The future is PDAs: Lauren

Lauren Information Technologies is betting its future on PDA-based
ap-plications. This solution provi-ding company has already dep-loyed PDA
applications and provided hardware to several companies in the Indian and
overseas market.

Said Rawlin Pinto, CMD, Lauren, "There is a great scope for PDA-based
applications in the pharma and insurance sec-tor and we have already come up
with a generic application that can be tweaked and used for any pharma
company."

Lauren, which recently intro-duced its portfolio mana-gement software-Networth,
is coming out with the PDA version of this product. It will also launch a CRM
software application for PDAs. Citing an example about the scope of the
solutions, Rawlin recounts how Lauren has deployed a distri-bution mana-gement
appli-cation at 1,800 PDA nodes for Colgate's sto-ckists and sa-lesmen in the
country. Follo-wing a succe-ssful run with this techno-logy, Colgate is now
marke-ting this appli-cation to its counterparts in Malaysia and Philippines.

Pinto said that these appli-cations have to be all pervasive and should work
with hetero-geneous environments to succeed. Lauren makes sure that its products
can work seamlessly with Symbian, Linux, Palm and Pocket PC OS. "Since the
application works on multiple platforms, we have to configure only the last-mile
conduit at the customer site," added Pinto.

Lauren has also developed a PDA-based application for Aventis, which has been
sup-plied to 25 doctors. The deploy-ment is still in the initial stages. Among
other pharmas, Lauren has worked with Pfizer for a test deploy-ment of an
application to 35 people in New Zealand.

It has also worked with AFL for a trace and track sys-tem with Sy-mbian OS.
Here the ap-plication is loaded on a PDA attached to a scanner. Every
consignment is scan-ned and the data is tran-sferred to a central server, so
that the customers and the company officials can keep a track of it.

Some of the applications are also created to work with multiple devices like
laptops, desktops and even mobile phones. "With the mobile tech-nology
catching on, we plan to come out with more mobile-based applications, making
sure that it is shrunk to fit the smaller display screen," stated Pinto.

Another sweetener to creating PDA-based application is the supply of the
hardware, which is inevitably done by Lauren. However, Rawlin insists that he is
not into the hardware part of the business, but coincidentally whenever they
deploy the application the client prefers to buy it from Lauren. "This is
because it is easier for them to go to one company for all their needs," he
explains.

Vinita Suvarna Bhatia

Mumbai