Disney's Take on Employees Using PDAs?

[Wishful]

I thought it looked interesting...

From rim.road.com, a PDA focused site (I'm not affiliated with them, I just read their articles):

Disney Lays Down Anti-Palm PDA Policy by Gretchen Hyman
December 11, 2002



Palm OS users might see the Mouseketeer more as a Scrooge.

Walt Disney Co. (Quote, Company Info) earlier this week posted an internal memo clearly stating its company policy on personal digital assistants (PDAs)...

In a broad-stroke policy, Disney management made it clear that only Blackberry (Quote, Company Info) PDAs and Compaq (Quote, Company Info) IPAQs will receive network support and connectivity.

Moderator's note: I deleted most of this article because it is against our community policies to copy and past copyright protected material, except for a brief quote. Please feel free to post a link on this thread to the entire article. Adrienne K

[Sheila]

I don't doubt and I certainly do not blame Disney for only allowing BlackBerries and Compaqs. I am certainly surprised that Palm OS PDAs will not be supported -- that's probably the most prevalent PDA software out there.

On the time entry software program that I work on, we currently only support BlackBerries and Palm Pilots. Even with just two platforms to program for, the amount of development time it takes to re-architect your software to match each model is very time-consuming.

Even with the BlackBerry, they just recently changed their entire architecture and how the data flows back and forth from the PDA. It's a major headache to have to reconfigure everything just for that one little gadget.

My head hurts just writing this post! :rolleyes:

Sheila

[JeffG]

Originally posted by Sheila
I don't doubt and I certainly do not blame Disney for only allowing BlackBerries and Compaqs. I am certainly surprised that Palm OS PDAs will not be supported -- that's probably the most prevalent PDA software out there.


Keep in mind that Disney has a pretty large deal with HP/Compaq, including sponsorship of shows and attractions at the parks (including Disneyland's fireworks and Epcot's new "Mission Space") as well as sponsorship of all of the Disney websites. It isn't surprising that they would standardize on Compaq's PDAs.

-Jeff

[karl]

Speaking as a handheld software developer, I'll add a few quick thoughts on trends I am seeing....

The PocketPC family (HP/Compaq, Toshiba, Dell) is becoming very strong in the enterprise/corporate market. Microsoft's efforts to build a fully platform-scalable development environment are really making it easy for Information Technology departments to support their employees across a broad range of platforms - server, desktop, tablet, and handheld. Features such as HP's IPAQ 5450 fingerprint security (protects 802.11 access behind the firewall) squarely address this market.

The Palm family (Palm, Sony, Handspring, Handera), mostly through the reliably good efforts of Sony to push the hardware capability, is centered more as a personal information / recreation / small business device, with excellent positioning for application-driven turnkey, and "disposable" use (rental). Low entry price points and products like Sony's NX series with 480x320 screens, MPeg, and built-in cameras are market drivers here.

These are generalizations.

I know (and have worked with) several large corporations using Palm as their primary handheld - and the recent OS 5.0 / StrongArm may really help Palm get into more corporate backyards.

And of course there are many great personal and entertainment apps being developed for PocketPC - lets not forget about coming XScale optimized software, and lower price points with the Dell and HP1910 entries.

Certainly corporate alliances, such as HP/Compaq and Disney will have impact on those decisions.

But also edicts as illustrated in this thread may likely be an effort by Information Technology departments to limit their need to support multiple platforms.

-- Karl

[JeffG]

Originally posted by karl
But also edicts as illustrated in this thread may likely be an effort by Information Technology departments to limit their need to support multiple platforms.


I'm not surprised to see IT departments starting to try and do that, but I also tend to suspect they will ultimately find it to be a losing battle. There is a pretty big difference between PDAs and desktop computers. The fact that the "P" stands for "personal" is going to cause a lot of pushback on these types of IT policies.

Particularly as PDAs and cell-phones increasingly merge, which device and platform is best will largely be based on individual needs and preferences. Very few people are going to be willing to have separate PDAs for business and personal needs. I know that I would be very resistant if my office starts to insist that everyone use a specific type of PDA and it isn't the platform that I prefer.

What ultimately is apt to lose this battle for IT departments, though, is that most people likely won't be looking for company-issued PDAs. Most people are going to want one that they can comfortably use both at work and at home and that can easily come along if/when you move from job to job. In fact, the first PDA that I had actually was one issued by my employer. It only took about 6 months or so before I decided to buy one for myself and turn the company-issued one back in...

-Jeff

[karl]

We may need to draw a distinction between PDA's that employees use for taking notes, phone lists, etc; and PDA's that are designated to run specific enterprise field applications.

For corporations which have no specific field usage for handhelds, except for increasing the productivity of their office workers, I'll agree it may indeed be a losing battle for IT departments to edict support only to specific platforms. The choice may fall to personal preference.

But for corporations that have legitimate field application usage, such as those engaged in distribution, construction, field sales, health, transportation, maintenance, etc, I do see strong rationale to centralize on specific platforms.

I would somewhat disagree that PDA's are far from desktop computers. On many levels this is correct. But many of the field applications being developed for handheld are as sophisticated as many desktop applications (some are full "ports"). In addition, new features such as VGA out and USB Mastering are defining new PDA application categories such as portable presentation.

And I might add that with 400Mhz XScale, ATI graphic coprocessing, built-in 801.11b, SD, CF, and the aforementioned VGA Out and USB master (specs on a Toshiba e740), its getting pretty competitive ... Except that I will absolutely concede I dont see deskbound workers trying to work on miniature device-coupled PDAs... actually that may become the domain of 802.11 - connected Tablets, a hybrid between PDA and desktop, for many organizations.

Ultimately it will be the software and the work requirements that determine both the hardware format and the System OS preference.

Getting slightly more on Topic, certain divisions of Disney may indeed be considering field application usage. I wonder if this may have triggered the RIM / IPAQ policy statement to avoid proliferation of multiple custom / turnkey application standards. That is, it is not directed at employee personal productivity, but at the applications that may be written by the company or its contractors to enhance in-field productivity (in the areas of distribution, maintenance, inventory control, construction, etc.).

-- Karl

It may be dangerous to note that Fossil is coming out with a Palm OS wristwatch this spring :) Ok, its really limited, but its a Palm.

[JeffG]

Originally posted by karl
[B]For corporations which have no specific field usage for handhelds, except for increasing the productivity of their office workers, I'll agree it may indeed be a losing battle for IT departments to edict support only to specific platforms. The choice may fall to personal preference.

But for corporations that have legitimate field application usage, such as those engaged in distribution, construction, field sales, health, transportation, maintenance, etc, I do see strong rationale to centralize on specific platforms.[B]

Excellent point. I was referring to personal-productivity usage (such as note-taking, address-books, calendars, email, etc.) rather than specific, business-related field applications. I definitely agree that companies that are using PDAs for field applications will likely need to mandate a specific platform and, in some cases, even specific brands and models. This will be particularly true if the applications being used are custom-developed for the company, although even off-the-shelf applications could call for this kind of mandate.

I do still think that IT departments will have a hard time mandating specific platforms or brands for office-workers using PDAs for personal productivity applications, though. There are too many personal preferences involved with these things and their portability makes it unlikely that most people will have separate units for work and home use.

-Jeff