Report: Our Workers have PDAs?

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14962' target='_blank'>http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14962</a><br /><br /></div>The Inquirer reports, that a survey commissioned by O2 concludes that "seven per cent of the total workforce are using PDAs without the knowledge of their IT departments. Plus 18 per cent of IT directors haven't a clue as to what their staff were up to in terms of synchronising emails with their PDAs, for example." <br /><br />The headline figure is that 63% of businesses have no mobile strategy, which actually seems on the low side to me. I am surprised that only 18% of IT directors admit to not knowing about PDA usage in their firms. In my experience, PDA usage is widespread and I have been providing PDA support to workers for the last 10 years or so, mainly help with synchronising company email & contacts etc. As most firms have no policy, it has been 'unofficial' IT department support though. Besides – how do they know that 7% don't know about PDA usage? :wink: <br /><br />"The survey confirms that PDAs and smartphones are turning up willy-nilly in business organisations and that 35 per cent of the time the IT department isn't overseeing spending in this sector." They're right about the first part, though I am nervous about an IT department 'overseeing' spending on PDAs. They may want to get me a Palm! :razz: <br /><br />So how may of you guys actually get support from your IT department and how many of you actually support the IT department? :mrgreen:

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I'd say most of the posters on this site would probably prefer that IT not get involved with PDAs. Like you said, they may regulate what device we use or what software we're allowed to install.

On the plus side, we'd get PDAs that are paid by the company, but with all the potential restrictions, I'd probably end up wanting a personal PDA free of corporate limitations.

[hang5lngbd]

Let's face it, this is a geeky site. Chances are that many of us ARE the IT Department and get to set our own rules. But no matter how hard I try, I can't justify the cost for company wide Pocket PCs.
There are a few employees that it made the most since with however. These are the only a few employees that I felt had the computer skills necassary and the need for Pocket PCs and I DO know everything about how they use them. We do have a policy for them. i.e. - they don't sync email etc.

[chunkymonkey75]

Let's face it, this is a geeky site. Chances are that many of us ARE the IT Department and get to set our own rules. But no matter how hard I try, I can't justify the cost for company wide Pocket PCs.
There are a few employees that it made the most since with however. These are the only a few employees that I felt had the computer skills necassary and the need for Pocket PCs and I DO know everything about how they use them. We do have a policy for them. i.e. - they don't sync email etc.

I very much agree with your remarks. I work in IT support myself. I was speaking to the powers that be at my work and they freely admit, "A mobile strategy for us is soo far down our list of priorities, that we'll probably never get to it. With the constant flood of critical patches and etc, we simply do not have time."

It is really starting to get out of hand for us. Back in the Palm Vx days, managers were getting them whether they wanted them or not. Now, managers are telling our users that if they want a PDA they have to buy it themselves. (Axim x3 is our current standard) Of course, IT is expected to support those for free.

We are using Lotus Notes R5 and Easysync 4 (both of which suck). Setting up that configuration is a daunting task for many of our users. And I work with aerospace engineers.

I'm the "PDA Expert" within IT. When I first got one (Palm III) I dismissed them as a toy. Now, after buying my own (iPaq h2215, and a Blackberry) I realize what a huge benefit (and fun ;))one can be. I am trying to make my case now for having a mobile strategy. Everyone agrees that we need one, but no one wants to create one, or allow me the time to do it. There just isn't enough time.

Things have improved much over the last fews months. I think I'm least getting the ball running.

[fireflyrsmr]

at my place it's level dependant. guys who have departments of 1000 and up get blackberrys. I think there is support for everyone else to use a palm. the pocketpc guys are in the cold. I find it not important since I don't have to sync my mail. I'm near my laptop and the lan almost all the time.

[MultiMatt]

In the company I work for (which is a very large one - I will not mention the name), the Pocket PC is not recognized as an approved device, and having ActiveSync on a company computer is technically illegal.
Most users are not given Admin rights to install things, so it requires a creative workaround, but a lot of people do it.

The Palm platform is supported, and that indeed sucks (and does not make sense), because our company is a Microsoft shop...

But our IT dept is one of the most conservative IT departments I have ever experienced. The choose to err on the side of caution...

Matt

[minimage]

Hmm...guess I'm going to have to re-think some more of my assumptions. You see, I'd pretty much felt like most PDA lovers who would go to PDA sites (and participate in forums) would, like me, be part of their companys' IT staff. This is the third time, at least, that I've seen threads that seem to indicate that the case may well be it's "us" (PDA users) "vs" (not implying an antagonistic relationship, but a difference) "them" (tech support).

