An Absolute Theft Recovery Team has been established in Asia better facilitate our computer recovery services.

This expansion means that Computrace is now available throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, South America, Australia/New Zealand and, now,  Japan.

For more information about Computrace One as well as Computrace Mobile, Computrace for Netbooks, Computrace Data Protection, and Absolute Track in Japan, please visit www.absolute.com/japan.

During the month of preliminary judging, Absolute Software joins 11 other companies listed as finalists in this category. Final Stevie winners will be determined in the final judging that began this week. If you took the time to vote for Computrace Mobile, thanks!

The names of Stevie winners will be announced at the 2009 awards dinner and presentations in New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel on Monday, June 22.

The Stevie Awards were created to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and people worldwide. This is the 7th year of the Awards. Last year Absolute Software’s sales team won the 2008 “Best Sales Team” award, and this year we’re being nominated for “Favorite New Product.”

This new category for the American Business Awards, known as The Stevies, recognizes favorite new products in 12 different business categories. Computrace Mobile is nominated under “Favorite Software as a Service.”

Click here to vote for Computrace Mobile for the People’s Choice Stevie Award for Favorite New Product. You can alternatively go here and enter Short Code I402T to vote. Voting will close on June 1, 2009.

1. Define Requirements – how the workforce needs to work
2. Be Selective - decide what is necessary and cost-effective
3. Establish who is in charge - of ongoing device management, security, mobile application development, carrier relationships and network deployments
4. Commit to documenting policies – start with good polities, review them and educate employees
5. Evaluate – decide if your strategy continues to keep up with new technology and needs of the company

Having a centralized mobility policy will help ensure that employees have access to the technology they need and are not driven to break security policies by using their own devices unbeknownst to the IT department. As part of your mobile security policy, Computrace Mobile can help your organization manage your handheld devices and protect your data if they go missing.

Computrace Mobile delivers asset management, data protection and geolocation tracking for the popular BlackBerry line of smartphones (versions 4.2.1 and later). A couple of months ago, we shared a beta experience from John Halamka, CIO, Beth Israel Deaconess & Harvard Medical School, who described his experiences using the platform. He has completed the 60 days of beta testing now, saying:

“I depend on my BlackBerry to run five different organizations, $100 million in annual budgets, and 800 emails a day. The Computrace Agent enables me to track my Blackberry via its internal GPS. Also, it enables my staff to track my location to an accuracy of about 20 meters.”

If you’re an existing Computrace customer, you can manage your mobile phones from the same portal. This gives our customers the ability to quickly and easily manage their data devices, reducing operational costs and losses from theft. If a computer or smartphone protected with Computrace goes missing, you also have the ability to remotely delete sensitive data. Learn more from the press release here.

Computrace Mobile is also supported on all Windows Mobile® 5 and 6 handheld devices including the HP® iPAQ, HTC® Touch, MOTO Q™, Samsung® BlackJack and Treo®.

The tip was to ensure that you wipe the data off your smartphone – iPhone or BlackBerry – before you trade it in. Whether you’re donating it or selling it, or just giving it to a friend, it’s important that you take all of your data off of it.

iPhone – Erasing Data

If you have the latest stable version of software on your iPhone, the data can be wiped securely. If you are running software earlier than 2.0, there is a way to hack it to dump the data.

The steps to erase the data on iPhones running 2.0 or later versions of the OS are to go to:

Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings

BlackBerry – Erasing Data

On the BlackBerry, thanks to BBGeeks, incorrectly enter your password 10 times then enter the code “blackberry” to trigger a wipe OR go to:

Options > Security Options > General Settings > Click the trackwheel/trackball on the Password field > Select “Wipe Handheld” > Enter “blackberry” when prompted

Also, if you’ve been following along with this blog, you’ll know that Absolute Software is beta testing Computrace Mobile for the BlackBerry right now. This will enable you to do a remote delete of your BlackBerry data in the event that your phone is lost or stolen. Stay tuned for more news on that soon!!

Images: Apple & BlackBerry

John Halamka, CIO for Caregroup, is one of our beta testers and he recently shared his experiences with the product on his blog, saying:

“Although the Absolute products are primarily encryption, tracking, and data protection systems, they are also a very cool geotracking system for Blackberry owners (with their consent).”

In addition to recognized benefits of tracking his BlackBerry, and wiping the data if it does go missing, John realized he could share the login for the Computrace Customer Care center with his family, so they’d always know where he was.

I had a chance to correspond briefly with John by email about his experience with the new service. John says that he’s never had a mobile device lost or stolen before, although had a close call when he left a Palm with personal information on an airplane. His current BlackBerry has contact information, no insecure corporate data, but the new Massachusetts Data Protection regulations have prompted an evaluation of products to encrypt / protect corporate mobile devices.

John Halamka was not a previous customer of Absolute Software, so this is his first experience using Computrace. He describes the installation process of the tracking agents to his MacBook and BlackBerry as “seamless”. You can read his full experience here.

Computrace Mobile is expected to be generally available for the BlackBerry for corporate customers in 2009. If you’re a journalist interested in doing a review, contact Absolute for a private demo.

Computrace Mobile currently is supported on all Windows Mobile 5 and 6 handheld devices including the HP iPAQ, HTC Touch, MOTO Q, Samsung BlackJack and Treo 750.

Computrace Mobile will deliver asset management, data protection and geolocation tracking, features of the Computrace protection package for laptop computers, to the BlackBerry.

“We will be able to offer our customers a single system for managing and securing their Windows and Mac laptops and desktops, Windows Mobile devices and now BlackBerry smartphones… This solution will provide them with the visibility and protection they need to reduce operational costs and losses due to theft and inefficient allocation.” – John Livingston, president and CEO of Absolute Software.

We’re quite excited about the news, and hope you are too! Although the beta is closed at the moment, if you’re a journalist interested in doing a review, contact Absolute for a private demo. Continue reading the press release here.

Computrace Mobile currently is supported on all Windows Mobile 5 and 6 handheld devices including the HP iPAQ, HTC Touch, MOTO Q, Samsung BlackJack and Treo 750.