Add-solutely fabulous

With the recent expansion of internet and email use, mobile add-onshave finally taken off. Portable PC Products is at the core of it.

For many years, laptop manufacturers have been telling us there is a lot of money to be made from add-on products for the mobile PC. John Nolan and Mike Wellbrook were so convinced of this that in 1989, before they had left the ailing portable PC reseller Packaged Solutions, they set up Portable PC Products (PPCP) to focus on this add-on opportunity. Today, PPCP remains concentrated on the same market. But it has not always gone according to plan.

The laptop market has not developed in the way vendors said it would.

PCMCIA products were initially slow to take off. 'In 1991, everyone thought that within two years they would become a commodity product, but that still hasn't happened,' says Nolan.

Now that the hype has died down, the boom may be about to start. PCMCIA - or PC card products as they are called - are accepted more now than ever before, says Wellbrook. 'People are on the road and working from home, they're away from their desks a lot more.' But resellers are still not making the most of the opportunities. They don't see a high enough ticket value on PC card products and few resellers actively promote them or learn about them in-depth.

Yet there are big deals to be won and competition means that prices have to be keen. There is also a degree of complexity and it takes some effort to keep up with the technological changes. Although it is small, PPCP is an active member of the PCMCIA.

The problem is that too many dealers simply take orders when they supply laptops and fail to realise that specialist knowledge is required to sell PC card products. 'They don't think about it enough,' says Nolan.

'They're quite happy to fulfil orders and fall back on well-known brands every time. I think they rely on customers knowing what's available rather than presenting them with a choice,' adds Wellbrook.

Nolan explains that half the battle with many customers is getting product evaluation units into the business. Even this is something resellers struggle to do - it comes back to an understanding of the products and the market.

'Many dealers take our products into evaluation and bring them back a month later. They tell us the customer doesn't like it or they couldn't get it to work. It is in our interests, therefore, that we get involved and make sure that our products work. Very often it turns out to be something we can solve immediately.'

PC cards are supposed to be plug-and-play, but they aren't. It seems that every manufacturer uses a different card, different socket services, even different controllers. Cards that work in one machine won't work in another. PPCP has to do a lot of legwork when it comes to getting corporate buyers interested. Then it brings in the reseller, which can be either an incumbent supplier or one that PPCP recommends.

Nolan does not feel resellers ought to do this part of their work, though.

He says: 'The average dealer sales person is talking to corporates about network operating systems today, printers tomorrow and software the following day. It doesn't matter how good they are - they can't know it all.'

In many ways it is better that the reseller sells its services and support and leaves the PC card talk to PPCP. It does require specialist knowledge and it can be a long, hard road selling into the corporate sector.

This is where PPCP concentrates its efforts - major implementations where sales people are being equipped with mobile data or remote network links. They are not too interested in selling to the dealers that supply just one or two pieces per customer. What they are interested in is working with sales people in the top 30 resellers that control the corporate market.

Having said that, there are a lot of Vars that are working in vertical markets - in the medical field or in services. If the opportunity is big enough they are happy to get involved.

Corporates need expert help, claims Nolan. 'They waste so many man hours because they have decided what they are going to do and try to keep it to themselves. If they'd just come clean with people like us on what they are trying to achieve, we could save them time by showing what will and won't work. Too often they'll go out and evaluate 10 PCMCIA modems - that's just a waste of time.'

PPCP claims to have a wide knowledge of the market. It can demonstrate products that work first time, and that can be a new experience for many customers, claims Wellbrook. 'Many companies have bad experiences with the technology and don't know what to expect. They need someone to talk to about their portable strategies,' says Nolan. 'Sometimes we'll go and talk to them and they realise there are other areas they need to address.

Once you start to talk to people about other experiences, they can often relate to them and realise there are issues they had not even thought about.'

More often than not, corporate customers find PPCP on the strength of one product or in response to an advert or direct mail. 'Business does come via the dealer channel, but it takes a lot of hard work to get relationships going with resellers,' says Wellbrook. 'We concentrate on the top 30 resellers, as well as the Vars, but to be introduced to a corporate through a dealer you really do need a strong relationship. They're still worried about people working too closely with other dealers.'

But it is via the corporate contact that a productive relationship between the dealer and PPCP starts to develop, according to Wellbrook. 'PPCP sells only through resellers and yet it works with a handful on a regular basis. There are about 10 accounts that call in PPCP's expertise on a regular basis, and we would like to expand that to 20 or 30.'

Some of PPCP's account managers work with two or three dealer businesses and this helps the accounts develop. It can also increase business by getting referrals between branches. Nolan explains: 'We've found that with some of the major resellers, if we are successful with one or two of their branches, they will pass it on to the other sales people.' But it takes time to get the momentum going and part of the problem is getting dealers to ask the right questions - and enough of them.

Few dealers understand the need to gather detailed information about the customer's application of portable technology or about the type of notebook system in use. Nolan says: 'The absence of a Cardbus interface - the new 32-bit implementation of the PC card standard - cuts down on the options available to the user. Cardbus is required to handle 100Mbps ethernet.'

There will be issues the corporate has not thought about and the dealer may not even be aware of. It is the dealer's business to find them out if it is to understand what exactly the customer is trying to do. Are they connecting to a network? Do they have remote requirements? What battery life do they need? How is the laptop being used? Sometimes the corporate has not even thought about such things. In the search for a solution, details are often forgotten. Buyers need to be coaxed into thinking about exactly how the machines will be used, as well as whether users will need to be trained. For example, how to use the modem or remote connections, how to get around simple problems and how to look after their batteries.

'Data backup and security is now a major issue,' says Nolan. 'These days, you can get a laptop with 3Gb on board - that's more than a lot of servers had a year ago. But most users don't think about backup or security. They must consider how valuable their data is if it gets into the wrong hands.'

For networking, the type of cable and exact transmission standard in use will dictate the choice of card to some degree. For remote access you need to know if it's an asynchronous or a synchronous connection - few cards support synchronous connections for 3270 or 5250 terminal emulation. 'For modems, 56Kbps is an issue, and most people don't understand that it's only going to be 56Kbps one-way,' says Nolan. Can the phone connections available cope with the transmission? International operations will need international modems. They have to be properly approved and able to work with standard variations.

ISDN and GSM requirements involve a new set of questions and corporates often don't even consider the options. ISDN is becoming a major driver for major companies.

According to Nolan, three of the top six banks in the UK are currently looking at mobile ISDN projects. 'They are moving people out of the office and into the home. They need the flexibility for teleworking.' But there are potential complications with these technologies. ISDN PC cards won't operate in the same way as a standard terminal adaptor - it can't be adapted as well for the data connection. And data-compatible GSM mobile phones, for example, need to have their Sim processor enabled for data transmission before they can be used with a modem.

Combinations of these technologies and the need to consider future requirements complicates the situation even more, Nolan adds. 'These are questions that have to be asked since the customer isn't necessarily going to think about it. We are trying to educate dealers to ask the right questions. If they do that, and if they get the answers, we can put together a precise solution.' The drawback with add-on products for the portable market is that while they can conceivably add extra turnover and profit for the reseller, they also add to the overall outlay the customer has to make to get the technology in.

Also, there is the added complexity which most users don't like. But Nolan doesn't believe they will not wait until it is all built into the box. 'People are doing it now. The laptop is part of the business solution and it's generally not computer people who are using it in large laptop applications - they are engineers and sales people, it's a business tool.'

In Nolan's opinion, this presents an added opportunity because the machines are being used for business-critical applications. But the implementation can seem difficult and complex to the users. 'Management commitment is key,' says Nolan, 'and this is another reason for PPCP to get involved at an early stage in the sales cycle. Then we can get that commitment and they can build it into their training.'

Users are soon convinced once they have the equipment. 'Five years ago, insurance sales reps didn't want computers, but as soon as their competitors got laptops and their productivity went up, they all wanted one.' The tangible benefits soon overcome the user's fear, while the painful aspects of portable computing - recharging batteries and transporting the machine - are forgotten as well.

New applications will go further in helping to overcome user reservations in PPCP's view. More mobile workers, more internet access and more email use is expanding the need for mobile data communications and boosting the sales of PC card analogue modems. PPCP estimates that 60 per cent of portable PCs now go out with fax/modem cards.

Meanwhile, GSM is making it easier to stay in touch from almost any point on the continent, even if connecting to the internet via GSM is, at present, 'like watching paint dry', according to Nolan.

While video conferencing is theoretically possible over GSM, Nolan says it is not practical just yet, although collaborative working can be carried out with great effect. Internet and email access as well as the relaying of live video and pictures is also an important application.

Portable PCs equipped with GSM mobile data links and connected to cameras were used by the police during the Euro 96 football tournament. The systems were connected to cameras at the various grounds and linked up to the image database on the central police computer, allowing for known troublemakers to be identified. Email, according to Nolan, is the biggest driving force.

Outbound sales or technical forces can now dial in, pick up messages and plan their routes, which saves time and improves customer services. From the company's point of view, it is excellent news because the mobile worker has no excuse for not picking up messages or not knowing about any new requirements. The company wins back control.

Other new products of a more conventional kind are emerging too - with obvious uses. A new plug-in Zip drive has just been released for Toshiba notebooks. It provides a simple backup solution that is compatible with current removable storage options. Another development for the portable market is CE.

With Microsoft, HP, NEC, Philips, Compaq, Casio and other major players driving the derivative OS, Nolan is convinced it will take off in a big way.