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 »

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 »

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!

It’s imperative that companies have notebook computers that function properly 100% of the time with absolutely no downtime. Time is money, so anytime that a notebook is out of commission due to design defects or equipment malfunctions, a company’s employee(s) could be left reeling when away from the office or out of town on business.

In order to combat downtime and provide the most reliable notebook platform for the ultimate mobile warrior, here are a few ways to improve the durability of a notebook. Read More »

For mobile professionals and businesses alike, power consumption plays a pivotal role in the day-to-day activities of mobile warriors. Laptops now exceed desktops in sales in the PC market, so it’s inevitable that businesses are looking to outfit more and more of its employees with laptops when the time comes to upgrade computer systems.

It used to be that businesses were faced with either high performance/non-portability with a desktop system or poor performance/high-portability with laptop systems. Thanks to advances in processing technology, laptops are closing the gap when it comes to performance when compared to their desktop counterparts. Read More »

In 2002, ultrawideband (UWB) seemed like the next big thing for home and office networking: a short-range, very low-power, very high-speed technology that wouldn’t interfere with existing networks. UWB was poised to replace wired USB 2.0, become Bluetooth’s next-generation radio standard, offer mobile device and gadgets PAN (Personal Area Network) connectivity—all while not draining batteries.

In the words of Fred Willard’s agent character in “A Mighty Wind”: “Wha’ happened?” Squabbles over the right approach, delays in maturing the technology, and the rise of 802.11n seem to have combined to put the short-term kabosh on UWB appearing everywhere for everything. Some firms that make UWB chips have turned off the lights or sold their technology; Intel opted recently to stop in-house work on UWB silicon. Read More »