ‘out of date’ data syncing problems then. If you can’t get an internet connection for instance, there is an option to allow editing a record ‘offline’ and update the server when you’re next online, but it’s best to do everything ‘online’. You can view readonly everything ‘offline’ anyway .

It’s no good if you can’t access all your shared contacts, appointments and emails. With MyOffice Mobile you select which folders (Diaries, Contact Groups, Email folders) you want keep up to date (refreshed). You can select from just one diary to everything. Your data is cached locally in a fast Microsoft SQL Server Compact database. For most accounts the in-built memory is easily big enough to hold your data. For larger accounts with loads of data or if you just want to, you can move the database to a ’storage card’. On my Vodafone V1615(HTC TYTN II) I use a 4Gb micro SD card with my Tom Tom Europe maps on it too.

My friend was moaning about the amount of spam that was being sent to his phone. MyOffice filters spam and applies the inbox rules before it gets to your Mobile so you get less spam and you don’t get emails that are redirected to un-’refreshed’ folders. You do get the emails in ‘refreshed’ folders of course.

We have one customer who uses MyOffice Mobile to control about 20 engineers diaries from his Pocket PC. He always knows what they are doing and they always know what to do and where to go without ever needing to back to their desktop PC.

So to sum up, MyOffice Mobile is like the desktop version. You can share all the diaries, contact groups and shared emails folders and it works ‘online’ so the data is always up to date.