SBA * Consulting LTD

Why would a VAR get involved in the Handheld PC Market? Traditionally, this marketplace, and its leading participants 3Com (formerly US Robotics), Psion and now Microsoft have catered to the consumer market. VARs have not gotten deeply involved in the consumer market. There is little or no room to add the coveted value added services, the hallmark of what makes a VAR, to a consumer product. Valued added services are where the VAR makes the real money.

But, now there is a reason for VARs to get into the Handheld PC market. With the introduction of newer models, with more functionality, Psion, 3Com and Microsoft have extend the range of the Handheld device. They are now true computing devices, making available many of the functions of the traditional PC.

We looked at the Psion's Series 5 and 3Com's Palm Pilot Professional. We used them as stand-a-lone systems, as adjuncts to our desktop based applications and then as a remote tool for accessing our Network based systems. For the most part, we liked what we saw, and the units evaluated were truly made for different marketplaces.

How does the VAR make money selling these units? Look at this plausible scenario. Your prospect has a sales force of ten people. They need to not only access their Personal Information Mangers (PIM''s) but also E-mail while on the road or outside the office. Your prospect wants their salespeople to also collect data (orders, take structured reports, record time and billing, etc.). However, your client said that they have a limited budget (don't they all).

If you suggest notebook computers, the sales people still have to lug them around. In addition to the size and weight factors, the retail cost for state of the art notebooks are in the $4000-$5000 range. That is $40 to $50,000 just for the basic hardware. You already have made a tough sale, tougher!

Welcome to the world of the Handheld PC. Based on the requirements of the prospect (which Handheld meets their needs best), these units sell in the range of $350 to $500. That means your basic hardware costs are now 1/10th of what the notebook solution cost. Big difference! However, your net income on the sale is much lower (but since the odds were against you, for selling those 10 notebooks, we feel some income is definitely better than no income).

Now, how do we make the real money in this scenario? We sell our value-added services, such as programming, software, training and support. Each of the units we evaluated has an operating language (the Psion uses EPCO32, the 3Com unit uses and SDK so you can use to write your own software. They also already have a bevy of third party products written and available.

We looked at one such third party software package for each unit. The criteria we used were to evaluate how well the unit interfaced with the Network base software system. Did the Handheld PC make the entry and/or retrieval of information easy and worthwhile, or would a standard computer (desktop or notebook) been a better choice.

3Com's Palm Pilot Professional

Small, light, versatile are the three words we would use to describe this little unit. The Professional comes with a 1mb of RAM, a docking station, software and a built-in Calendar, Address Book, Calculator, Notes, To-do List and E-Mail client. You can use the Palm Pilot exclusively or interface it to their desktop software to make entries. Hookup to our computer took minutes.

The Palm Pilot uses a stylus type pen and a unusual handwriting system known as Graffiti writing. In just a couple of hours, we mastered the basics and some of the advanced (not all) commands. If you do a lot of writing with this unit, it can be tiring (i.e., long E-Mail messages).

We then downloaded a third party package to interface Microsoft's Outlook 97 to the Palm Pilot. We chose Desktop to Go from DataVIz, Inc of Trumbull, CT (http://www.dataviz.com). Installation was simple and so was the automated configuration. In under 30 minutes (including finding the product, download time, and installation), we had synchronized our Palm Pilot with all our desktop applications.

Psion's Series 5

Larger and heavy than the Palm Pilot, the Psion comes with 8 MB of RAM scaled down versions of a Word Processor and Spreadsheet. It also provides you with an Agenda, Database (telephone book), some games, a calculator, a sketch program and sound recording device. The Series 5 also has E-mail, and Web access, Infrared communication capabilities, as well as a world wide clock. Quite a handful, in both functionality the Series 5 provides, and the learning curve needed to use it!

It took us 40 minutes to figure out how to connect the Series 5 to our PC, thru their flimsy cable connector. Both the on-line help and documentation were not very clear on this subject. When we finally did connect the unit, we were impressed that we could copy any file from our computer to the Series 5. Backup of the Series 5 to the desktop was also just a click away.

The Series 5 uses a keyboard, which we found a little small (or our hands are a little big) and a stylus pen. With this unit, you could also use a finger to select operations with ease (as opposed to the Palm Pilot, where using your fingers was a little tricky). If you do letters or spreadsheets all day, then the Psion will not be a replacement for using a notebook computer. Fatigue is also an issue with the Series 5. As such, it is not a total replacement for the desktop computer.

