.KEYWORD peeditorial1200
.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.TITLE Real world opportunities for pervasive computing
.DEPT
.SUMMARY In this month’s editorial, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz considers the many advantages that will come about as pervasive computing technology enters into common, everyday use.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
This month, we’re thrilled to be able to bring you a fascinating interview with IBM’s Jon Prial, Director of Marketing for what IBM calls "pervasive computing." When you read my interview with Jon, you’ll have a unique opportunity to get inside this most amazing of companies and see how they view handheld devices. Unquestionably, when you think about enterprise computing, IBM is definitely the BMOC (Big Man on Campus).
To be honest with you, when I first found out about Jon’s title (the "pervasive computing" part), I figured it was just another cool buzzword. But ever since I spoke to him, I’ve been thinking about the idea of pervasive computing, what it means, and what it means for the enterprise.
To some, pervasive computing may seem more like "perverse" computing. After all, with computers everywhere, it sometimes seems like a challenge to keep track of them. But let’s get serious for a moment and think about just where computers could go and how they might be used within the business world.
First, of course, there are the traditional MIS-style (Management Information Systems) business applications. You know, stuff like payroll processing, MRP (Materials Resource Planning), and whatnot. These are often run on big iron or at least a server. Clearly, they’re highly centralized and not candidates for mobilization. Or are they? You might want all your data centralized. But, with current technology, you could allow management to check status from a Palm VII. Or you might outfit a warehouse guy with a Palm device to do inventory and have that data uploaded from a Palm device into a central repository.
So, clearly, even traditional business applications, with the right adjunct satellite applications, can be available anywhere. More importantly, it’s organic. What I mean by this is it’s not technology in search of a solution. It really does make sense for mobile managers and workers to be able to input information and get at information from any location.
Of course, there are also the more standard office-productivity business applications. You know, the calendar/address book type stuff. I’m not going to talk about them here because we’re all quite familiar with "the big four" and because we’re discussing other office productivity tools in-depth elsewhere in the issue.
So now, let’s go on to the naturally mobile applications. If you’ve recently gotten a package from UPS or FedEx, you know the delivery folks carry their own special-purpose mobile computers. Pretty much anywhere you have a mobile workforce (delivery people, waiters and waitresses, field service technicians, medical staff, airline personnel, lawyers in courtrooms, etc.) you have a need for a mobile application. These mobile applications could be reference-only, requiring only an occasional, HotSync-like connection to a central resource. Or mobile applications could require constant, wireless interaction.
Think about using Palm devices to enable waiters to take food orders. This might seem like an abuse of technology, but it makes sense to have centralized inventories constantly updated, to be able to instantly spot trends in customer demand and to be able to more easily manage the food preparation process. On one hand, you could use simple Palm devices like the Palm m100 to capture order information, go back to a central location, HotSync the information, and have it distributed to the appropriate databases. On the other hand, wirelessly enabling such devices would allow waiters to spend more of their time serving customers and less time running back and forth to the kitchen.
There’s a third class of applications that might be part of our pervasive computing mix. These are the dedicated computing applications. A few years ago, my friend Theo called the Palm device "the world’s cheapest terminal," and he was right. At less than two hundred bucks, the Palm device is definitely a very cheap, easily deployable, general-purpose computing device. It can be mounted virtually anywhere. Buy a couple of strips of Velcro and you’ve got a mounting mechanism.
You might imagine a Palm device used to monitor a temperature system, an alarm system, or any other industrial machine. I’m personally fascinated by this use of Palm devices. If you’re using a Palm device as a dedicated computing device, drop me a note at david@palmpowerenterprise.com. Let me know what kinds of neat things you’re doing with Palm devices.
Recently, I’ve become aware of another class of applications. These are more marketing in nature and seem to recognize that many consumers carry Palm devices wherever they go. They seem to fall into two general categories:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Sending marketing messages to handheld devices;
.BULLET Making the shopping/consuming experience more pleasant and productive.
.END_LIST
I’ll be honest. I really don’t like the first approach. I think that if I walked into a mall and all of a sudden I was bombarded by IR signals beaming advertising to my Palm device, I’d be seriously annoyed. And I tend to ignore kiosks, special deals, and coupons. So I’m not too sanguine about using handheld devices as recipients of mobile marketing messages.
But I do think there’s another approach that could be incredibly powerful. It’s using handheld devices to make the shopping experience more productive. Let me give you an example. Both supermarkets and drug stores baffle me. I have never figured out how they’re organized.
Let’s assume you’re in your local market and want to get some blue cheese. Where do you go? You might say the cheese aisle, but I’ve found that’s sometimes not the right place. Sometimes blue cheese is in the plebeian cheese section (you know, where all those packaged Kraft cheeses hang out). Sometimes blue cheese is in the first-class cheese section (which might be at the completely opposite end of the store) with all those cheeses with strange sounding names like "Pave de Chirac." For those who might care, Pave de Chirac turns out to be a mountain farm product. It’s very soft and pliant with a light blue mould and a delicate, subtle, lingering taste.
So where do you go when you’re looking for blue cheese? I’ve hunted all over. But if I had a map to the supermarket on my Palm V, I could just click on blue cheese and the device would tell me it’s in Aisle 16, next to the olives. I don’t know why it’s next to the olives, it just is.
You could envision a similar directory application for a drug store (where the hell is the aspirin?), or even a theme park (where’s the throw-up-your-lunch ride?). The idea behind these shopping helper applications is not that they bombard consumers with more ads, it’s that they make the process of consuming more pleasant. Honestly, I suspect if I weren’t so darned annoyed by supermarkets and drugstores, I’d go into them more often.
With Bluetooth technology and wireless, you could even go a step further. A customer could, perhaps, put together a shopping list at home. Walking into the supermarket, the list would reorder itself to correspond to the walking order of the aisles. Then, just like a GPS system, as you walked the aisles, the Palm device would tell you when you were close to the next item on the shelf. But because computing can be so powerful, rather than just telling you Dancing Pigs Bar-B-Que Sauce is in Aisle 9, it would tell you when you’d walked far enough down Aisle 9. In fact, as you turn to the left, it could even show you a picture of the shelves and indicate that the 18 oz. bottle of Original Dancing Pigs Bar-B-Que Sauce is on the second shelf to the left, while the 5 oz. bottle of Dancing Pigs Dry Seasoning is on the third shelf to the right.
Obviously, making this loosely coupled, very wildly distributed computing model work requires a lot of infrastructure, careful design, and dedication. But if the focus is on providing computing resources anywhere at any time, when it makes sense and proves useful, it’ll be a great boon to both businesses and consumers. And perhaps if I can find all the right ingredients on one trip to the supermarket, I can duplicate my friend Steve’s absolutely addictive blue cheese dressing recipe in my own kitchen. If not, I can always just send out for more sushi.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on IBM’s Pervasive Computing solutions, visit http://www-3.ibm.com/pvc/.
For more information on Bluetooth technology, visit http://www.bluetooth.com.
For more information on Pave de Chirac, visit http://www.fromages.com/usa/fiche.asp?FromageType=pave_chirac.
For more information on Dancing Pigs sauces and seasonings, visit http://www.dancingpigs.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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