Surround Technologies Launches Pocket PC Application

BLOOMFIELD, NJ – April 19, 2005 – Envision this: You are a sales representative meeting a client at a restaurant. You’re about to close a major deal, and your client asks you to show them a product you had not anticipated. You do not have any printed product brochures with you, and you forgot to download the latest electronic marketing materials onto your laptop before leaving the office. What do you do?

Thinking fast, you pull out your Pocket PC, and by remotely accessing your home office’s central database, you are able to display the most recent product information the client is requesting. It’s a done deal!

This is the world Surround Technologies, LLC, envisions, and it is one step closer to making it a financially feasible reality with the Pocket PC Remote Prize Registration application, which it debuted at the LANSA User Conference, held April 24 – 28 in Orlando, Florida, at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal.

Using Surround Technologies’ application, built in LANSA 2005, conference attendees could register for prizes using a traditional PC or a Pocket PC. The information entered remotely was served directly through a Windows secure server to an iSeries server, located in New Jersey. The information was automatically validated and entered into Surround Technologies’ Contact Management System. An email was automatically sent from the iSeries to the registrant, and a Visual LANSA-based print server located at Surround Technologies’ showcase table printed the registry entry, which was then handed to the registrant.

"With the Pocket PCs, we were able to let attendees register any time during the conference,” said Lee Paul, Founding President of Surround Technologies. “We were not limited to just the showcase hours. We had people registering all during the conference, during the evening social events, and while we were hanging out with attendees after the conference let out for the day. This type of technology is being used by many companies already, but it is typically a very costly venture. By using LANSA 2005, the Prize Registration system we put together took less than a day to build and link into our back end systems."

Both Paul and his vice president of product development, Derek Maciak, had their new Audiovox XV6600 Pocket PCs available for attendees to use for registration. Attendees also could use one of two laptops set up at the booth, or they could use their own Pocket PCs.

Once in the system, the registrant information could be viewed and edited through the Surround Technologies Contact Management System by using a Web Browser or a rich Windows client. If the registrant requested product demonstrations or additional information, follow up tasks could be assigned through the Contact Management System.

“People really liked using the Pocket PC, and they thought the user interface we created was very simple and intuitive,” Maciak said. “Some people found the amount of information that you can view in the small screen a bit limiting at first, but they were quickly able to adapt thanks to the easy-to-use interface we had provided.”

Registrants were then randomly picked as instant winners for prizes. Approximately one in every five registrants was an instant winner of a Surround Technologies mug, shirt or hat. Registrants also were given a number and entered into the main drawing for a large Radio-Controlled Hummer H3.

"This whole prize registration process simulates so many real world scenarios,” Paul said, musing on its possibilities. “It could be a sales agent entering an order using their Pocket PC while on the road. The order would be entered directly into the company’s enterprise system and validated. Then, instant confirmation would be sent back that the order was entered. An email confirmation would be sent for future reference. The order would be printed in the back office, and the fulfillment process would have been started, all before the sales representative even left the client site.”

Other scenarios Paul envisions for this technology include a store employee checking and ordering inventory directly in the store aisles; a hotel front desk clerk checking in guests backed up in line; and a police officer validating suspects’ identifications right on the street.

“The uses are unlimited for this kind of technology,” Paul said.

Congratulations to all the instant winners at the LANSA User Conference, and especially to Maribel Cliatt, the lucky winner of the Radio-Controlled Hummer H3.

Below are screen prints from the Surround Technologies Pocket PC Remote Prize Registration application, built in LANSA 2005. The first image is a print of the registration screen as seen on a laptop or PC, and the picture on the right is a print of the same screen as seen on a Pocket PC.

###