are business really wondering, is it all about the Apps?- Mobile applications take over PDA consultants

Elondra developed in 2004 business aplications for symbian phones that could replace the PDA solutions like on-the-field Sales with a simple mobile phone. A compressed Data Base in your mobile phone, offline data, simple and organized, you syncronize on demand with your ERP, order sent, job done...next customer. Now folks, This was before your off the shelf mobile phone had 4gb like today, before mobile operating systems where as nifty and cooperative in multitasking and when video, music and color....yes color, was new in the mobile market.

Recently with one of our european customers visit with one of our mobile operator partners, a client told us about his investment of 3000 euros per PDA terminal to do Vending machine administration, he had done this invesment a year ago of one PDA for each of his 80 on-the-field vending agents. have you done the math? yes, 240,000 euros just in PDA´ (plus the ERP, the consultantSSSS and the HourSSS of a 3 Phase Proyect plus Training). this Huge investment just to go collect the change a candy bar machine gives you, ok, to his credit, to go collect the change 10´s of thousends of candy bar machines gives him. This Spanish client had had 4 PDAs broken in the last month and had already replaced 6 in the last year. The mobile operator knew of his monthly voice bill, but this customer didnt have data lines for his agents. The offer from the operator was:

"We will replace the PDA´s with a BlackBerry curve and bmVending application from Elondra, cost of the BlackBerry is free, Elondra will charge you 20€ per application, we will just charge you what your spend on phone calls and Data transfers and we might even give you a good adjustable rate deal for the use on that too."

This Clients firs reaction was the obvious, "I got ripped off", he called in his IT guy and demanded to know why he haden´t been told that a BlackBerry with bmVending could do everything he wanted on the field,  instead of spending all this money on a PDA solution.

The IT guys response was, "well boss, the PDA is capable of doing so much more"

Well now, the cost of replacing 4 PDA terminals covers his cost of applications for the 80 BlackBerrys his agents use on restocking machines, logging collection and signaling broken Machines. Plus, these agents have a little more room in their pockets, still having a phone but no longer a PDA.

Elondra has gone a long way since 2004 and so have mobiles, why is there managers and directors, IT guys, still fixed on the PDA?

I know its great to have things you dont need, but I personally, dont have a Ferrari as a business car, I dont buy a 18 wheel truck cause I have plenty with just a trunk for my supermarket shoping, I dont need to give my sales guys a mobile so they can watch videos and socialize iPhone stuff with, and  if common sense prevails and the economic crisis is forcing something positive, let business and SME´s stop investing in PDA´s they dont need and get a good business smartphone (hopefully subsidized by the operator) with Elodra´s BaseMovil business aplications.

It just makes reasonable sense.

easy to install, use, afford and productive.