driving the ultra-mobile enterprise

A few years ago, I was writing embedded microprocessor firmware for a small, eleven-employee power monitoring sensor shop when a feud broke out between the three engineers and the two salesmen.  The firm was purchasing some new laptops, to be shared around as they were needed, and the two groups wanted different things from their notebooks.  The engineers wanted to be able to sit down at a foreign desk, at home or abroad, and get work done with the complex software they used to design things.  If I’d been senior enough to have a hope at taking laptops from the pool, I’d have wanted the same. 

But the salesmen wanted a smaller, more portable machine, something sleek enough to whip out at a trade show and send a quick email with, or jot down notes about their latest sales lead.  The sensor shop compromised, buying an ultraportable and another, more traditional business laptop.

These days, that same instrument shop would have more options, because of the exploding popularity of netbooks.  The tiny notebooks which burst from the gate in November 2007 with the launch of the Eee PC have since sold 15 million units, with 30 million netbook sales likely in 2009.  The form factor is almost exactly what the salesmen wanted, and costs are very low.  Although netbooks were initially aimed at consumers, new models aimed at the Enterprise, with Enterprise-focused features discussed elsewhere on this site, may soon encourage business to begin taking notice.  And what will this do to the desktop? Read More »

Back in the early days of the dot-com era, when there were still such things as rockstar game developers, John Romero left ID Sofware and struck out to found his own development house, Ion Storm, on the back of a single dictum: “design is king.” The idea was that an over-emphasis by a developer on the under-the-hood aspects of games could actually detract from the overall user experience, especially in a world where game engines had become commoditized and anyone could license on to create yet another clone of an existing title.

Though Romero ultimately failed in his quest to create a breakthrough (or even an on-time) game, today’s portable makers would do well to adopt his design-centric philosophy, especially in the red-hot netbook space.

A recent study of online opinions about netbooks by market research firm Biz360 showed that netbook buyers who post user reviews are talking about three things: performance, display, and features.

Netbooks right now are based mainly on Intel’s Atom processors, and given that the entire category is a variation on a basic reference design there’s really not much to be done in the performance area (other than add a fast SSD, which can make a huge difference). The Biz360 article does note that users don’t seem to be that impressed with netbook performance across the board, and are bringing to the products expectations formed from using more high-powered portables. This is something that netbook makers should be aware of, since performance still matters to users. Read More »

Productivity for mobile workers revolves around more than simply getting your notebook and hitting the road. In 2009, there are a few things that I would like to see happen in mobile computing to make working on the road easier and more productive.

One of the most important parts of the mobile productivity puzzle is Internet access. I’d like to see more notebooks and netbooks (especially netbooks) come with 3G and 4G internet connectivity integrated. The integration of 3G service (which is a necessity for many mobile workers) could result in more subsidized computers along the lines of the $99 Acer Aspire One that went on sale at Radio Shack recently. The netbook isn’t ideal for some mobile workers, and there’s probably a larger market for full notebooks that offer integrated 3G (along with a subsidized price tag) than the currently low number of such offerings would indicate.

I’d like to see faster 4G service become more commonplace, but Sprint’s WiMAX has a long road to go and may not amount to anything more than a footnote in the road to LTE 4G service. Many don’t foresee WiMAX becoming a strong competitor in the market due to Sprint’s inability to launch the service outside of a very limited number of markets. Verizon has announced that it hopes to roll its 4G LTE service out at the end of 2009, so 4G service is on its way. The key to making mobile Internet access more appealing is for the ISPs to eliminate the often ridiculous monthly download limits on mobile Internet service. Some service plans limit downloads to the point where one driver update blows the usage for an entire month. Read More »

There is more to being a mobile worker than simply picking the notebook with the best performance and battery duration your budget can afford. Working on-the-go is often not as productive as working in an office because most portable notebooks aren’t designed for users who work for extended periods.

Tip #1: Increase comfort and battery life with a laptop stand

To increase productivity notebook users can outfit themselves with a few basic accessories and peripherals that make working on a notebook more comfortable. I know when I work on a notebook for an extended duration, one of the first things I notice is that my neck gets sore from looking down at the screen.

This issue is easily avoided by utilizing a laptop stand. A laptop stand will raise the screen of your notebook making it much more comfortable to work on over a long period. Some notebook stands can also help keep your notebook running cool with integrated fans, thereby increasing battery life; even stands without fans can passively increase battery life by opening up airflow under the unit and preventing the laptop’s internal fan from kicking in. The thing you have to look out for when buying a laptop stand is to not go too bulky or too heavy. There are stands on the market that work well and will add very little to the weight and bulk of your mobile gear, so keep an eye out for something that fits in your bag. Read More »

Now is a great time to be in the market for new portable machines to outfit employees. Never has there been such a wealth of available computing platforms, device categories, and downright desktop-competitive notebook systems to cater to a broad audience.

