As “dumb” cell phones are declining, smartphones sales are soaring. A recent report from NPD Group (News - Alert) stated smartphones are 19 percent of all mobile phone sales for the second quarter of 2008—an increase of 9 percent over the same period in 2007. As smartphones are the new “must-haves,” enterprises have the opportunity to make voice, data and mobile communications smarter too.

 

There’s a song by Beyonce Knowles that was popular a few year back: “Partner let me upgrade you / Flip a new page / Introduce you to some new things and / Upgrade you / I can, up / Can I, up / let me / Upgrade you / Partner let me upgrade you.”

 

This is exactly what the people at Research In Motion (RIM) want to do with the help of their new BlackBerry Mobile Voice System. Recently TMCnet had the chance to speak with Senior Product Manager and Director David Heit.

 

“Overall, from a market perspective, not just a RIM perspective, the percentage of smartphones is the percentage of the overall cell phone population. The pace that one will overtake the other will be rapid,” Heit said.

 

Blackberries have evolved from the basic e-mail device to a device that is your desk away from your desk. A statistic that Heit remembers is that it took RIM six years to get to one million subscribers but six months to get to the second million, while each quarter renders more subscribers in a short period of time.

 

For Heit, “Blackberry’s have never been about the handset, it’s a solution that organizations have adopted and used, beginning in the late 90’s and continuing on, essentially the solution entails a couple of pieces. Obviously the handset is one of them but what does that handset act as a terminal on and for. This began as wireless e-mail and as organizations wanted wireless e-mail, it had to be secure, it had to be something that was administrable, that if a user didn’t get an e-mail on their device they would phone their own IT department and report the problem. They had to be in a position to be able to respond to that so you build up these features that allow the organization to self support these devises being used for things like e-mail.”

 

According to RIM, their BlackBerry (News - Alert) Mobile Voice System provides a single phone number convenience, the application addresses IT security/telecom requirements, and maximizes returns on wireless and telephony investments.

 

From a RIM perspective “If you look at what happened, what evolved, most people that had a Blackberry also had a cell phone, and everyone’s business cards started getting at least two phone numbers on their cards, your desk telephone number and perhaps your cell phone number and already that sort of lead to a bit of an issue as to people not know which number to call, the answer was getting more complicated as time went on.”

 

Heit continued by saying, “With cell phone numbers you have additional things like voice mail systems from your cell phone, so instead of having one voice mail system to manage you’ve got two voice mails to manage. So what we’re doing with the Mobile Voice System, when RIM acquired Ascendent Systems, they essentially provided a solution to allow desk phones to be reintegrated back into the Blackberry as a mobile device. So think about a Blackberry that can be both a cell phone and desk phone at the same time.

 

What’s the benefit for the user?

 

“You go back to having just a single phone number,” Heit said, “And the phone number that you can be reached at would be your desk phone number but that number you could be reached at, at any place, any time and the user doesn’t have to physically be at the office to make use of that extension.”

 

Organizations have already seen a huge benefit, with potential to do a lot more.

 

David established the BlackBerry extensibility strategy, succeeding in transforming BlackBerry into a premier wireless application platform. He has evangelized and led BlackBerry efforts in new markets including sales force and field service automation. Mr. Heit has also played an integral part in rounding out the product set including the BlackBerry enterprise solution for Novell (News - Alert) GroupWise. His current activities include leading a team dedicated to taking BlackBerry deeper in to the Enterprise including multi-media data and voice applications.