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The Future In the Palm of Your
Hand Just about the time you get used to your trusty notebook PC, a whole new range of smaller devices are making their way into the meeting planning arena. They come in a wide range of types and shapes (Palms, PocketPCs, Blackberry pagers, internet-enabled cell phones and several others), but the common theme is they bring a vast increase in portability to many of your meeting and hospitality data tasks. This article covers the range of ultra-portable computing and communication tools (personal digital assistants or PDAs for short) specifically focusing the meetings and hospitality industry. The PalmThe Palm (offered by 3com, IBM and Handspring) is a comparatively low-tech device typically with low processing speed (33MHz), low memory (2-8Mb) and low resolution (190x190 pixels) in monochrome. Even with these limitations there are numerous products that are developing in the meeting planning area. EventCentric (www.eventcentric.com) and TeamTech (www.teamtech.com) can replace many paper-based products and procedures at meetings: registration forms, programs, exhibit product directories, message centers, exhibit floor plans, daily show news, lead retrieval, and local area information. This information can be beamed (passed from another Palm device via infrared light rather than using cables) at meetings or from a web site. Other Palm applications in the meetings and hospitality field include: www.i-tinerary.com for real-time wireless airline reservations and changes, www.pertlink.net billing itself as a “hotel in your hand” provides hotel guests hotel information, city guides, comment cards, e-coupons for specials in the hotel outlets, and feedback forms. The OperaPalm by www.fidelio.com is rolling out a wireless check-in device at many Wyndham hotels allowing hotel guests with reservations to check-in with the bellman and proceed directly to their room. The “greeter” uses the OperaPalm to check the reservation, wirelessly verify the credit card, and wirelessly print out the key. The front desk is entirely skipped providing faster and better service to the guests. The PocketPC The PocketPC offered by Compaq, HP, and Cassio and others represents a significant step up from the Palm in functionality. Typically, they are faster (70-206MHz), have more memory (16-32MB) and more resolution (320x240) usually in color. They provide simplified versions of Word, Excel, MSMoney, Pocket IE, Outlook as well as multimedia options including a built-in microphone, stereo headphones and media files for MP3 and other audio files. While the Palm has been described as a method to eliminate the Daytimer and other paper, the PocketPC is trying to eliminate the need to carry around a notebook computer. For this substantially great capability, there are tradeoffs. They are thicker, heavier, have a shorter battery life (daily charging as opposed to more than 3 weeks on normal use for a Palm), and are also about twice as expensive as many Palm devices. Not as many companies are working in this area. One of the emerging players is OpenGrid (www.opengrid.com) providing a range of portable products for the Palm, the PocketPC and for WAP-enabled phones (see next section). Included in their product designed for meetings and tradeshows is a real-time polling device, two-way wireless messaging using a Outlook type of interface, and much many similar features as described above with EventCentric and TeamTech. The WAP-enabled phoneThe major challenge with Palms and PocketPCs is that not many people are carrying them around (less than 25% in many business settings). As the saturation is not high, the ability to network and communicate to a large group is limited. This is not the case with cell phones -- nearly everyone in the business setting has one. WAP-enabled phones (wireless application protocol) and phones with other emerging standards allow email, data, and an increasing rich communication stream. What cell phones lack in a small, low-resolution screen and very limited inputting capability (a numeric keypad that makes words laborious to send) they make up for in ubiquity. These phones are becoming increasingly capable of data transmission, text messaging, and instant messaging capability. Senada (www.senada.com) and SeeUThere.com (www.seeuthere.com), for example, have meeting invitation products allowing cell phones to be used to set up meeting invitations, send them out to a group, allow the invitees to RSVP using their cell phone text screen, choose their menu selections, and send text comments back. Airomedia (www.airomedia.com) has used cell phones to broadcast the agenda and times for multiple band concerts on multiple stages. The same could be done for multiple speakers in multiple meeting rooms. They are also developing options to use phones for food/beverage coupons, wireless voting, meeting reminders, e-commerce capabilities and more. OpenGrid is developing similar options. The FutureThe near future will see the merging of cell phones and PDA. Already, Sprint is offering a phone made by Kyocera where the keypad folds down to reveal an integrated scaled-down Palm device incorporating the best features of both. Motorola offers the Accompli 009 that is the convergence of the cell phone, a Blackberry-like pager with built-in alpha keypad, and a color PDA. As these products continue to develop, greater capabilities will be afforded to meeting planners looking for onsite technology help. In three to four years in the U.S. (and sooner in the rest of the world), 3G – short for 3rd generation – wireless phone products will make all of the products mentioned above seem so last century. This “cell phone on steroids” will have high-bandwidth Internet access at several times the rate of our current telephone modems. Two way video conference calls will likely become as easy to make and probably as cheap as a telephone calls are today. And that is just a start. Geo-positioning, micro-payments and worldwide accessibility among many other features have the potential to transform the world as we know it. 3G could have as strong of an impact as the Internet or the invention of the PC. A 3G product will be able to handle all of the product features listed in this article and much more with ease. Wireless registration, audience polling, videoconferencing, and lead retrieval would be just a few of the options available. In the meantime, the Palms, PocketPCs and cell phones, or a combination of them all, will increasing offer assistance to meeting planners, attendees, exhibitors, and hoteliers in increasing the communication flow and further digitizing the business process. If you find this article helpful, please let me know by signing the Guest Book in the Contact Corbin Section.. |
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