Comments on: Mr Lube Goes High Tech – Sort of http://www.mobilejaw.com/thoughts/2008/05/mr-lube-goes-high-tech-sort-of/ Mobile Jaw Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:11:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mike Temporale http://www.mobilejaw.com/thoughts/2008/05/mr-lube-goes-high-tech-sort-of/comment-page-1/#comment-20 Mike Temporale Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:26:17 +0000 http://www.mobilejaw.com/?p=8#comment-20 @Pony99CA - Hey Steve, You make some good points, but to be clear about Intermec; they sell a lot of different devices including the ever popular CN3 running much newer versions of the OS. Also, the issue you mention about loss of power and the loss of data, is not typically a problem with the rugged devices. Intermec, Symbol, Honeywell, etc... all have a part of the file system that is considered "Stable storage" and nothing will be removed from this location in the event of a power failure or even a hard reset. And while the space program may be slow or behind in some area's of technology, they mobile devices they are using run a much newer version of Windows Mobile. Trust me, I've talked with them about the devices and how to manage them. :) I think the biggest reason Mr Lube picked out these devices is the price. @Pony99CA – Hey Steve, You make some good points, but to be clear about Intermec; they sell a lot of different devices including the ever popular CN3 running much newer versions of the OS.

Also, the issue you mention about loss of power and the loss of data, is not typically a problem with the rugged devices. Intermec, Symbol, Honeywell, etc… all have a part of the file system that is considered “Stable storage” and nothing will be removed from this location in the event of a power failure or even a hard reset.

And while the space program may be slow or behind in some area’s of technology, they mobile devices they are using run a much newer version of Windows Mobile. Trust me, I’ve talked with them about the devices and how to manage them. :)

I think the biggest reason Mr Lube picked out these devices is the price.

]]> By: Pony99CA http://www.mobilejaw.com/thoughts/2008/05/mr-lube-goes-high-tech-sort-of/comment-page-1/#comment-17 Pony99CA Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:40:09 +0000 http://www.mobilejaw.com/?p=8#comment-17 I think the answer is two-fold. Intermec cares about speed and reliability. Regarding speed, WM 2003 devices are faster than WM 5 and later devices because all of the information is kept in RAM, not Flash (which is slower). You may ask, what if the battery dies and they lose power? The answer is that they probably don't care. It wouldn't surprise me if any special applications Mr. Lube requires are built into ROM (the GPS Pocket PC company I worked at did this by including the navigation program in ROM so a hard reset wouldn't require software installation). But what about the data? Again, they probably don't care. If the device isn't wireless (and therefore constantly updating a server), I assume they sync after each customer, so it's not likely they'd lose anything. Regarding reliability, WM 2003 has been well proven. Makers of rugged devices tend to lag behind on OS versions because their customers need reliability. They don't want a bug in a new OS cropping up where they have to say "We know about this, and Microsoft is working on a patch." If you've read about the U.S. space program, you may know that their computers were *way* behind state-of-the-art. It's because of the long planning cycle and need for absolute reliability. So why not use WM 2003 SE at least? It should have the speed of WM 2003 and be almost as reliable, right? Again, I think the answer is simple. The two biggest features in WM 2003 SE were VGA support and landscape support. If that's a QVGA device, the former is unnecessary, and just looking at the device lets you know that landscape mode would be counterproductive. The other major WM 2003 SE items (single-column Pocket Internet Explorer mode, Transcriber shortcuts and WPA WiFi encryption) probably aren't that important, either. If WPA encryption is important, I assume Intermec included WiFi drivers that supported it. Steve I think the answer is two-fold. Intermec cares about speed and reliability.

Regarding speed, WM 2003 devices are faster than WM 5 and later devices because all of the information is kept in RAM, not Flash (which is slower).

You may ask, what if the battery dies and they lose power? The answer is that they probably don’t care. It wouldn’t surprise me if any special applications Mr. Lube requires are built into ROM (the GPS Pocket PC company I worked at did this by including the navigation program in ROM so a hard reset wouldn’t require software installation).

But what about the data? Again, they probably don’t care. If the device isn’t wireless (and therefore constantly updating a server), I assume they sync after each customer, so it’s not likely they’d lose anything.

Regarding reliability, WM 2003 has been well proven. Makers of rugged devices tend to lag behind on OS versions because their customers need reliability. They don’t want a bug in a new OS cropping up where they have to say “We know about this, and Microsoft is working on a patch.”

If you’ve read about the U.S. space program, you may know that their computers were *way* behind state-of-the-art. It’s because of the long planning cycle and need for absolute reliability.

So why not use WM 2003 SE at least? It should have the speed of WM 2003 and be almost as reliable, right?

Again, I think the answer is simple. The two biggest features in WM 2003 SE were VGA support and landscape support. If that’s a QVGA device, the former is unnecessary, and just looking at the device lets you know that landscape mode would be counterproductive.

The other major WM 2003 SE items (single-column Pocket Internet Explorer mode, Transcriber shortcuts and WPA WiFi encryption) probably aren’t that important, either. If WPA encryption is important, I assume Intermec included WiFi drivers that supported it.

Steve

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