February 9, 2005

HP's Mobile Solutions - a Perfect Start for Your Business

At HP's 2 Feb 2005 mobile initiative announcement, Ted Clark, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Computing said that HP wants to reclaim the No. 1 position in the notebook market. With this in mind, HP set out to launch a full array of new notebook computers and new iPaq hand held computers and solutions.

HP's new line of notebook computers (10 new notebooks were released) include a "mobile data protection system" which protects the hard disk from data corruption by reducing shock and vibration from everyday use. IBM's "air bag" solution, by the way, protects the notebook if its dropped - beyond what HP is providing. HP's new line of notebooks also have scuff and scratch resistant protection.

The more existing part of HP's plan is their handheld solutions. HP's already popular iPaq offering is going through a massive evolution, including a new product, the iPaq Mobile Messenger which integrates wireless voice, keyboard, high-speed data networking (4x faster than dial up) and GPS navigation into one device. Under this umbrella, HP is also launching:

- a hosted Microsoft Exchange Solution (competing directly with long time providers such as MI8)
- updated mobile printing for Pocket PC software (wireless printing from hand held PCs to a variety of HP and non-HP printers),
- a new mobile forms initiative which will digitize workflow by adopting existing paper forms for mobile use; right now this initiative is with Nokia and I hope that HP expands it to include other vendors as well.

What does this mean for your business? When you are looking for a mobile technology solution it's important to not just consider the basics like can I get email or not, but to make your mobile solution a strategic part of your entire business processes. Enabling sales staff to access and fill out forms via their handheld devices, making it easy for them to print right from their devices and full access their office environment.

HP's initiatives go beyond, just the hardware, but are working to provide a full suite of solutions. If you just want some mobile devices, you might find the cheapest ones from Dell, but if you want a mobile SOLUTION you should highly consider HP and a mobile technology consultant.

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