InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 23, 1998
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Brown adds that Maxtor has an official policy of not supporting palmtops or handhelds that individuals purchase on their own. Yet when these users call for help, he tries to tackle the problem. Because it's not an officially sanctioned product, though, he doesn't have access to the practices and knowledge capital that accompanies specifically supported products.
That could also explain why IT managers say these devices are more difficult to manage than notebooks, even though palmtops and handhelds are typically less complex and simpler to learn--and run fewer applications--than notebooks do.
Some companies have found they can minimize problems if they make it a priority to support a particular handheld or palmtop platform. Gregory Stewart, CEO of Grenley Stewart Resources, which runs a network of unattended, automated fueling stations for business fleets, says the Tacoma, Wash., company made a deliberate choice to adopt PalmPilots for its staff. If you don't standardize, he says, users will make their own standards, "and that's a huge mistake. You lose the benefits of having a common platform."
Analyst Enderle also points out that palmtops, at least, offer one tangible management advantage. "The biggest problem is they're different," he says. "But if one fails, you've got one response. You just replace it." Since these devices can cost as little as $200, IT staff can do so at low cost to the organization.IT managers say they'd like to see vendors offer solutions for better managing notebooks, as well. "If I never see another laptop as long as I live, I'd be happy," says Larry Creed, VP of IT for Revlon Inc. Creed says the mobile nature of the machines confounds conventional centralized management and adds remote-access problems to the mix. Moreover, notebooks are particularly complex machines, and that means they're more prone to breaking down. Because of the difficulties of notebook management, Creed says it's a better idea to buy two desktops rather than one notebook for users who take work home.
Bohanon of LucasVarity agrees that notebooks present management problems that don't crop up on desktops, sometimes because software-management layers aren't configured to support the hardware vendor's proprietary software. For instance, Intel's LANDesk 6.0 was supposed to be fully compatible with Compaq's Insight Management diagnostic software for its notebooks, but problems arose that forced Bohanon to wipe the hard drive and reload all the applications on some new machines.
Fewer Notebook HeadachesBut Bohanon says that vendors, including Intel, are trying to be responsive to notebook users' management concerns. Version 6.1 of LANDesk, he says, fixed the problems he was experiencing on the Compaq machines. For him, at least, notebooks have become as easy to manage as desktops.
But as handheld computers continue to gain in functionality, IT departments may wind up managing fewer notebooks. Admittedly, less than half the IT managers surveyed expect to deploy, within the next 12 months, new, larger handheld devices that run version 3.0 of Windows CE. But the capabilities of these systems, due in the middle of next year, may have enough users asking for them that IT staff will ultimately have no choice but to purchase them en masse.
In addition to being easier to type on and having better screens, these new devices will have a fully loaded Outlook client instead of the slimmed-down version found in current Windows CE systems. They will also provide salespeople with the ability to create and edit PowerPoint presentations.
James Begin, IS manager for the 2,000-employee Benefis Healthcare pair of hospitals in Great Falls, Mont., says these devices are worth investigating as an alternative to notebooks for use by nursing staff members at his hospitals. Because the devices run Windows CE, they could exchange data with the Windows-based systems most other employees use. He says, "I'd take a look at these if they have mass appeal."
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Illustration by Lydia Hess
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