Today, I will take a look at three different categories that are now defining the mobile sector. These three categories are by no means that only ones available to businesses to choose from, but they offer the widest range of possibilities from a business perspective.

Netbooks

When ASUS basically invented the “netbook” category with the original ASUS Eee PC 4G, most saw the notebooks as toys that were only meant for kids or general consumers who didn’t need much power to run heavy duty applications. However, over the spread of a year, the category has exploded to become the fastest growing segment of the notebook market.

Much of that gain can be attributed to numerous companies like Acer, MSI, Lenovo, Dell, and HP jumping in to grab a portion of the market; however, a lot of those gains can be placed at the feet of Intel. The company’s tiny Atom processor has given netbooks competitive performance in a tiny form-factor — couple this advantage with impressive battery life and you have a cost-effective solution for small businesses.

With most netbooks offering 1.6GHz processors, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drives, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and WWAN options, the tiny machines make suitable partners for employees on the go and they won’t slow anyone down with their sub-three pound frames. The machines are more than adequate for most productivity duties and can even handle light photo editing. With prices around the $300 – $400 mark, they also provide a cheap way for mobile professionals to get a near “full-size” laptop experience without the full-size bulk. Read More »

GPS receivers look to the sky to plot their precise point on the globe at a precise point in time. But if you can’t see the sky, what good does have nearly three dozen satellites orbiting the earth do you?

That’s where WiFi positioning comes in. While not a new technology, a series of high-profile adoptions of WiFi positioning as a supplement to or alternative to GPS made 2008 the year that a device finding itself via WiFi network signals became as mainstream as GPS in a cellphone did just a couple years ago.

WiFi isn’t a precise technology, and it’s deployed on an ad-hoc basis: People, companies, government bodies, and institutions install WiFi gateways as they see fit, using unlicensed spectrum—which means no regulatory permission is required in advance to use certified devices.

WiFi positioning uses a property of WiFi networks to establish location. Nearly all WiFi networks are configured so that the access points that comprise them send out a frequent beacon, a message that allows WiFi network adapters to learn the name and unique adapter address of a base station. (Access points set to “closed” or “hidden” turn off the beacon.

Even though you only see the network name, even when the network has 3,000 unique access points, each of those access points’ unique BSSID (basic service set identifier) is broadcast. (The BSSID is equivalent to an Ethernet adapter’s Media Access Control or MAC address, using the same format.)

Skyhook Wireless was the first to take advantage of this characteristic. Starting years ago, the company began having drivers pass up and down every street in larger cities in the U.S. with a kit on board that recorded GPS coordinates and associated them with snapshots of the name, BSSID, and signal strength of each access point its WiFi radio could pick up. Read More »

As I have mentioned in previous articles, solid state drives (SSDs) are a promising technology in the area of computer storage. For years, notebooks have been saddled with relatively slow hard disk drives (SSDs) when compared to faster offerings on the desktop. When desktop HDDs were spinning at 5,400 RPM or 7,200 RPM, mobile HDDs were stuck at 4,200 RPM. Now that we have desktop HDDs spinning at 10,000 RPM, the fastest available mobile HDDs are spinning at 7,200 RPM.

Despite the steady increase in spindle speeds for mobile HDDs, there is still room for improvement. Mobile HDDs are susceptible to shock, while the faster 7,200 RPM HDDs are noisy, add vibrations to the notebook chassis, and are often power hungry. This is where SSDs come in to save the day.

SSDs were once reserved for military and government use due to their high-tech features and exorbitantly high price tags. Over the years, SSDs have steadily dropped in price, although they still are priced much higher than HDDs on a price/gigabyte ratio. However, that price premium also brings superior read write speeds, lower power consumption, silent operation, and immunity to shock and vibration that would otherwise be harmful to HDDs.

The ASUS Eee PC 4G was the first notebook to really introduce the general consumer to the idea of SSDs as a primary storage system. Although the Eee PC 4G was equipped with a relatively slow processor, the notebook’s 4GB SSD more than made up for the processor’s deficiencies and made for snappy desktop performance in both Linux and Windows XP. Read More »

My business (pharma) depends on reps being in the field speaking with MDs all day long. As mobile tech improves, so does our productivity. Now that our teams can have notebooks with broadband from virtually anywhere, we are able to deploy robust applications that just weren’t feasible a couple of years ago. We’ve been able to dramatically increase the efficiency of our business through these additions and we’ve made our workforce happier in the process!