Overtime Pay for Use of Cell Phone?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Peter S. Vogel

A group of Chicago Police are suing for overtime pay since the City allegedly expected the officers “to be available twenty-four [hours] per day via Blackberry.” In their lawsuit the officers “felt obligated to respond to these email communications and telephone call while off duty.”

Huffingtonpost reported that the officers claimed:

…police brass pressured subordinates in the department's organized crime bureau to answer work-related calls and emails on their BlackBerrys, and then also dissuaded the officers from filing for overtime.

On January 14, 2013 US Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier issued an Order that included his opinion that the officers’ Blackberry “responses might constitute work.”

This lawsuit may help clear up employee use of employer issued devices and establish some legal boundaries between work and personal content that may apply to employee owned devices (e.g., BYOD). 
 

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Can the Blackberry 10 Compete?

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Peter S. Vogel

RIM was renamed to Blackberry when announcing Blackberry 10, but the big question is whether the new Blackberry 10 can make it. The New York Times offer these comments:

The BlackBerry music, movie and app stores are just getting under way.
If you choose BlackBerry over iPhone or Android, you give up some very attractive ecosystems, like the way Apple synchronizes your calendar, messages, and photos on all your gadgets. Or, for Android, the similar conveniences of Google Voice and Google Maps.

Since there are a kazillion apps for the Apple and Droid devices, the Blackberry 10 does not key apps. The New York Times also noted that following apps do not exist at this time:

  • Netflix,
  • Draw Something,
  • Pinterest,
  • Hipstamatic,
  • Instagram, and
  • most airline and bank apps

Of course before the iPhone and Droid devices existed RIM's  Blackberry was king but consumers bought their own devices (BYOD) and changed the world, but it may too late for Blackberry. Time will tell.
 

 

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Mobile Search Wars - Microsoft & BlackBerry vs. Google

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Peter S. Vogel

By the fall of 2011 BlackBerry mobile devices will use Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine (with Bing maps) in direct competition with Google and to try to capture location based marketing opportunities. This should not be a surprise to anyone since Microsoft’s reported a 4% decline in sales of the Windows operating system in the wake of the sales of Apple’s iPad 2 and a many other tablets including the BlackBerry Playbook. No one should really feel sorry for Microsoft however since their overall profits were up 31%, but clearly Microsoft and BlackBerry teaming up against Google sends interesting messages to the location based marketers.

Needless to say there are a myriad of competitors to BlackBerry, including the Google's Driod which of course defaults to Google for search and maps. Of course on the iPad/iPhone default to Safari so neither Microsoft nor Google benefit. As location based marketing evolves which mobile browser is default on your device may be a game changer.

Do you think the default browser on the BlackBerry will help Bing?

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