Dec 29, 2014

The Rewards, Challenges and Inevitability of e-Commerce

Not only must businesses create and implement mobile platforms, they must also sufficiently manage those platforms to ensure they are constantly optimized in a way that meets customer expectations through all or most devices.

Smartphones have turned city navigation into a near hazardous experience. How you ask? Well, just walking along a sidewalk is bound to earn you a few bumps and bruises, as hurried passerby’s, engrossed with their mobile devices blindly rush by. Smartphones have made their way into our daily, scratch that, hourly lives. They are the proverbial Robins to our Batman selves, always available and ready to help. A handy little personal assistant- who could turn that down? Who would? And so we carry on, tolerating the little run-ins we encounter with people who cannot tear their attention away from their phones.

Pedestrians however, aren’t the only ones to have noticed the smartphone saturation and likewise, they aren’t the only ones making an effort to accommodate this evolution in culture. Studies show that more ecommerce transactions are being processed than ever before. While commuting, working, exercising, eating, you name it, busy little fingers everywhere are tapping away at their phones to source, compare and purchase products and services. Savvy business owners have increasingly taken note and risen to the occasion, supplementing their websites with mobile sites and applications in an effort to capitalize upon the growing ecommerce market. In fact, for many companies, mobile site traffic is beginning to surpass that of their original webpage, and according to digital analytics provider Comscore, 78% of mobile-based searches for a local business or product do result in a physical sale. That’s a compelling statistic for businesses wishing to remain competitive in a digital world.

To simply create mobile sites and applications aren’t enough however. The world has certainly gone digital, but the scope of that technology is constantly changing. Not only must businesses create and implement mobile platforms, they must also sufficiently manage those platforms to ensure they are constantly optimized in a way that meets customer expectations through all or most devices.

Security is another factor that has increasingly become a concern. It used to be that stores were worried about being beguiled by forged checks and fake hundred dollar bills. The rise of ecommerce has led to a completely new dimension where an enterprise must be a mindful of their own loss potential as well as that of their customer. Transactions taking place online must be accomplished in a highly secured environment, to avoid any interception of a consumer’s financial information. If a breach should occur, the cost it could have on a company is significant.

While it has its own set of challenges, there is no denying the positive effect a good mobile experience can have for a business. Consumers love to shop and that enthusiasm, coupled with the endearment for all things mobile is shaping up to be the future.

(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business. Omnie Solutions has extensive experience and expertise in app development for smart gadgets like Google Glass and smart watches. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, LinkedIn , and Google+ for technology updates).

Dec 22, 2014

Enterprise Technology in the New Year-2015

Technology and business- the two are no longer mutually exclusive. Once upon a time, a company who had no immediate dealings in tech (say for instance, a pet store) didn’t need to concern itself with technology except perhaps to own and operate a POS system. These days however, it is becoming more and more of a necessity for business owners to produce and manage a solid digital existence. Not only does it provide access to a significantly broader range of consumers, but also, online and mobile connectivity enables businesses to stay competitive in a new era of digital consumption.

Of course, technology is not stationary. It is an amazingly adaptive and evolutionary field, with advancements in its discipline constantly being unveiled. This year alone saw the revelation of 3D printers, the advancement of the Cloud and the competition of wearable tech. With 2015 right around the corner, here’s a look at some of the business tech trends the experts are forecasting.

Mobile Banking and Payment- Apple may have put the term NFC at the tip of everybody’s tongue this year, but truthfully, Near Field Communication has been around and nearing great heights for a while now. With a record number of participating mobile devices and vendors, we can expect to see a sharp rise in mobile pay and banking.

Big Data gets Refined- The Introduction of High Speed Analytics, as well as Big Data as a Service will serve to filter excessive amounts of data, resulting in a larger pool of more relevant information.


 Mobile Applications for Enterprise Operations- Businesses are already wisely tapping into the Ecommerce market share with dedicated mobile apps. A different side of every business however is their operations management. Day to day functions like purchasing, logistics and sales will be receiving more dedicated apps then ever.

Augmented Reality Applications- The future is here, folks! Similar to Yelps monocle, AR Apps will allow users to point their smartphone in any direction to receive guided information on product locations. Say you’re in the market for sneakers- an AR App will quickly show where you can find them in your vicinity!

Never before has the relationship between business and technology been so profound! The opportunities created for both the company and consumer are numerous and exciting. If you’re a business owner, make sure you’re partnered with the right tech solution company so your business remains at the lucrative forefront of innovation!

Dec 19, 2014

‘Google My Business’ App Has Potential to Change India’s SMB’s

"India is a strategic market for Google and we are committed to invest in solutions that cater to the needs of SMBs in India."

These were the words of Suryanarayana Kodukulla, Head of Google Small and Medium Business Sales. His speech was given in the wake of Google’s latest application, titled “Google My Business".

The App was designed to create a simplified way for business owners to forge and manage an online presence for their companies. Available on both desktop and mobile, the app allows small/medium sized business owners to easily update their profiles on the likes of Google+, Google Search and Maps, effectively building an online source of company information, even if the enterprise doesn’t have an actual website. Google My Business brings together all of the ways Google can help your business shine in one, easy-to-use location.



India’s Internet market has risen astonishingly in the past few years, with a growth rate that has been more than doubling itself on a consistent basis. Currently, the country ranks third in the global Internet market and is projected to overtake the second position from China within a year.

Despite the number of Internet consumers however, the country still shows a disconnect between SMB owners and the need for mobile development. In fact, out of 48 million SMB in India, only five to six percent of those businesses have a functioning website.

Acknowledging this deficiency, Kodukulla stated “Globally, over two million businesses use Google’s advertising platform to find potential buyers on Internet. We have very ambitious plans of bringing down the barriers that inhibits SMBs in India from embracing the Internet."

Available in both Hindi and English, the 'Google My Business' App is poised to be one of the stepping-stones towards greater digital efficiency in India’s flourishing Internet and SMB economy.

Dec 17, 2014

Microsoft Now Accepting Payments Through Bitcoins

Microsoft one of the popular multinational corporation that influences world’s computing infrastructure with its Windows OS. Microsoft is heading towards opening up new payment options for its users. It is a good news for all the Microsoft product users. It has now started to accept Bitcoin payments on its Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox stores.


Bitcoin a digital currency, which can be created and held electronically. Bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros. This is an example of a growing category of money which is known as cryptocurrency. Bitcoin can help you exchange money in a different way than with usual banks. The Bitcoin virtual cash is based on a complicated math and cryptography system issuing unique ‘virtual coins’. The ‘mining’ process for the global Bitcoin community generates codes for new Bitcoins, which are limited to a finite quantity.

It has now started to accept Bitcoin online for its digital products. At present this is live in America only. It can now fund Microsoft/Windows Live or XBox Live accounts using Bitcoin, at the current exchange rate. Once this Bitcoin acceptance is fully operational worldwide then various businesses and end users can pay for services such as Azure or even Windows Phone apps.

By using this cryptocurrency, Bitcoin helps its users to add money to a Microsoft account in order to buy apps, games and other digital content from its various online stores. Microsoft also confirmed that the payment via Bitcoin may not be smooth one at present. It is advised that the Bitcoin transactions are expected to process immediately, however it may take upto two hours at times. It is to be noted that the money added to Bitcoin cannot be refunded. This service can only be used with Bitcoin payment processor such as BitPay, noted Coindesk.

With this move, now Microsoft has joined the long list of other companies who have started to offer Bitcoin options. Take for example BitPay is used by over 44,000 businesses and organizations, which includes PayPal, electronics retailer Newegg and space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

However Microsoft’s involvement with Bitcoin began in February 2014, when company’s Bing search engine was modified to let its users generate Bitcoin price conversions. Let’s wait for the moment when this payment option would be open in other countries for Microsoft users also.

