CS3000 Series of 1D laser scanner has been introduced by Schaumburg , The Enterprise Mobility Solutions division of Motorola, Inc. This compact, two button scanning device is a great choice for mobile workers, who require essential bar code scanning capabilities for various mobile applications. The sophisticated data capture solution of Motorola allows mobile task workers to attain new levels of productivity. This handy 1D scanner provides the best scanning power in the palm of your hand in an economical manner.
Motorola’s CS3000 series helps mobile task workers in retail, facilities management, direct store delivery and supply chain to overcome the challenges in giving great levels of productivity. This easy to use device offers excellent scanning performance. For instance, an employee working in custody section can scan bar codes on entry doors and any other locations and document the exact completion of activities. The manufacturers and distributors can use CS3000 series to scan inventory to automate order processing.
In today’s modern world, mobility is indispensable for getting success. Al Quinn, the Vice President and General Manager of advanced data capture, Motorola, specified that the company continues to improve its scanning portfolio, so that it can meet the growing needs of a wide range of customers belonging to various fields. The latest CS3000 Series satisfies the need of mobile workers, who need to make use of scanning technology at anytime and from anywhere they want. The device brings a new level of efficiency and portability to mobile scanning.
The CS3000 series is available in Batch and Bluetooth models. It is priced reasonable. It is compact in size and fits in a pocket comfortably. You can also carry it on a lanyard for convenient access. It can be used in individual mode for scanning bar codes in batch. However, the CS 3070 allows both group and synchronized data transmission to any host application through a wireless Bluetooth connection to laptops, Smartphones and any other electronic devices. It has an easy to use two-button interface, which can be operated by anyone with little or no training. This in turn reduces the total cost of ownership and cost of improving productivity.
The CS3000 series comes with numerous other features like highly intuitive two button interface enabling effortless scanning, large memory capacity that enables workers to capture one than a million bar codes, ergonomic design that helps to complete scan intensive tasks and durability. IP40 seal and the capability to resist drops and tumbles and long battery life assuring great scanning performance per charge are some other useful features of this device.
The CS3000 series scanning device can provide peak performance, if you get the service from the Start Advantage Enterprise Mobility Support. This is highly recommended by Motorola Enterprise Mobility Services. It gives replacement of devices that require repair in the next business day and this helps to reduce downtime. Built-in comprehensive coverage capability of the CS3000 series protects the device from normal wear and tear. It prevents damages to internal and external components, in case of accidental breakages. Unexpected repair expenses are minimized significantly, so you can get ultimate peace of mind.
Motorola and partners of Motorola –Partner Empower sell the CS3000 series at present.
Microsoft will release new mobile Operating system based on Windows Mobile 6.5 for enterprise devices soon. This will be followed by Windows Phone 7, which will be released in 2011. The chief executive of Microsoft Steve Ballmer announced that a new Motorola enterprise Smartphone will be launched quickly. He also said that they will release a new Operating System called Windows Embedded Handheld after July 2011. The new handheld device will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 technologies. A version of Windows embedded handheld based on Windows Phone 7 technology will also be released.
Microsoft will work for enterprises to transfer their line of business applications to its new application platform for Windows Phone 7 in the meantime. Ballmer made these announcements at the launch of the Motorola ES400, a handheld designed especially for business on the basis of Windows Mobile 6.5.3 technology. They will be sold through the enterprise channels of Sprint. Gene Delaney, the President of Motorola’s enterprise mobile solutions insists that it is crucial for all corporate IT managers to know about the future plans of the Microsoft.
Motorola’s ES400 meets the specific requirements of large businesses. The EDA devices provided by Motorola are produced by a more special part of the business than the consumer phones. The consumer Motorola has gone with the Operating System of Google’s Android, whereas the enterprise unit remains to be committed to Microsoft Operating Systems. Motorola’s Chief executive Greg Brown said that the company look forward the ways to give a new Microsoft mobile OS to the next generation. It continues to be the esteemed partner of Microsoft and helps it to evolve the latter’s platform strategy. Ballmer expresses his confidence that the company will maintain an ongoing partnership with Motorola.
