We’re extending our $199 promotional pricing for REDFLY until Monday, November 17th, 2008.

The promotion has been so successful at introducing REDFLY to new markets, users and applications that we decided to keep it up for a few more weeks.

In addition to the many casual and power Windows Mobile users out there who are buying REDFLY for themselves, the reception has been tremendous into vertical markets like healthcare, government, sales force, and service force applications.

REDFLY is just the beginning of a series of planned products based around the enablement of the smartphone as both a mobile computer or netbook and access point to remote virtual systems and cloud computing.

Get one for yourself here.

Andrew over at Treonauts.com posted a great piece about REDFLY connected to his Windows Mobile smartphone running the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) native client to control a full Windows desktop via Terminal Services.

Here’s a quick video we shot internally that shows both RDP and Citrix running on a Windows Mobile phone connected to a REDFLY. Using Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop, you can give your mobile workforce tightly controlled access to full desktops or even only individual windows applications (no desktop needed or provided). Very cool. With RDP it’s easy to log in and control any Windows desktop (like your home or office PC) or any virtualized desktop right from the smartphone. Not shown in this video are other programs that work too with REDFLY like GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, etc.

While this has all been possible with a smartphone for some time, anyone that’s ever tried it will tell you the small screen and keyboard on the phone just doesn’t cut it in a remote access enviroment. You either have to zoom out so far to see the whole desktop that you can’t read anything or zoom in and pan around witout seeing the entire screen at once. For the first time ever, thanks to REDFLY’s 8-inch 800×480 screen, a full keyboard and a touchpad, remote access from a smartphone suddenly becomes feasible.

This video and the Treonauts post also show off another cool REDFLY feature – you can use any USB mouse (wired or wireless) and/or keyboard connected to the back of REDFLY (it has two powered USB ports) to control everything on your smartphone – not just remote access apps. This comes in handy a lot (especially when you need to shoot a video and don’t want the REDFLY to get bumped out of the frame). Most people don’t know that Windows Mobile supports a mouse, but it works very well.

Jennifer Chappell over at TreoCentral.com posted a great synopsis of the piece too with good commentary.

The article discusses (mostly from the software and use case sides of the equation) how realistic it is today for some members of the mobile workforce to give up their laptops and use only a smartphone. Smartphone software is certainly getting more robust (especially in the business world) and evidenced by Salesforce, Sybase, Oracle, SAP, Citrix etc. all moving to offer mobile apps and/or open up their backends to the mobile workforce in some fashion.

Will you be running Photoshop or editing movies on your smartphone anytime soon? No. But, today’s smartphones are getting fast enough for CRM, web apps, remote access etc.

The article didn’t talk much about the hardware or OS side. As CPU speeds pick up and mobile operating systems fully mature (as they are starting to do now), the notion of your smartphone becoming your only computer will start to make more sense not just for the mobile workforce, but for many consumers too. At that point in the near future, all of this will get really exciting. We, of course, are intensely interested in the movement and can’t wait to see how our future software and hardware iterations make each new wave of smartphones even more useful.

REDFLY is all about enabling users to take full advantage of the upcoming shift to the smartphone as a platform. One of the smartphone’s best features (its small size) is also one of its worst features during those times at home, in the office, or on the road when you need a larger screen and keyboard to get work done. That’s the problem we’re solving - both through our hardware and software.

The InformationWeek article quotes a RIM VP who spot-on declares, “The challenge that most CRM systems have is getting the people who need to use it to actually want to use it.”

That statement is true both from a hardware and software perspective. Mobile workers will fight using an app or piece of hardware that’s not easy and productive. For example, even if you give a field sales rep a mobile device and access to a web-based CRM app, odds are he or she will wait until back at the hotel or office to log visits and update information on their laptop or PC because it’s easier just to wait and do it later. If you put a 3G-enabled smartphone, a REDFLY, and a well-designed mobile app in users’ hands, they start to see how easy it is to log info during or directly after a sales call.

Why on earth are we doing this?

Well, a bunch of us were sitting around the conference room table early this week discussing how once someone actually tries a REDFLY for a few hours, they just don’t want to give it back. We also find that once someone has a REDFLY in their hands, they tend to do a lot of word-of-mouth marketing for us.

