Coca Cola Saves "a ton of money" Using Pocket PC

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.devbuzz.com/content/zinc_visual_ce_pg1.asp">http://www.devbuzz.com/content/zinc_visual_ce_pg1.asp</a><br /><br />A recent article on DEVBUZZ features Coca Cola and how the company developed a sales automation solution for Pocket PC using <a href="http://www.syware.com/prodlib/win_ce/vce/vce.htm">Visual CE from Syware</a>. Given the fact that the next generation mobile development tools from Microsoft are integrated with Visual Studio .NET and thereby no longer free, it is great to see that options do exist at different price points. However, I doubt price of the tools was an issue for Coca Cola. Instead, I believe Syware Visual CE won because of the low thresholds to getting started.<br /><br />"Since suitable off-the-shelf applications were not available, the company needed to develop a customized solution. The task fell to Billy Wang, Business Development Manager for Coca Cola's Southern California division. Utilizing SYWARE's Visual CE, he was able to develop a contact management application for the Pocket PC that interacts with the division's desktop customer management system. Visual CE offers a highly intuitive drag and drop development environment that allows users to create customized forms and databases without previous programming experience. ... "Using Visual CE, we've been able to make that $500 handheld device work like a $4000 PC," says Wang. "With over 80 salespeople in our division alone, you can get an idea of the savings."

[Rirath]

"Using Visual CE, we've been able to make that $500 handheld device work like a $4000 PC," says Wang.

That's quite the PC ya got there. 4k... whew. What on earth could make a PC $4000?

[Mike Temporale]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but since we're talking about coke....

A local morning show had some rep's from Coke on it a couple months back. They talked about the evolution of the vending machine. When the got to 'Today' I was amazed at what the machines could do. The new vending machines have a direct cell connection back to the warehouse. They know as soon as you drop some money into the machine. They can tell at any time the exact amount of pop left in the machine.

They then pulled out a iPAQ, and proceded to show how the delivery driver can use the iPAQ to read the vending machine, and load his dolly up with the exact amount of product before leaving his truck. So it's now just one trip to the machine.

Pretty cool company.

[Chris Spera]

One thing that I found out because I'm writing a review of it for The Gadgeteer, Coke has given iPAQ's and revolv Design's RoadWriter (http://www.revolvedesign.com/roadwriter_info.html) to each of its delivery men/ trucks.

The iPAQ RoadWriter is a permanent mount solution for your PDA. It uses a GoType Keyboard and draws power from your cigarette lighter. In short, this thing is awesome! It works with ALL iPAQ models.


Christopher Spera