Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Here come the handhelds
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golisoda, killapop and I were walking back to the Mahiti office a half hour ago when we saw someone using a Palm m100 at the corner store. A salesman, using some sort of sales tracking software (the UI didn’t look familiar). He said he was from HLL.An Indian company that equips field workers with PDAs? I’m impressed.
A year ago,
vinit and I were thinking up business ideas and he suggested enterprise handheld software. I shrugged it off saying the Indian PDA scene just wasn’t happening. Now I feel stupid.Another recent discovery: Eicher’s selling GPS GSM devices that send headquarters updates on what part of the country each truck is in. Imagine what a large shipping company could do with this.
Anyone from HLL with more info?
quark? kanishka_sinha?
aivalli — Feb 3, 2004 7:31:47 AM — # ↩
Dude,
I was talking to my cousin in Belgaum and the topic got diverted to PDAs and reached to Simputer. Then, this small kid tells me that he has seen the simputer already deployed by the Karnataka Electricity Board.
The guy who came to read the electricity meter had one and he directly entered the data in to the PDA. :))
India is finally getting there !
-nerdy
veenven — Feb 3, 2004 7:45:18 AM — # ↩
harish_an — Feb 3, 2004 7:57:02 AM — # ↩
AP is allegedly the best in supply chain management in india..:)
madhav — Feb 5, 2004 5:46:29 AM — # ↩
And guess which software powers their supply chain ?
harish_an — Feb 3, 2004 7:56:11 AM — # ↩
http://www.businessworldindia.com/innerSections.aspx?SectionId=531&ArticleId=1369
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2004/01/07/stories/2004010700020100.htm
point of sales automation is coming in a big way to india.. and much required too considering that we have a really highly unregulated supply chain...
the idea will be to integrate it real time to the erp system and be able to produce a purchase order to the vendor based on what you saw him taking down...
the GPS is mandatory for truckers in some countries in europe for collecting tolls, tracking goods of course and even regulating driver fatigue.....it was in the market in india a few years back...most of the big freight companies dont go for it because of prohibitive cost and other human factors...the drivers dont like being tagged...
achitnis — Feb 3, 2004 9:26:14 AM — # ↩
You have reason to - you reasoned down the wrong path :)
Whenever I see someone dissing the PDA scene in India (and Germany/USA/UK/country_of_your_choice), I have to laugh, because they base their "observations" on executives using handheld computing devices, see that it isn't happening, and arrive at their conclusions.
Wrong tree! :)
Handheld computing devices are going to be found in the mobile workforce - such as KEB meter readers, salesmen, doctors in hospitals (and nursing staff), cops, etc. The devices they will be using are not your high-end full-colour, video and audio capable Palm or PocketPC units, but low res B&W, very often running a single, dedicated application.
There is a real mass-market opportunity here for enterprise software, but remember that if you are looking at *horizontal* applications (e.g. MS Office and Solitaire are horizontals), you are already dead in the water. The opportunity lies in verticals. And it is not too late - and probably will never be, because of the huge scope involved.
Writing handheld applications is a real challenge from the design perspective, because unlike a desktop app, you need to consider an environment that is very very different from your everyday app.
Example: If you write an app in which you are forced to use a stylus acurately to select items on the screen, you are ensuring that no one is ever going to use it.
For more info on this, read this:
http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/docs/zenofpalm/Enlightenment.html
This is PalmOS specific, but the design decisions apply universally.
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Feb 3, 2004 9:52:57 AM — # ↩
That's a very interesting link. Thanks!
tushar — Feb 3, 2004 4:54:43 PM — # ↩
ashudesai — Feb 6, 2004 8:27:30 AM — # ↩
Patient database, medical transcriptions, medicine database - the works. Is anything available here?
Which handheld do you people use?
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Feb 6, 2004 9:40:11 AM — # ↩
I don't use one these days. My cell phone does all I need, except note keeping, so I'm now looking for an affordable handheld with a keyboard. The Tungsten C is nice but out of reach at $500.
ashudesai — Feb 6, 2004 9:45:15 AM — # ↩
Yes the C is a good one. I just saw it in the hands of Mr. Varun Singh. He says it isnt available here right now...anyways.
I also know that the Tungsten W is a good one to go for.
420 bucks on the US Palm site. Think you will get a better rate in different stores. And if available now in Heera Panna (the last time i was there the guy said no) it will be helluva of a lot cheaper.
As a yard stick, a T3 sells for about 30G. in Heera Panna its for 20.
I would like to buy one too. But i think i will have to sell my belongings for that.
quark — Feb 10, 2004 8:30:16 AM — # ↩
A lot of pharma companies are testing this too...