From time to time I stumble on new ideas. Most of them are Software+Services related ideas, so I wish to share one now. Based on a given business need.
The Business Need
I recieve 15-20 international calls every week, both being business and friend contacting me from hotel room, international airport etc. My problem is that sometimes the international extention is pre-extended to known contacts phonenumbers, and sometimes new contact call me. My cellphone (a HTC DualTouch Windows Mobile) displays the (+33xxxxx, +1xxxxx, +68xxxx, +3392xxxxx) extensions, but how the h… can I remember where this is related to – country wise.
My need is to display from there the call ordinates.
The Solution
I have a database of all international access code with country names. So the solution is quite simple. I need some developer to code an add-in (an extension API for TAPI) on the mobile phone, to display additional information as I recieve the call. This is a small service, where my phone will use a web service to get the country of ordination, and add this to the call history. Now I am able to see which country calling my cell.
So what?
You could think so what! And okay – please do. But this example is actually the real world software+services, and is an example of the variaty of services you could build to your stack of applications and devices.
Have fun 😉
rasmus foged blog 