Printek's FieldPro Printer for Use with Mobile Handheld PDAs

One of MobileDataforce's customers operates a parking garage management company in the SE of the USA. In addition to operating city parking garages, they also contract with municipal governments to issue parking tickets when vehicles are illegally parked. This customer required a mobile printer like the Printek FieldPro pictured here for use with their mobile handheld PDAs. It is designed to be used out-of-doors in the dust and the rain and to operate on batteries. Since most of our customers operate in these environments this is a very appealling design! Our customer's employees walk around the garage and the city filling out electronic forms on their rugged handheld computers and printing citations. They needed a rugged, mobile printer that operates on batteries and connects to the handheld computer via bluetooth.

MobileDataforce's PointSync Mobility Platform printing module enabled them to connect via cable or bluetooth to these kind of rugged mobile printers.

Other MobileDataforce customers need a portable mobile printer that prints on standard sized paper forms and often turn to mobile printers that are designed to stay in the vehicle like the HP 450. The big difference is this printer is portable and lightweight, but is not designed to be wearable on a belt and suffer the effects of rain and dust. Here is HP's description -

• High-performance printing virtually anytime, anywhere with photo-quality resolution, minimal, user intervention and a wide range of wired and wireless connectivity options, including Bluetooth wireless technology.

Often our customers want to leave a paper forms at their customer's location such as a completed "service request" or a "proof-of-delivery" form. If their vehicle is close to their worksite, an HP 450 may be sufficient, but if you need a ruggedized mobile printer that operates on batteries, fits on your belt and is connected via bluetooth with your handheld computer, then the Printek FieldPro is a great option.

MobileDataforce® Expands in Asia with New Singapore Reseller

Boise, Idaho— April 11, 2007 – MobileDataforce®, a leading provider of business critical mobile software applications for use on handheld PDA and smartphones, today announced a reseller partnership with NetCob Technologies Pte Ltd, in Singapore.

“MobileDataforce’s PointSync Mobility Platform will bring tremendous value to our target market in Asia,” says John Gong, Managing Director of NetCob Technologies. “Increasingly companies are looking to enterprise mobility solutions to more efficiently capture data in the field. MobileDataforce’s mobile software solutions offer the most flexible and innovative technologies to securely and cost effectively mobilize business processes.”

The PointSync Mobility Platform is an enterprise class solution used to rapidly design, develop and deploy business critical mobile applications for use on smartphones, industrial handhelds and PDAs using the Windows Mobile OS. It is architected to provide database centric mobile applications with bi-directional synchronization, connectivity, security and enterprise database integration all within one software platform.

About Netcob Technologies Pte Ltd

NetCob Technologies Pte Ltd, http://www.netcob.com/, focuses on cutting edge technologies to help their customers create lasting value. Their charter rests on their capability to conceptualize and conceive IT solutions that will enable their customers and partners to maintain focus and grow their businesses.

About MobileDataforce

MobileDataforce is a global leader in the development of high performance software solutions for use on mobile handheld computers. Privately held, MobileDataforce was founded in 2000 and its software solutions are sold worldwide through direct and Value Added Reseller (VAR) channels. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.mobiledataforce.com/.

More on Appforge's Demise

I had the chance to speak to another industry mobility expert yesterday about the recent demise of Appforge, and his opinion was that Appforge competed too closely with Microsoft and lost.

Appforge's original business plan seemed to assume that the business community would adopt the Palm and the Symbian operating systems in significant numbers, but that simply did not happen. Companies that were seeking to mobilize business solutions were using Windows Mobile or Windows CE operating systems. This left Appforge with only the Microsoft developer community as a sizable target market, and this community tended to stick with the Visual Studio and .NET development environment for programming tools.

Appforge found themselves competing head-to-head with Microsoft's VB .NET. At some point the VC funding stopped and Appforge failed to find a buyer. Now that they have shut the doors, rumor has it they are selling off the remaining company assets brick by brick.

MobileDataforce offers an alternative approach to mobile solution development. They develop RAD tools (rapid application development tools) for quickly designing, developing and deploying mobile solutions with minimal programming required. They target enterprises who are mobilizing their business processes on the Windows Mobile and Windows CE operating systems.

Dead - Dell Axim Handheld PDAs

It appears that Dell has quietly stopped making and selling the Axim PDA. Just like the Palm devices of old, Dell can not find a market selling a stand alone consumer PDA. Consumers want Smart phones and PDA phones and they are buying them in large numbers. Soon consumers will demand music, video and GPS in their Smart Phones.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38808

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/dell_kills_pda_.html

Inspection Failure & Handheld PDAs

NON-COMPLIANCE! REJECTION! There are so many different ways to fail an inspection. If you could see the stacks of inspection forms that sit on the desks of my professional services teams you could barely sleep at night! Have you ever thought about how many different ways you could fail an inspection?

If you were an elevator in Broward County, Florida - you could fail the following inspections: 7010, 7900, 7020, 7040, 7060, 7030, 7050, 7070, 7090

And believe me...you don't want to fail 7070.

In each of these inspections - you could end up in violation in so many different ways. You could receive "Danger Sign", "Ascending Car Over Speed", "Alarm Bell", and "Door Closing Speed" violations.

If you were a commercial establishment that sells medical narcotics legally, there are inspections completed by the State Board of Pharmacy. If you are a commercial establishment that sells narcotics illegally, then you have other problems to worry about.

In a juvenile corrections facility you could fail the nightly bed check inspection.

If you are a pest, you could fail a huge list of different inspections.

Termites, mold, water, soil, food, vehicle, safety, OSHA, fire equipment - there are thousands of different inspections you could likely fail at any point during the day.

