PDAs shed elitist image

Find use in spot billing by KSEB employees, and in taking orders at
restaurant in Thiruvananthapuram

"I am used to working only with ambitious business executives on the
move and IT professionals. Our breed is fortunate in having worked for several
business magnates. Those who used my ancestor digital diaries and dumped them
later are now happy that they now have some one who also connects easily to an
Internet and PC. Now I am being told that even common people with no or a little
computer knowledge will start using me for applications that will ultimately
benefit common man"- excerpts from the autobiography of a Personal Digital
Assistant (PDA).

PDA are now shedding their elitist role and coming down to earth. Taking the
first step towards this direction, Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) will
deploy PDA for spot billing on a pilot basis in Thiruvana-nthapuram. A senior
official in charge of KSEB said that the deployment of PDAs would lead to
efficiency in billing, minimize errors and provide better service to customers.

A large number of PCs now used at the backend for enter-ing energy
consumption data and other relevant information can be replaced. Data collected
by spot billing clerks can be fed directly into the computer system of KSEB
without any manual intervention.

Moreover, labor involved in entering the data can also be saved. Once the
pilot project is found successful, the electri-city board would require 1,800
PDAs with printer attached for implementing this citizen friendly project
throughout the state.

How it works?

Each day the spot billing clerk downloads customer data on his PDA before he
goes for field visit. He can visit the customer site and check the customer
details like the last meter reading by touch of stylus. He can enter the current
meter reading using numeric pad or download the data using IR receiver available
in PDA (if the energy meter support IR). The system will immediately prepare the
bill and print the bill. The operator can then come back to office and upload
the data back to bill server for updating the bill records.

"Many government organi-zations and private enterprises are now in favor
of deploying PDA based applications. Public utilities in Karnataka, Delhi,
Gujarat, Tamilnadu have all ta-ken the lead in such innovative applications for
citizen-frien-dliness," according to Apt Mic-rosolutions Pvt Ltd marketing
director R Radhakrishnan. Apt is a Kerala-based IT firm which is implementing
the pilot PDA project for KSEB.

Captains in a vegetarian restaurant in Thiruvanantha-puram will no longer use
the pen and pad for taking orders from customers. Here again it is the PDA that
is going to provide a high-tech face. "PDAs will help provide better
service to customers, a bill can be prepared immediately on taking the order and
list of food items ordered can be immediately be handed over to the kitchen
staff," according to Swagath Hotels MD MR Narayanan.

He feels that in the long run the cost involved in deploying PDAs can be
offset by better efficiency in accounting and saving the labor of two employees
involved in entering the bill data. Accounts can be tallied on a day-to-day
basis and malpractices by the staff can be avoided.

The list of such potential applications of benefit to common man is endless.
App-lications that run on standard PDA's have several advantages. PDA being a
standard device, it enables flexibility and utility in customization. Program
modification is easy as in a PC.

The conventional view of computerization was that it required the deployment
of large number of PCs and cus-tom-made devices.

Deployment of custom-made handheld devices invol-ves risks that could hamper
the efficiency of a project. The classic case was that of the failure of
ticketing machines in public transport buses that were implemented in some
states including Kerala, Tamil-nadu and Karnataka.

Some companies who pro-vided ticketing machines could not provide the
req-uisite service support vital for the success of the project. Since, the
devices were designed by the concerned companies there was little that the
transport corpora-tion or third-party service providers could do to rectify the
problems.

In this scenario, a PDA-based solution looks more acceptable to utilities
thanks to the wide range of such devices to choose from, it's universal
availability, cost-effectiveness and service backup. "Unlike the PDA tech-nology,
the micro-controller based hand-held ticketing machines were indigenously
developed for billing applica-tions. It has also been deployed in petrol pumps
and retail outlets. For such companies to become viable and provide better
service the market for hand-helds need to expand," according to Softland
India Pvt Ltd MD G Murali. Softland had won the innovative product award at IT
Kerala 2002 for developing the ticketing machine.

BSNL Cellone had a pro-blem with bill collections in Kerala as its server was
located in Trichy (Tamilnadu) and slow speed and connectivity caused problems
for the customers. It was in this scenario that BSNL took up pilot project for
installation of offline terminals with barcode readers for payment collection
and data transfer. This ensured that even when the server link was down and
power supply went off the billing counters could collect bills without
interruption. Ten such micro-controller based application terminals have been
used in Thiruvanantha-puram and Ernakulam for a year, according to BSNL Cellone
deputy GM (finance) D Manoj.

Years back, BSNL set the trend in non-PC based applica-tions for billing when
it utilized GRAMIT, an offline device for accepting basic telephony bills. Such
applications were also used in post offices.

Many small and medium hardware and software com-panies stand to gain out of
increase usage of PDAs, as demand for customized appli-cations would increase,
accor-ding to principal consultant of KRAN Software International K Prashanth.
KRAN is a Thiru-vananthapuram based firm that had developed solutions on thin
clients, PDAs and hand-held devices.

PDAs and micro-controller handheld devices are in an evolutionary phase. Many
state governments continue to take up e-governance projects on a case to case
basis as no com-prehensive policy has been developed so far while it may not be
the case with large ente-rprises led by CIO's. Organiza-tions both large and
small need to understand that even if a PC or server is at the heart of a
computerized system, many non-PC devices could be used for supplementary roles
and ensure huge cost savings and efficiency in the long run.

R Sreekumar (CyberMedia News)