Next we tried to synchronize our Psion into our desktop. Again, we chose Microsoft's Outlook97 program. We downloaded the proper up-to-date software from the Psion web page and was able to successfully interface the Agenda (calendar) with ease. The interface is not straight forward, nor was not intuitive. After 30 minutes of playing with our address book and the Psion database, we gave up trying to interface it.

Third Party Packages

Your client hasn't been convinced of the need for an Intranet or Extranet. And they don't see a derived benefit to the time and energy, not to mention cost of installing or providing an Intranet/Extranet to their employees. You know they can benefit by a thoughtfully constructed Intranet web site, but until now have not been able to leverage the sale by providing all of the need value added services.

Introducing your client to the corporate uses of the handheld devices and by using your marketing and sales talent you can turn the sale. Maximizing the investment in technology by selling your client one of these handheld devices is the type of value added sale you've been dreaming about.
The sale of these handheld devices can bolster the consulting income you can receive by implementing the Intranet. Your web development and networking teams can find new clients.

The sales staff of today needs to have product and technical at their fingertips. To this end, many companies are creating Intranet's, so that all employees have this information, which is up to date and available at their fingertips. No longer do you have to keep a customer on hold while you find the latest copy of the product sheet.

With a new product called AvantGo, by AvantGo, Inc. (http://www.avantgo.com) you can have your corporate Intranet in the palm of your hand, and on your Palm Pilot. By creating information channels, Sales Staff, Technicians, and Support People can download the particular areas of your Corporate Intranet so that they can reference them wherever they are.

Updates to the Palm Pilot can be done not only at the desktop, but also via modem, so where ever your staff is, on the road or in the office, they can have up to the date information. While AdvantGo is a new program, with some limitations, it makes

The Psion on the other hand has a fully functional web browser that can access the Internet live. However, if you wanted to download an Intranet web site to the Psion, you would have to copy the particular site to the Psion. The extra time involved puts the Psion at a disadvantage in this scenario.

Both the Psion and AdvantGo failed to properly read sites that used frames, a distinct disadvantage. AdvantGo made a technological decision not to support frames based on the 160 x 160 screen dimension of the Palm Pilot. Another reason for the decision was the low power curve (both electrically and computing) of the Palm Pilot. Both units do read tables and graphics. They also permit the user to control the display of graphics. AdvantGo's other limitation was the size of any one page, which is limited to 32K.

We downloaded the site http://www.isoc-ny.org and had no problems retrieving any of the local site links, with the largest page (the bylaws) being 26K. Many Internet sites, and Corporate Intranet sites are frame enabled. In order to use these products, these sites need to be frame disabled, no small undertaking. Also, it is wise to re-design those areas that will be used by these handheld units to appreciate the smaller screen size and speed of the units.

Another way of selling both your services and a handheld unit is by leveraging the companies Extranet. The way in which this could be done is by using these handheld computers as data collection centers. With wire and wireless modems available, the use of these handheld devices as a data collection, point of sale or statistical device improves their return on investment.

Data collection can be an integral part of selling the use of these handheld devices. An example of this is Pendragon Forms for the Palm Pilot from Pendragon Software Corp (http://www.pendragon-software.com). This product allows you to create any type of form, with drop down lists, radio buttons and data entry fields. By using any method of synchronization (wired or wireless) you transfer the information to a Microsoft Access table. You then write the apps that take the data and integrate into your main program. This product is great for cycle counting inventory, etc.

The Psion, having the ability to read C++ programs, can have client programs developed to collect data directly on the handheld device. With the Psion Series 5 impressive data communication suite, transferring this information to the network would be quite simple. Psion has created an entire suite of industrial based handheld PC's with bar coding and infrared capabilities. Symbol Technologies has just announced a similar line of products based on the Palm Pilot.

Both the Psion and the Palm Pilot report that by the end of the year they should have software that will link their respective products directly with Lotus Notes databases. The Series 5 already has a link with Novell's Groupwise product.

These products have created a new niche for the VAR. By selling your clients on use of these inexpensive but powerful devices, you can augment greatly the ability to add the "value", which is at the heart of a VARs business. These devices have made the networking mobile users easier, whether those end-users need to access the Intranet, Extranet or provide data input to current network applications.