My department fully supports PalmOS and PPC PDAs and many of us make use of them, ourselves. We have a lot of old IBM WorkPads (Palm III variety) that aren't used anymore. We aren't afraid of them, and if anyone should be, we should, since HIPAA is a very real concern for us. Before I began working off-site, if I saw a request in the database for assistance with a PDA, I'd steal it before another tech could get it. I find it really strange, when I hear about IT departments who refuse to acknowledge the existence and importance of handhelds. At the same time, I can understand how there can be concern about security and liability. Maybe I am all too optimistic in saying that there exist solutions for those kinds of issues.

[Kevin Daly]

I'm in the IT department, but our network and hardware support are handled by an external provider, which is the reason that our iPAQs never get firmware updates and so on because they simply don't do it, and wouldn't understand what you were asking them to do if you suggested that they should. I felt like such a rebel when I installed ActiveSync 3.7.1 on my PC :twisted:
There are a few devices scattered around the IT area, and most of them (especially those in the hands of project managers) function as Paperweights That Go "Beep!".
Evaluating potential uses for devices and also security issues falls within my job as &lt;mumble mumble> but it's much like talking to myself. I tried getting the aforementioned provider interested in some of the possibilities for centralised management and deployment implicit with Windows Mobile 2003...not a sausage.
It's probably not too different when internal IT departments have the responsibility, which is why I think a lot of models of "Enterprise" (even as I write I can picture HP reps genuflecting) deployment of mobile devices amount to little better than wishful thinking. The cases where they will be deployed (with a lot of imaginative and intelligent people in the right places) are where they are being used for a fairly critical task by field staff where the need imposed itself, in which case a lot of the units in demand can be expected to be of the ruggedised type and/or with specialist attachments such as barcode readers and so on.
For the rest, think "Toys for the Executive Who Already Has A Tablet PC He Hasn't Learned How To Switch On".
Oops, I'm succumbing to cynicism and despondency again..."Bad Kevin! Get back in your cellar this minute..."
0X

PS. It's eerie how similar the situation is to the introduction of PCs into the corporate world at a time when mainframes still ruled, programmers were Real Programmers with real beards (irrespective of their gender), the company logo was generally phosphor-burned into the screen of your crappy monitor and you could have any colour you liked as long as it was green (or amber, if you did some serious sucking up).

[Rikostan]

IT department here too. While we do not supply PDAs to our users, if a user buys one we will give them a reasonable amount of support IF it is compatible with their current setup, if not they are SOL. We only have about 250 users though, so it is a lot eaiser then the bigger companies.

[Sven Johannsen]

I'm not 'the'. or in 'the' IT department, but my wife is. (Same company BTW). The official stance is that the company does not support PDAs, but when the regional director can't get the PDA to sync, it seems to be incumbant on the IT staff to help. The PDAs that do exist are personal items, including the Director's. In this case there are a good number of Palms scattered around, but some of the very senior folks have iPAQs (yes, I had something to do with that). When they have problems, my wife normally turns to me to help out. First, she is damned busy, second I do have a bit better grasp of PPCs, and last.. face time with the boss's, boss's, boss's, boss, when you are helping him out, never hurts.

[Jonathan1]

Palms are the defacto standard in my office. We don't allow wireless in the office so that cool feature is pointless. We don't sync mail to these PDA's. (We do support BlackBerry for those that need their mail on the road.) The only items that are synced are Calendar, Contacts, memo using Lotus Easysync. Palm's Hotsync software is really so simplistic that it hardly ever fails. Compare that to Activestink. For those in the office there, IMHO, seems to be more handholding that needs to be done with Pocket PC's when it comes to syncing. Activestink isn't as bulletproof as Hotsync and is the primary reason we still use Palm for over 90% of our office.
All told we have 6 Pocket PC’s in the office 4 HP, and 2 Dell. I’ve been to all 6 in the last year to try and figure out why something stopped working. The Palm users? Typically Install hotsync, create a local replica of their notes inbox, install easysync, set it to sync locally and I’m done. Very infrequently do I ever have to go back to a Palm user. Typically its only when they are installing funky software that dicks around with their PDA and creates instabilities is when the fhit hit the shan.

Since I know how to support myself I don’t have problems using a Pocket PC but I honestly wouldn’t recommend using Pocket PC’s in the workplace until Microsoft does something with Activestink and even then it would be a careful recommendation. The Pocket PC, IMHO, is in the Windows 89 stage of development. It works but from time to time you get some REALLY funky quirks. When MS gets to the Windows 2000/XP stage then we will start talking.