(Omnie Solutions is a Microsoft partner enterprise application development company that provide custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for technology updates)

Dec 11, 2014

Skype and Lync – Now Microsoft Enables Video Calling

These days be it for office or personal use a better and easy source of communication across varied platforms is very much important to make our life easy. Skype owned by Microsoft is the telecommunication application software that provides video chat and voice calls from computers, tablets and or any mobile device to other devices.

Skype has made it easy for its users to make communication by voice by the use of a microphone, video or instant messaging over the Internet. The calls from Skype-to-Skype are free of charge.

Lync has the feature of providing a consistent, single client experience through instant messaging, voice, video and meetings for increasing the business productivity which is now owned by Fortune Global 100 companies.

Last year, it was announced by Microsoft that Skype and Lync customers all over the globe can now be connected to each other across these platforms. Such connectivity between Lync-Skype helped its users to reach to a broader network of colleagues, partners and customers hence letting the connection between various organizations of all sizes easy. Also last year it was announced that Lync users can now do instant messaging, audio calling to the users on Skype. But now this year the feature of video calling between the Lync and Skype has been added.

Now recently this news was announced by Microsoft that it has now merged communication between Skype and Lync.

The users who are using an updated version of both Skype and the Office app Lync can now make video calls to one another and it is not mandatory that they should use the same app. Now whether you make call from Lync or Skype the other user can receive it on both the applications and vice versa.

It is however to be noted that the video calling feature is only available on the Windows platform, and on Windows 7 and later. Microsoft made it clear that soon other platforms will get the ability to do conference with Lync users, by starting with Android and iOS in the next few months.

Microsoft has planned to release a latest version of Lync in 2015 by the name of Skype for Business.

This is supposed to be a better-behaved app which can be minimized when you are using another application on the PC. With the added feature of simple call transferring, which can help you to send a caller to someone else on Skype or Lync.

Hope this merger of Skype and Lync provides its users much more convenient way of interaction which in turn will lead to better business communication resulting into overall business growth all across the globe.

(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business. Omnie Solutions has extensive experience and expertise in app development for smart gadgets like Google Glass. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn for technology updates).

Dec 1, 2014

You Might Be Losing Your Business If Your Website is not Mobile Friendly


Google is trying every possible ways to enhance its search result quality and provide most of the information about the websites which appear in search results. Google is continuously updating its algorithm to make its search results better as per demands.

As technology is changing very fast and time has become very crucial factor for everyone. Internet and mobile has completely changed the landscape of communication and business. Internet has broken the barrier of distance and opened the door for globalization and mobile has broken the barrier of time gap. And Google has broken the barrier of searching information globally.

Combination of Internet, Mobile and search engine is playing crucial role in our life. Searching information has become easy through these technologies. Smartphone users are increasing day by day and searches on mobile phone also growing continuously.

Google, as we know that, is the most popular mobile search engine globally and widely used for searching the information on internet. To make search result more user friendly, Google recently announced a new feature for mobile searches which will help users to find mobile device compatible websites or results. Sometimes it happens with users when they tap on a Google search result on their mobile phone, they land on a page where the page text is too small, links are tiny, and they have to scroll sideways to see all the content. This usually happens when the website is not optimized to be viewed on a mobile phone. This can be a frustrating experience for mobile users. To resolve such type of issues, Google has just started adding ‘’mobile friendly’’ label to mobile search results to make it easier for people to find the information that they are looking for.


Google is stated that a page is eligible for the “mobile friendly” if it meets the following criteria as detected by Googlebot;

  • Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
  • Uses text that is readable without zooming
  • Sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom
  • Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

If you want to make sure that your site pages meet the mobile-friendly criteria go through with the following tools and suggestions provided by Google:


Google see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience and also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.

If your business is search engine centric then it might get affected directly or indirectly by this change. Your website will receive less clicks in search results if it is not mobile friendly. It has become essential for a business to optimise their website for mobile device to gain competitive advantage. It’s just starting and we hope Google will come with more such updates to make mobile search user experience better.

(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business. Omnie Solutions has extensive experience and expertise in app development for smart gadgets like Google Glass. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for technology updates).