IT
Issue No. 64 - April/May 2012
Tablets: rugged beats consumer class
by Stephen Jenkins
I’m sometimes asked to explain why a Rugged Laptop or Tablet PC is better than a sub $1000 device that can be replaced whenever it fails.
In reality it’s not about the device, it’s about having a robust solution with software that makes your business more efficient and knowing what the total cost of the solution will be over many years of use.
Tablet PC solutions offer major efficiency gains. When they fail, the first thing that occurs is your staff can no longer do their jobs as efficiently. With a low cost device failure the next thing that occurs is the IT team gets a support call, sends out a replacement and arranges for the faulty one to be returned. Does all that happen in 10 minutes, 30 minutes or days?
That’s how the low cost device model works - in theory.
All too often the process is a lot more involved than that, with support calls being caused by device variances and configuration changes made by the user, unrepairable devices being discontinued, so you need to support new hardware models with different operating system versions, the application needs to be updated for the new device, so you’ve now got multiple versions out there … and your long-term support costs are rise every year.
Compare this to a Rugged Tablet with 75% less failures per device, continuous model availability for four to five years and spare parts guarantees. It uses the same Windows operating system as a desktop PC and can be remotely managed, controlled and supported by the IT team. ...