*shrugs* Your results may very. That's just how I view things in Pocket PC land right now. From a functionality standpoint there is no equal to Pocket PC. But sometimes bells and whistles in an OS just aren't enough. :)

EDIT-LOL. What is it with me and always getting the #1 on page 2 post. :)

[baker]

Two years ago my company (large) standardized on the pocketpc and blackberry and have picked the devices they will supply (charged back to your department) and support. Mainly those up the food chain have a ppc or a blackberry device. We use Lotus Notes and the syncing option they have chosen has proven to be OK from others I've spoken with, but it doesn't appear to be as good as mNotes. Since my department doesn't "supply" the budget for a ppc, I'm on my own. Using mNotes isn't supported and it really isn't supposed to be on my company laptop. Local IT knows I have it and they're fine with me using it so far. I have engineering design manuals, several work spreadsheets, procedures lists, etc on an SD card. Some docs are tough to get around on, but I have nearly all of the information I need when in the field. My only regret is that folks call me all of the time with questions. The answer is usually on my ppc. Folks now think I am smart. The truth is that I can only read and punch the right thing on the ppc. I've maxed out my 32 meg device and with the native screen rotation here now, I will somehow have to find some money to upgrade. I've been using GPS on the laptop when working in unfamilar parts (they're using me as a test case), so maybe there's hope for a "budgeted" ppc. :wink:

[juni]

We are a bit strange in that way, the only pdas we support are pocket pcs, and specifically HP devices. We give support whenever we can (not all IT department people know these devices themselves).

[allenalb]

my job just banned PDA's a week ago as a potential security risk :evil: so i was forced to copy my 20+ logins to a 3x5 memo book wich i am sure to lose... :lol:

[dazz]

At the last company I worked for I kept on trying to convince the owner that mobile tech was important to growing the business. I explained that by offering PDA's to employees they are more likely to do work beyond the 9-to -5 and to do while during down time such as waiting for meetings or travelling.

I didn't realize that my arguments were falling on deaf ears (I was lulled by the nodding head). Turns out he was WAY too paranoid to allow company info outside the office. :roll:

I can tell you that almost all of the info that might have been taken offsite with a PDA was certainly not so crucial that corporate spys would have been following us around waiting for an opportunity to nab the PDA. In most situations a simple password is enough to keep others out of the device.

What companies don't seem to understand is that by implementing policies for mobile tech and encouraging it's proper use, employees can become more effective and productive.

Now I am on the other side of the desk. I am working for a PDA software company and often have to explain why mobile tech is beneficial; not always, but too regularly.

Darren

[dollardr]

I manage an IT department and historically we've "unofficially" supported different PDA's by installing Intellisync to synchronize with GroupWise. Other problems were pretty much left up to the users, especially if they installed some type of application on their own.

We now have a couple of wireless applications and the only devices we support for these applications are iPAQ's or Dells as we have tested them with 802.1x and PEAP. I sense that most of our users are switching from Palms to PPC due to the limited wireless options anyways.

[TJMurphy]

Personally I wouldn't trust our IT department to properly configure an 8 digit calculator. The thought of leaving them to support my iPaq does not appeal!
Seems to me to be a constant battle to get anything working the way I want it. Of course I could just be bitter and twisted!

[Steven Cedrone]

I work for the IT department for a very large company. Palm was the standard for the logest time. We just finished rolling out ExtendConnect so that we could get rid of Palm Desktop and sync with Exchange (this all took place less than 3 months aga). Now as of next month, all Palms will be removed from the environment. :roll: Why, because they are just not secure enough. Pocket PC is currently being evaluated, but right now the only supported PDA is Blackberry...

Personally I wouldn't trust our IT department to properly configure an 8 digit calculator. The thought of leaving them to support my iPaq does not appeal!

Where I work, the ones that usually say this, are the ones that cause the most problems and require the most attention. When they break something, they really break it! When a "normal" user breaks something, they stop and call the help desk. When one of these "I know what I'm doing" users break something, they hack around trying to fix it, really muck things up, then call the help desk. Of course, they also "neglect" to tell those poor folks what it is they attempted to do to "correct" the problem...

Steve

[TJMurphy]

Personally I wouldn't trust our IT department to properly configure an 8 digit calculator. The thought of leaving them to support my iPaq does not appeal!

Where I work, the ones that usually say this, are the ones that cause the most problems and require the most attention. When they break something, they really break it! When a "normal" user breaks something, they stop and call the help desk. When one of these "I know what I'm doing" users break something, they hack around trying to fix it, really muck things up, then call the help desk. Of course, they also "neglect" to tell those poor folks what it is they attempted to do to "correct" the problem...