The cost of EDA per unit is little bit more, but they are very strong and packed with enterprise friendly features like line of business applications and IT manageability. For instance, the camera on the ES400 is located in the middle of the back. It includes a red LED, which allows you to focus it for scanning. It has a dedicated button that activates a barcode scanner effortlessly. The average consumer handheld does not have such features
The ES400 has an enterprise user interface, which is a gripping version of Windows Mobile 6.5.3. The home screen of ES400 reverberate Windows Phone 7 with some features. Its live icons in a bold, colored grid show alerts and messages in a Windows Phone 7 type font. You will find a main application menu organized into a large grid and Windows Mobile 6.5.
Though ES400 looks like a consumer producer, it has various excellent features. Its ruggedness and security would exceed your expectations for an enterprise type product. It runs on an ARM11 processor on 600 MHz’s. The ES400 provides excellent support to CDMA EVDO of Sprint, HSPA of GSM and Wi-Fi 802.1. It supports the extraordinary high speed Wi-Fi variant, which is used by some large businesses. Every part of this product, including its keyboard is strong and this makes it possible to prevent failure rates. This in turn saves nearly $500 per device for companies over three years. The device also has a fingerprint reader on its back.
The three-inch touch screen of this phone featuring 640 by 480 pixels uses the Pentile arrangement. It features an additional dedicated white pixel that uses less sub pixels, so that you can get best visual resolutions as opposed to normal RGB displays. It provides better brightness and reduced power usage.
Sprint and Motorola proclaim that the ES400 will be launched at the second half of this year. AS EDA devices are normally sold through large volume deals, price may vary according to the number of units ordered and the level of existing business relationships.
Zebra Enterprise Solutions (ZES) is an important division of Zebra Technologies announced that it is going to set off Dart Ultra wideband locating system by September 2010. This device helps to locate the place of workforce and equipment promptly and precisely in potentially dangerous and volatile environment. It works well both in indoor and outdoor locations.
Dart Ultra wide band (UWB) is a new wave in the Sapphire UWB line of products. It offers a common UWB active platform that allows fast and accurate location of workers and equipment. It can be used for operations in the United States, European Union Markets and Canada. It comes with a full set of products, which have been certified by the ATEX Directive in Europe for use in dangerous and unstable indoor and outdoor environments. The UWB products have been specially designed to use them in extreme environments like mining, petrochemical and process manufacturing industries.
Dart UWB is built on the core capabilities of Sapphire UWB RTLS. It is ideal for applications, where locating assets in long range is important. It is priced affordably. The user can reduce the total cost of ownership by getting various helpful features like improved ease of installation, performance, scalability, tag management etc. it can read thousands of small tags within one second, so it is suitable for indoor and outdoor asset management applications in the extreme industrial environments.
Craig Fransen, Product Manager at Zebra Enterprise Solutions expressed his happiness for providing several benefits through Dart UWB to the partners and customers of the company. This product provides seamless UWB performance in terms of environmental robustness, location accuracy and throughput. It offers excellent asset visibility, so that it can be useful in addressing the most difficult and expensive asset management issues.
RFID Global Solution is a partner of Zebra Enterprise Solution employs the latest Sapphire UWB range of products for various applications. It is aiming to expand its markets by using Dart UWB. RFID Global Solution is a leading company in real time visibility solutions. Its partnership with Zebra Enterprise Solutions gives access to integrate RTLS solutions with the help of various active RFID products offered by ZES. It preferred to employ Dart UWB, because of its competence to locate a large number of assets quickly within potentially hazardous and obstructed environments.
Diana Hage, CEO of RFID Global Solution stated that the excellent records of ZES in providing precision location products for decisive applications encourage them to implement Dart UWB. The company continues to expand its customer base and it believes that Dart UWB can offer them with the visibility they need to operate in dangerous environments, in order to locate assets quickly and precisely.
Dart UWB offers constant temperature performance, so it can be used in a wide range of asset management applications without customizing it. It’s new planning and configuration tools enable easy installation, flexibility and scalability.
