Apart from being a great tool for personal use, a Palm handheld computer is of tremendous benefit to the enterprise. A large number of firms deploy Palm handheld computers among their workforce. Ashish Gupta discusses the possibilities of using a Palm handheld computer within your organisation

Palm handheld computers provide increased productivity, reduced costs and improved employee satisfaction. Palm OS-based solutions help increase sales, expand market share and improve customer relationships. The following are just some of the many solutions that can benefit various industries:

Oracle
Oracle’s Mobile Sales solution increases the productivity of mobile sales representatives by giving them anytime access to update key customer and sales data while on the road. Using a Palm handheld they can create, view, and update customer sales. The solution allows the sales force to view, update and close opportunities while at customer sites, lower sales costs through team selling and virtual sales teams, manage forecast numbers from the field and easily submit current forecasts to management.

McKesson
Palm handhelds are heavily used in the Healthcare industry. Palm and McKesson offer a solution known as the Horizon MobileCare Rounding Solution. The Horizon MobileCare Rounding solution on Palm handhelds provides physicians access to patient information—while making patient rounds—by pulling information from core hospital information systems. Physicians can access patient census, laboratory, radiology, medications, and transcribed reports, thus enhancing the communication of critical information.

CIBER
CIBER’s ‘Wireless National Practice’ solution enables secure wireless access across multiple networks via Palm handhelds to back-end enterprise information whenever and wherever mobile workers need to conduct business. It extends the reach of enterprise applications, Intranet and e-mail to Palm handheld devices, ensures that the data captured by employees in the field using handheld devices is real-time synchronised with back-end databases and mission-critical applications and provides mobile employees with messaging, alerts and meaningful real-time data to support quick, informed business decisions.

Extended Systems
XTNDConnect Server is a sophisticated groupware and database synchronisation and device management solution for large and small enterprises. It enables IT departments to integrate and manage Palm handhelds, providing reduced troubleshooting costs and added control over the information these devices access. It provides feature-rich groupware synchronisation and management capabilities giving Palm handheld users a comprehensive set of data synchronisation and access options. It synchronises e-mail, calendars, contacts and tasks, allows IT administrators to effectively administer and manage mobile device synchronisation and data access, and offers a database service that allows mobile workers to access corporate data sources, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems from their Palm handhelds.

Siebel
Industry leaders Palm and Siebel have teamed up to create a sales force automation solution for a mobile sales force. Sales professionals can now:

• Access and update the latest customer and product information at the point of customer contact.
• Receive critical updates and alerts while on the go.
• Immediately answer customer queries, including order status and service issues.
• Reduce overhead by automating administrative tasks and eliminating unnecessary paperwork.

They can synchronise their calendar, contacts, accounts and activities from Siebel eBusiness Applications with the classic Palm handheld Date Book, Address Book and To-Do List.

• Remotely manage calendar and appointments.
• Access Account and Employee data from Palm Address Book.
• Create call report for Contacts.

Mercury MD
Mercury MD’s MData Enterprise System integrates and delivers patient data from existing hospital systems to the clinician’s Palm handheld, extending the portability of patient information. The solution allows clinicians to access secure up-to-date, comprehensive and accurate patient census lists, laboratory results, medication lists and diagnostic reports on their Palm handheld. Hospitals benefit from increased physician and staff efficiency, resulting
in improved patient care, decreased medical errors and reduced hospital stays.

Pico Communications
Pico and Palm have teamed up to bring wireless network access to all Palm handhelds equipped with an SD slot. Users can have speedy, secure wireless access to their networks while preserving handheld size, weight and battery life. The PicoBlue Bluetooth Internet Access Point allows users to easily connect to the Internet or the corporate LAN, access e-mail and messages, browse the Web and HotSync or synchronise databases over the network. Each PicoBlue Access Point provides seven Palm users coverage within a 100-metre radius in an open environment and about a 40-metre radius in a typical office environment. Transmissions feature 128-bit private user key authentication and encryption for secure wireless connectivity.

These are just a few of the many solutions available to users of a Palm handheld computer in a corporate environment. Regardless of the industry or the application, a Palm OS-based solution can help increase your efficiency and reduce your costs.

(Most applications mentioned in this and following articles are available for download from www.palmgear.com. If you still have trouble finding any application feel free to e-mail the author)

Ashish Gupta is the founder and president of The Indian Palm User Group. He can be reached at ash@notcomguys.com