In the electrical utility industry you could fail the following inspections before lunch:

Padmount transformer inspection
Manhole inspection
Pothead inspection (don't ask)
Vault (Substation) inspections
Station inspections
Padmount station inspections
Pole inspections
As-built data collection
Line patrol inspections
Ground rod inspections
Underground Splice inspections
Network secondary transformer inspections
Underground secondary network inspections
Customer equipment inspections
Sub-transmission insulator inspections
Switching center inspections
Farm metering inspection

The thing all these inspections have in common is that you can fail them all on a handheld PDA using inspection software, and the failure can be synchronized wirelessly back to the central database where your wife can immediately be notified.

Psion Teklogix's WorkAbout Pro Handheld and RFID

Over the last couple of weeks I have highlighted a lot of handheld PDAs that I have found interesting, however, when I walk the halls of our offices and look on the desks of our professional services teams, I see a whole lot of the Psion Teklogix WorkAbout Pro. I know my team has loaded our PointSync mobile software client onto hundreds of these handhelds recently. They are popular with companies that need a rugged handheld that can be opened up and configured with a large variety of different add-ons. For example, if you want a basic pocket pc in a rugged case today, but will soon need to add a GPRS wireless card, or a GPS receiver, or a RFID reader, the WorkAbout Pro is a good option. It can be reconfigured at will with in minutes. The WorkAbout Pro shown in the image above has an add-on RFID reader attached. This one was used for tracking cattle IDs using passive RFID ear tags.

The ability to reconfigure your industrial/rugged device should not be taken for granted. Most industrial grade handhelds come pre-configured and do not allow you to change the configuration once they are purchased. The WorkAbout Pro is the one industrial grade handheld that I have seen that gives the user the flexibility to change and upgrade after the purchase.

Water Proof Handheld PDAs

Have you ever held a TDS Recon Pocket PC? It is solid, feels bomb proof and is water proof. If you are working in the out-of-doors in mud, slime, rain and snow and need a field data collection device, I would invite you to consider this handheld PDA. It isn't cheap, but it is specialized for the most rugged conditions and provides all the benefits of collecting data in the field and syncing it back to the enterprise database.

MobileDataforce has delivered mobile solutions using the PointSync Mobility Platform to electrical utility companies, engineers and many other companies that were using this device for field data collection.

Re-engineering Business Processes with Handheld PDA Solutions

MobileDataforce's professional services teams are working on dozens of mobile software projects globally at any given time. As a result, we have gained through experience in-depth knowledge about how mobile solutions can change companies, their business processes and the way they think. Let's discuss a few of the things we have seen and learned:

1. Companies rarely understand the full extent of the changes mobile software solutions will bring to their organization
2. Most mobile software projects start small and have a very limited user base and business focus
3. As the users begin to test and adopt the new mobile software solutions, they most often expand the project as they quickly recognize the efficiencies that can be gained by using mobile software solutions that are tied into corporate database applications
4. There is usually some point about 80% through the mobile software development project when there is a loud "AHA!" that echos the halls of our clients' offices - they get it. They can see beyond their immediate project to the potential of mobility
5. Mobility is a process - a company may start with mobile phones, then move on to email syncing & SMS, then full bi-directional synchronization of corporate data to mobile handheld computers and specialized mobile software applications
6. Companies may start with mobilizing their field service technicians, but rapidly expand to mobile CRM, mobile shipping and inventory status, mobile asset management, quality assurance inspections and reporting, real-time mobile business analytics for the management team, route accounting and proof of delivery for the truck (or lorry) drivers. The more the company learns, the more they realize the benefits of mobile data solutions
7. If a company has started down the path to mobilizing their operations and business processes, but have chosen to hardcode or custom program each of these processes as separate projects - they will quickly realize their error in not starting with a full mobile software platform
8. The mobile software platform - is a server based product that supports a standardized way of designing, developing and deploying multiple mobile software projects in a manner that is easily learned and supported by IT
9. Once the mobile software platform (the PointSync Mobility Platform is one option) is in place, all IT developers, consultants and technical support personnel can be trained on the same platform and method for efficiencies and speed of development
10. The mobile software platform supports the design, development, deployment, support, version control of applications, publishing of applications to mobile devices, data security configurations, database integrations and much more

The key concept in this process is to start with a mobile software platform - this enables you to build up and support large numbers of mobilized business processes and projects in the same efficient manner. If a company chooses to custom build every project from scratch, the efficiencies of development and support will never be realized.

Appforge in Trouble

The internet is buzzing over reports that mobile software tools provider Appforge has closed its doors. MobileDataforce is in the same mobile software market as Appforge, but rather than focusing only on providing code and scripts for developers of mobile solutions, they make development easier and faster through rich graphical development environments that include mobile syncing, mobile databases, database integration and security.

Information on MobileDataforce's PointSync Mobility Platform (shown in the picture above) can be found here. 30-day trial versions are available upon request.

Intermec CN3 Mobile Handheld PDA

This week I have written about several new "light industrial"
handheld PDAs and industrial strength handheld computers including the Dolphin 7600 and Symbol's MC35. Today I want to highlight another new handheld PDA, this time from Intermec. It is called the CN3, uses Windows Mobile and is pictured here.

The trend is readily apparent - the ruggedized handheld PDA manufacturers have recognized the need to develop specialized hardware for mobile field workers. Workers that need a light weight device with a combined mobile phone and a handheld PDA so they can communicate both voice and enterprise data from their handhelds while working at remote locations and jobsites.

These categories of handheld computers align nicely with MobileDataforce's focus on the mobile worker and their need for specialized mobile software applications.