Bill Walsh, GM of Zebra Enterprise Solutions specified that the latest Dart UWB location technology is a milestone in the development of UWB RLTS capabilities for indoor and outdoor applications. Dart UWB will help ZES to expand its international footprint in supporting its customers’ most challenging asset management requirements. ZES continuously takes efforts to enhance its pioneering location solution portfolio and Dart UWB is one of the most important product lines that extend the gap between the company and its competitors.
Xplore Technologies Corp is a famous manufacturer of rugged tablet PCs. It launched its new iX104C4HD tablet PC recently. Mark Holleran, President and Chief Operating Officer of Xplore specified that Xplore is very happy to launch this iX104C4HD and the company has already been receiving requests for this tablet PC. It can withstand 2 meter drops. This specification is currently unsurpassed by the competitors. Xplore establishes this product as the supreme quality mobile computer on the market, due to its capability to withstand drops.
The iX104C4HD design integrates all the essential features like a flexible user interface having dual mode functionality, Windows 7, indoor or outdoor ALLVue Xtrene display technology and Intel core duo technology. It complies with military standards, so it is ideal for mission critical computing. The dual mode technology accepts both pen and touch input from the user. It withstands 26 operating drops from two meters. AllVue LCD display technology allows the user to view in all lighting conditions. It allows good thermal operating ranges. Its customizable mounting solutions make it ideal for carrying in any type of vehicle. It meets the terms of Military standard 810F.
In today’s world, there is a growing demand for a piece of equipment that can accommodate a wide variety of situations. Hollaren specified that Xplore noticed that some programs require operators to climb in and out of high places with their computers. The iX104C4HD offers an excellent solution to this. It gives assurance to the clients that if the system falls from 2M or less, it can take it up and do the repairing work. If you want to view the operating drop test made by Xplore, you can watch the video by visiting http://www.xploretech.com/whyxplore.html.
Socket Mobile Inc is an innovative supplier of mobile productivity and network connection solutions in Newark city, California. It announced that it has expanded barcode scanner compatibility with Blackberry Smart phones, which include the Curve, Tour, Bold, Pearl and Storm. The Blackberry users can add high volume barcode scanning capabilities effortlessly to their Smartphones.
Industrial-class barcode scanning brought by the CHS Series is available in 1D and 2D scanning option. It is offered in lightweight, pocket size form, for the convenience of the users. It comes with either standard casing or antimicrobial casing. The latter one protects your device against the infestation of harmful bacteria and microbes. This is therefore a great option in the healthcare and hospitality industries.
Socket Mobile provides SocketScan software for free and it allows the CHS to attach to any Blackberry Smartphone through Bluetooth. You can therefore easily integrate it, no matter whether you belong to an IT team or an individual user.
Healthcare industry is the most important area where there are plenty of opportunities to use barcode scanning applications on Smartphones. Manhattan Research provides a report that specifies 64% of health care professionals use Smartphones and this number is estimated to grow by 17% by 2012. The data collection product manager at Socket Mobile Samantha Chu confirms this estimation. The most important barcode scanning applications in health care industry include medication administration, inventory management, patient identification, asset management and documentation.
Most of the health care professionals experience the problem of mobile phone overload. Samantha Chu said that providing a single device to physicians to accomplish more tasks easily and quickly can help them to be more effective in providing sufficient care to their patients. Blackberry is the best Smartphone choice for health care professionals as well as home care providers today. The CHS series allows them to work seamlessly. They can integrate 1D and 2D barcode scanning capabilities effectively and economically into one device, which they are using already on a regular basis.
RIM demonstrated the CHS and Blackberry live from July 12 to 16, 2010 at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego at the San Diego Convention Center. It also participated in the live demonstration at the Syclo Mobile Conference in Chicago on July 14-16.
Socketscan software is available at present for all the 1D versions of the Socket Bluetooth CHS. It will also be made available for all 2D versions, including 7X, 7XRx by the final quarter of 2010. If you want to get a complete list of Blackberry Smartphone models compatible with SocketScan software, you can log on to www.socketmobile.com/blackberry. You can also download the software for your Blackberry.
