The goal of the ubiquitous Web holds a lot of promise both for hardcore gamers and business people with more serious needs than doing some free-ranging cyberfragging in a game of Doom. Why wait until youre back in the office to manage your supply chain when you can do it on the fly (or run, or drive) via wireless applications?
The goal of providing legitimate business activities without a desk PC continues to inch closer to fruition, with developments such as the impending release of Paramount Technologies mobile B2B-Workplace application, an addition to the companys requisition and time and expense tracking solution suite of products.
The new, mobile B2B-Workplace is designed for business professionals that need to capture time and expense data on their Palm devices, a market segment that continues to swell. According to market tracking company NPD Intelect, more than one million PDA units were sold last year, with sales reaching $436,466,000, which is a 60 percent increase over 1998. By the end of this year there will be 3.4 million personal companions (PDAs) shipped in the United States and 6.3 million personal companions shipped worldwide, according to International Data Corp.
B2B-WorkPlace is an integrated application designed for efficient requisitioning and time and expense tracking on the PC and is soon to be available for the Palm and Palm-size PC handheld devices. The mobile application will run on all handhelds based on the Palm OS platform, including all Palm series handhelds, the Handspring Visor, the IBM WorkPad and the new Sony CLIE.
Companies have adopted handhelds at a remarkable rate in order to keep up with the growing mobile workforce, extend desktop usability of vital applications and redefine productivity among all levels of workers. Wireless technology enables handheld databases to stream information to and from remote corporate databases. The handheld device can then draw on the power of the full-sized application, which makes it even more convenient for B2B-WorkPlace mobile users to track and document hourly, weekly or monthly time and expense entries, entries that may otherwise be forgotten when the user is away from the home base.
As employees spend increasingly more time away from their desks, computers and the wired Internet, the demand for mobile applications will continue to increase, said Salim Khalife, co-founder, president and CEO of Paramount Technologies, Inc. The bottom line is that smart companies expect workforce automation systems to serve as company-wide corporate management solutions that save time and money. So unless you can keep two incompatible data streams separate in your mind, youll have to play games on your own time.