So, we thought, “Why don’t we take part of the marketing budget for a few weeks to subsidize a special seed program?  That way we can get a large number of units out into the market, seed some mobile enthusiasts and get them to help spread the word by showing REDFLY to people.”

We’ve done just that. We have set aside a large (but very finite) number of REDFLYs for this special program. They’re sitting on palettes right now in the warehouse ready to ship.

Visit http://www.getredfly.com to grab one right now or to get more info.

If you’re new to REDFLY, take this 3-minute tour to learn more.

To quote Matthew Miller, you may want to “run, don’t walk” and get one before we burn through the limited number of units for this special program.

Thanks for reading,
Kirt Bailey
President and CEO
Celio Corp

If you are in the neighborhood, drop by and say hi. We’ll have plenty of REDFLYs and smartphones for attendees to play with (including hopefully a few of the new Palm Treo Pros). You can enter at our booths for a chance to win a FREE REDFLY.

If you plan to attend one of the shows and would like your own REDFLY to use during the show, you can order one through our website and we’ll bring it to the show for you to pick up at our booth.

 Go to http://www.getredfly.com and enter the promo codes “CTIA” or “MBX” upon checkout. You’ll need to give us a credit card number, but we won’t charge your card for 30 days giving you time to evaluate REDFLY during the tradeshow (or even longer). If you don’t want to keep your REDFLY, bring it back before the end of the show or mail it to us within 30 days and your card won’t be billed.

We hope to see you there.

CTIA

Booth 1138 (second floor, by the Café)

Sept 10-12, 2008

Moscone West, San Francisco, CA

Mobile Business Expo (co-located with Interop)

Booth 502 (by AT&T, Palm)

Sept 16-19, 2008

Javits Center, New York, NY

Right now, the contest is only open to U.S. residents. Each month’s winner gets a free REDFLY and also may select any smartphone on the supported list that is currently available for sale through a U.S. retail channel. We’ll go buy the phone (without a contract attached) and ship it to you along with the REDFLY. We support phones from all 4 major U.S. carriers (and some unlocked phones) so it should be easy for you to pick a phone that’s compatible with your current carrier and swap the new phone out for your old phone on your current plan if you win.

The next monthly drawing will be on September 10^th so you’ve got just over a week to enter. Good luck!

To enter, visit http://www.celiocorp.com/win

It’s a great honor to be recognized in this manner by a publication who understands enterprise IT problems and solutions so well.

REDFLY was live on Amazon as of early this week. Enterprise Mobile has a REDFLY page and Expansys has it posted in the UK.

Yesterday, REDFLY hit the Smartphone Experts store (encompassing WMexperts.com, TreoCentral.com and other locations).

As part of the big kickoff, Smartphone Experts is giving away a free REDFLY! Make sure to enter before Sept 1, 2008.

Smartphone Experts also set up a REDFLY section on its discussion boards. Please make sure to share your experiences, comments and concerns. A few people on my team will monitor the forum and answer questions.

The other two winners in the Mobile & Wireless category were Zenprise (Gold medal) and Amazon’s Kindle (Bronze medal).

The 2008 Editor’s Best Awards appear in the August 2008 issue of Windows IT Pro magazine available now.

The magazine’s editors talked to hundreds of vendors, attended dozens of product demos, and tried out and reviewed products in the Windows market to find the best offerings of the past year in 15 categories naming all winners as products that can help you do your job faster, more efficiently, or more economically. 

From the article…

“The cost-effective REDFLY Mobile Companion lets mobile IT pros use smartphones as their primary computing devices while on the go, saving both time and money in a market where both are tight.”

It’s a great honor to be held in such high regards by a publication like Windows IT Pro and its editors.

This is what the magazine’s Publisher, Jeff Lewis said about the awards program…

“The 2008 Editor’s Best Awards utilize our editors’ product knowledge and subject matter expertise to identify exceptional products that benefit the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine reader communities. Our editors selected winners based on the product’s strategic importance to the market, its competitive advantages and its value to the customer. Our editors are tough, in-the-trenches critics. They demand solid value and performance from the products they select.  Editor’s Best Award winners can feel proud that the products and services they developed have earned the respect and recognition of the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine editorial staff.”