Do you remember an item without barcode? Barcode has been giving security to many retail and consumer industry. Today it is one of the most important security measure device used for theft. First release of barcode has created history in the industry and surprising that first release itself was so powerful that there is no need of improvement in the barcodes over the years. The appearance and capabilities are still the same when it was introduced many years ago. There is hardly any change in it.
You need to create barcodes through label printers as that is the easiest way of creating barcodes. Initially they used to print the same barcode on the packaging of the product which turned out quite expensive. It is easier for any shop owner to keep track of his stock and further ordering without spending too much time on counting each item became possible. It has given precise way of attending shoplifters.
A new real time supply chain technology system is going to be installed at Sainsbury’s. The multi-million dollar pound investment will be used to monitor food sales taking place every minute. This will also permit immediate updates of delivery schedules, and respond to changes in the buying pattern of customers which could take place in a single day or even in a few ours. This will enable the store management to decide which stores fresh stocks have to be sent to. Better decision making will help in faster movement of goods on sale, and this will help to reduce the stock of unsold foodstuff by at least 15%. Food sales are often affected by external factors like weather change the new system will help to effect corresponding changes in movement of supplies.
Elaborating on this, the supply chain director, Tim Goalen gave the example of filling shelves with barbecue foods on weekends, only to find rain spoiling everyone’s plans for an evening outdoors. The barbecue shelves stay full while warmer foods get wiped off completely with people clamoring for more. The new system will help avoid wastage and avoiding perishable foods from going bad will help to save about 1400 tons of carbondioxide.
Elo TouchSystems, a business division of Tyco Electronics, and a global leader in touch systems, has introduced a new range of Interactive Digital Signage (IDS) touch systems, SID 2010. The purpose behind this launch is to cover opportunities in digital display applications and development. This new IDS portfolio is a combination of precision acoustic pulse recognition touch screen technology and large format LCD panels of commercial grades. It offers a high performance solution for interactive enabling of large scale digital displays in high traffic areas to System Integrators, Software Developers and Value-Added Resellers. Flawlessly Functioning Interactivity.
The IDS portfolio from Elo TouchSystems has the distinction of being the only display system that includes zero-bezel, edge-to-edge glass touch screen technology and makes it into large format rugged panels most appropriate for commercial applications. This distinctive solution yields consistent and tough touch functioning with its acoustic pulse recognition (APR) touch technology. It comes in a tough aluminum chassis that besides being durable also ensures reliable interactivity and performance in all locations permitting public access. Its optional computer modules help to get optimal media bandwidth and interactivity. This helps in delivering consumer content that is both engaging and measurable.
Thus Elo’s IDS portfolio brings features into the digital signage market that were not present before-these include large format, highly durable display screen designed specifically for interactive touch applications. Touch functionality is the new area for consumer engagement and targeted out-of-home messaging. Elo is convinced that IDS will help to drive the evolution of the digital signage market since it will be able to accelerate the adoption of the channel partners and their competitive advantage.
Components using latest technology
The IDS family of Elo TouchSystems has zero-bezel Digital Signage-rated displays (versus home environment panels) in three sizes between 32 t o 46 inches. The advanced panel technology incorporated into the portfolio includes DID technology or the LCD Digital Information Display technology from Samsung Electronics. The advantage of this is that it provides a scratch-resistant, aluminum frame encased solution that can endure constant interactivity in high-traffic and venues with more public access. Its seamless glass design sealed from edge to edge makes it contamination resistant, and prevents dust and moisture from entering. Elo’s APR technology can identify touch on the entire screen surface, the touch being any kind, finger, stylus, pen or prosthetics. This enables a full screen interface navigation and a highly efficient display canvas that will suit every commercial application.
Touch screen technology is becoming increasingly popular with today’s consumers and businesses getting increasingly habituated to touch interfaces on their mobile phones. This is leading to the creation of a vast new class of large scale, out-of-home digital signage for the retail sector. The combination of Samsung’s DID technology and Elo TouchSystem’s IDS solution will revolutionize the digital signage industry.
