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PDAs are rapidly gaining in popularity, but with new wireless capabilities being added, how can you possibly do without one?
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) have been around in one form or another almost since the beginning of personal computing. How many readers out there remember the Timex data watch with the innovative data uplink achieved by holding the watch itself up to your PC screen and letting the program run? Technically it was wireless, albeit with one-way data. In more recent times the PDA market has really livened up with Palm and Compaq leading the way initially with their Pilot and iPAQ range of products respectively. Nowadays it seems that everyone is getting in on the act with the likes of Acer, Toshiba, and even Dell hawking PDAs.
Naturally the more vendors, the more competition for both price and features, so it can only get better for us in the coming months and years.
In this review we looked at PDAs with inbuilt 802.1x wireless LAN capabilities. Yes, you too can now go to work and surf the Internet in the lunchroom or bathroom on your handheld digital assistant.
Seriously though, there are many legitimate and useful jobs a PDA can be used for in most companies, providing the organisation ensures a correct plan is established for their use and the appropriate training is provided for staff.
For example, they can be used to link with the company database server to update stock on hand and prices for sales reps on the road or mobile warehouse staff. Or for mobile sales presentations with a portable data projector when a notebook is too cumbersome or simply not required--the PDA can perform the slideshow presentation just as well. PDAs also have the benefit of size and portability, and enable the operator to very quickly turn the device on and access the information required without having to handle a notebook and wait for it to boot up.
Probably my one piece of important advice for the decision makers reading this is for companies to be aware of the potential Customer Relationship Management (CRM) factor with PDAs. Yes, years ago CRM was the catch cry of every business manager and analyst, and if you didn't have a good CRM strategy, your business was bound to be swallowed by a bigger, more organised fish.
While CRM is definitely a core part of any business' daily operations, it doesn't necessarily need to be altered dramatically just because the technology evangelists are touting a new application or technology. The companies who successfully pulled off the implementation of a CRM application did it with planning, training, and customisation. Instead of trying to mould employees around the limitations of the applications on offer, they designed custom modules, applications, and procedures to allow the CRM applications to work with the staff.
As with anything new, change is sure to create a wave amongst the operators, it is only a natural human reaction after all. However, with planning and a controlled roll-out with plenty of training, the migration to the new technologies can not only be painless at the end of the day, but also it will be sure to keep the bean counters happy.
Keeping in sync
More and more in the near future we will see PDA-to-PDA synchronisation and/or data recognition on a portable level and also more widespread usage in the new Wi-Fi hotspots being set up. It is handy sitting down in a hotspot at a café with a hot chocolate and croissant and surfing the Net on your notebook. However, if you simply want to know when the next train is, or where your next appointment is since your assistant rearranged your schedule this morning, and you happen to be wandering through a hotspot, you are hardly going to have a notebook in your top pocket . The most useful device in this situation is a wireless capable PDA.
The five vendors who supplied products to us for this review fall into two categories: Hewlett-Packard, Palm, and Toshiba submitted standard non-ruggedised PDAs, while Intermec and the Symbol sent us toughened PDAs for heavy-duty environments.
