TABLE OF CONTENTS When you think of mobile data users, the image that may come first to mind is the road warrior, that laptop-loving executive type with cell phone glued to ear. So it s somewhat surprising that the first wireless apps to show a true return on investment are used not by the white collars but by blue-collar folk the maintenance engineers, repair technicians and delivery drivers.
Led by shippers such as UPS, businesses with a majority of workers out in the field use mobile and wireless applications to do everything from checking schedules to sending an automated invoice when a repair job is complete. And, while sales-force workers tend to use rather generic wireless apps PIM, email, access to the customer database field-force workers employ a much more diverse range of applications.
The first wave of mobile field-force apps came way back in the 1980s, when Federal Express armed its delivery crews with custom-made handheld scanning devices that let them log deliveries, then later transfer the information to corporate systems via synch. UPS followed suit in 1993. These pricey custom devices cost the companies more than $1,000 apiece; due to economies of scale and the constantly falling price of electronics, they now cost around $500 each.
With the launch of Palm s Palm Pilot in 1996, handhelds became much more affordable. The Palm operating system was also much easier to program businesses could easily develop Palm applications in-house, or take advantage of the many application developers and platforms, such as...