IDS solutions also include options like high performance computer modules that are meant for interactive media delivery and measurement. These can run on Intel Core 2 Duo processor or Intel Celeron Dual Core processor, and can easily slide behind the touch display into a dedicated bay. The system can also be interoperable with content management servers as well as web based consoles. This will provide seamless internet connectivity, multimedia sharing and electronic point-of-sale. The computer modules will also be able to support optimal partitions of network stored content and locally cached material. This will give developers the flexibility to deploy and monitor content from web connections or from device to device.
Easy to clean and maintain, the IDS family also comes with the facility to lock power and control functions to prevent any tampering. They come with in built speakers and audio expansion capabilities are an asset.
Marks & Spencer, Britain’s leading retail chain, declared a saving of GBP 35 million in the last financial year due to higher efficiency levels achieved in its supply chain. The changes implemented included warehouse consolidation and successful implementation of streamlined efficiency projects. Part of the consolidation exercise including closing down of 21 of its 110 sites. It also involved opening new warehouses with very large storage capacity. A one million square foot warehouse was opened in Bradford, with no cost or time overruns, and a second one is under consideration at Midlands.
This is being considered for being made into a national distribution center and a dedicated e-commerce facility. If current plans are successful, the warehouse will be operational by the summer of 2012. All these changes are part of the system overhaul being undertaken by Marks & Spencer. It spent a total of GBP 194 million on supply chain and technology last year, which is 6 million more than the amount spent the previous year. The stress was on simplifying the supply chain and incorporating a “single touch process” currently under trial in the children’s wear section. This is likely to enhance the pace of movement of goods, reduce lead times and cut on the number of times stock is handled.
Part of the overhaul is the refurbishing of the IT system of Marks & Spencer. Efforts are being made to improve the stock management system so that more accurate real time stock level information can be obtained. By 2011 a new point of sale system will be implemented in all stores. This will yield cost efficiency and a better shopping experience for customers at all outlets. The company is also making SAP its core business system with phase -1 already implemented in the Foods Division, and its implementation is under way in the Merchandise Section.
Marks & Spencer has witnessed a 27 % surge in sales to cross GBP 413 million. Its online clothing segment has outperformed the market with its share increasing from 5.3% to 5.6% during the 52 weeks ending 28th march. The site saw an increase in traffic to the tune of 30% as well.
Consolidation of the company’s shopping channels is making Marks & Spencer a seamless multi-channel business that ensures the same high quality of service for its customers worldwide in whichever way they chose to shop. The old in-store ordering system has been replaced by a click-and-collect service called “Shop Your Way”. This enables customers to order merchandise from home or buy at the store and have it delivered at the location of their choice. This service is available at 300 outlets and reach all the stores by year-end. A trial run will be carried at a few select Simply Food stores as well.
The operating profit for the last one year saw a 1.4% increase to GBP 779.3 million, and a 3.2% increase in sales to GBP9.3 billion. The first quarter of the current year has been satisfactory and the outlook for the coming months would be impacted by the new government budget for the year.
Intermec’s most rugged and advanced mobile computer, the Intermec CN50 has now been upgraded and improved substantially. Enhancements include doubling the existing memory and provision for better scanning options so that customers have more options to choose from, for the configuration of the high performing data and voice communication solutions. The CN50 now has 256 MB of memory which ensures better response and the ability to continue simultaneous applications. These applications include those using a large data base or even those applications that run on RAM based virtual machines.
Another improvement incorporated is flexible deployment of the EA11 1D or 2D area imagers that are meant for scan intensive operations. The option of deploying the EA21 area imager has also been included. The EA21 is meant for reading barcodes and taking images of full page documents with the aid of Intermec’s eMDI software.
The CN50 is being touted as Intermec’s next generation mobile computer since it offers flexibility in I/O options, enhanced 256 MB memory, integrated wireless functionality and a host of other features. This makes it the ideal mobile device with a flawless performance record to meet the requirements of constantly evolving enterprise mobility applications. Areas where 3G cellular networks are not available can use a variant of the CN50 operating over EDGE networks. Its configuration proves to be cost effective for businesses in such regions and a better alternative than using limited data communications requirements.