Steve
I wouldn't dispute that in a lot of cases at all. And it was only a personal comment. Based on my experience I'm running about 10 - 1 up on our IT department :D

[D.psi]

I don't work in IT, and have received no support for my various handheld devices. Though I used to sync my device at work, I can no longer do so with my Ipaq 2210, since I don't have USB (don't feel like splurging on a serial sync cable).

I have installed a couple of versions of activeSync for my previous Jornadas, and have not, to date, put in a service call. I configure my handheld at home, and only sync appointments, notes, and contacts at work. From time to time, I'll upload a small word file from my device to my desktop.

A new security policy at work has me wondering if I will continue to bring my (personal) device in or not, as the company reserves the right to seize any electronic device they choose. Cameras have been baned since I've started working here (10yrs ago), so the latest camera phones, etc. are just plain out. Wireless hand helds would scare the bejeesus out of our security department.

D.psi

[Talldog]

Personally I wouldn't trust our IT department to properly configure an 8 digit calculator. The thought of leaving them to support my iPaq does not appeal!

Where I work, the ones that usually say this, are the ones that cause the most problems and require the most attention. When they break something, they really break it! When a "normal" user breaks something, they stop and call the help desk. When one of these "I know what I'm doing" users break something, they hack around trying to fix it, really muck things up, then call the help desk. Of course, they also "neglect" to tell those poor folks what it is they attempted to do to "correct" the problem...

Steve
Jeez, isn't that the truth. I know I shouldn't pre-judge (and I'm not pre-judging TJMurphy), but the more adamant someone is in informing me that "I know what I'm doing", the more I figure that he (or she) is clueless. And it's a fact that the folks who insist that they should be allowed to violate company standards because they don't need IT's support are the first ones to call the help desk when they run into trouble, demanding that their non-standard configuration be supported.

[chunkymonkey75]

Personally I wouldn't trust our IT department to properly configure an 8 digit calculator. The thought of leaving them to support my iPaq does not appeal!

Where I work, the ones that usually say this, are the ones that cause the most problems and require the most attention. When they break something, they really break it! When a "normal" user breaks something, they stop and call the help desk. When one of these "I know what I'm doing" users break something, they hack around trying to fix it, really muck things up, then call the help desk. Of course, they also "neglect" to tell those poor folks what it is they attempted to do to "correct" the problem...

Steve

Jeez, isn't that the truth. I know I shouldn't pre-judge (and I'm not pre-judging TJMurphy), but the more adamant someone is in informing me that "I know what I'm doing", the more I figure that he (or she) is clueless. And it's a fact that the folks who insist that they should be allowed to violate company standards because they don't need IT's support are the first ones to call the help desk when they run into trouble, demanding that their non-standard configuration be supported.

You are SOOOO very right on this!

[ctitanic]

Where I work, the ones that usually say this, are the ones that cause the most problems and require the most attention. When they break something, they really break it! When a "normal" user breaks something, they stop and call the help desk. When one of these "I know what I'm doing" users break something, they hack around trying to fix it, really muck things up, then call the help desk. Of course, they also "neglect" to tell those poor folks what it is they attempted to do to "correct" the problem...

Steve

That's my experience.

I manage the IT department of the company I work for and the only support that our department gives PDA owners is the installation of AS or Intellisync. Basically our few PDA owners know how to use their devices.

In our IT department all of us use iPaqs and all of them are synchronized to a database created in VisualCE (www.syware.com) by me where we keep the information needed to logon into any of our computers connected to our network. But this is also can be consider "unofficial" because we paid for our PPCs.

[greenmozart]

I am the IT department where I work for a very small company (47 employees). The culture is more old-school there, though, where people generally view my PPC as a toy rather than a useful tool. I don't think anyone there is ready to adopt a handheld device - they all LOVE having paper appointment books and sticky notes lying around (I sometimes laugh out loud when they tell me how much easier it is for them to just use paper - and then watch them fumble around trying to find that little note they wrote down last week that has their account info on it).

If we were to support handheld devices I would definitely need to maintain some level of control over it, though. The number one cause of problems I face is when people think they know what they are doing and inevitably screw things up. Then, because they are too proud or too ignorant (or both) they don't tell me exactly what they did to screw it up so I have to spend my time trying to troubleshoot a problem that never should have existed in the first place. These support requests don't outnumber the legitimate requests, but the time it takes to solve them is much longer because of the "unknown" factor. Asking an IT staff to support something over which they have no control is like asking state gov't to provide welfare in Uganda. :roll: