Field day for enterprise mobile computing

Enterprise-mobile technology group, 1^st Touch has launched a new enterprise application platform designed to support the activities of field-based or remote operatives whilst reducing telecommunications costs typically associated with mobile computing solutions.

1^st Touch’s new solution is targeted directly at salespeople, knowledge workers, service engineers or field teams. It uses web services to provide, says the company, consistent and secure synchronisation between multiple existing back-office systems and mobile device applications.

The result, claims the company, is hat organisations will not be constrained by partial, function-specific mobile systems which may not be able to deliver the full enterprise-wide functionality of a dedicated mobile computing solution.

Outlining the typical issues associated with mobile computing, Robert Dent, CEO of 1^st Touch commented, “[Analysts] forecast the widespread and rapid adoption of mobile technology as part of an effective enterprise strategy, [yet] many mobile solutions are only partial answers, with specific vendors focussing on their own functional aspects of the mix.” Dent insisted that mobile workers using 1st Touch technology would be able to perform more tasks during a working day by removing the need to return to a head office for business critical information.

One key feature being highlighted by 1^st Touch is so-called Smart Client technology designed to ensure that a user’s handheld or mobile device is always available but not always on and also enables it to work with or without a signal, transmitting encrypted, secure data in periodic small bursts. 1^st Touch believes that such capabilities will typically reduce communication costs by up to 75 %. Furthermore, it estimates that such savings will help to generate a typical payback time of less than twelve months.

The system enables programming-free solutions to be generated tailored to handheld devices that replicate current working practices without any need for Business Process Mapping. A Field Report Generator allows the PDA or laptop to automatically generate field reports from a single data-capture exercise. The system also incorporates GPS Mapping.

All functionality of the field-based device is controlled, maintained and backed up by a back-office administration suite. The administration functions are also accessible via a web browser; enabling management to view data anytime, anywhere.