Carlson picks Ubiquio to manage mobile devices

MINNEAPOLIS -- Carlson Hospitality Worldwide, a $31 billion travel and hospitality company, has chosen Ubiquio Corp., a 15-employee mobile computing services provider, to outsource the ongoing management of a fleet of Compaq PocketPC devices. 

Ubiquio's hosted Device Management Service will be used by Carlson to reduce the cost and labor associated with operating a fleet of PocketPC devices that is expected to number in the thousands, the two companies announced. Of particular importance to Carlson is Ubiquio's ability to automatically distribute new software and data to handhelds wherever they are in the field. Ubiquio's service also provides on-demand, detailed information about the configuration and health of each device.

Carlson has developed a patent-pending mobile information system called MACH-1 (Mobile Access to Carlson Hospitality, version 1.0) that is designed to operate on Microsoft PocketPC devices. This industry-leading system increases the productivity of hotel property management staff by enabling real-time access to key information and alerts anytime, anyplace.

Leveraging technology

"MACH-1 on PocketPC continues Carlson's tradition of leveraging technology to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty," said Scott Heintzeman, Chief Information Officer of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide. "For MACH-1 to achieve its potential, we knew that the PocketPC devices have to be completely reliable and easy to manage. Like Carlson, Ubiquio's vision is to harness automation to minimize operating costs and maximize uptime for mobile devices. They are a good fit for our needs in this area."

Both Ubiquio and Carlson are based in Minneapolis.

"Ubiquio is responsible for supporting thousands of mission-critical mobile devices nationwide," said Charles Lukaszewski, Chief Executive Officer of Ubiquio. "The Carlson MACH-1 solution showcases the kind of financial win that mobile technology can provide."

Pocket PC platform

The handheld device chosen by Carlson for this project is the iPAQ Pocket PC, manufactured by Compaq Computers, with an operating system by Microsoft. "We chose the iPAQ Pocket PC platform because it offered us much more flexibility for building our own service," said Scott Heintzeman, CIO at Carlson Hospitality Worldwide. "It's easier to develop to than other platforms, offers a multitasking operating system, an Internet browser and a bright, color screen makes it easy to view information in graphical format, letting users spot trends more quickly." 

In a Microsoft case study of Carlson's mobile development, it was noted that a three-year, $20 million rebuilding project encompassing the company's core strategic systems provided Carlson executives with faster and more detailed access to critical business information. Carlson wanted to extend this investment with hand-held, wireless technologies that could deliver valuable and timely business information to "mobile managers." 

According to Microsoft, two major benefits of the Carlson system are: 

▪ Hotel managers have fast access to vital information such as room availability and sales trends, enabling them to make real-time decisions that positively affect the property’s financial performance.

▪ Wireless capabilities allow managers to “get out from behind the desk” to personally interact with hotel guests while retaining timely access to back-end systems. 

"The real driving force behind the MACH-1 project was to get information into the hands of front-line people so that they can make timely decisions -- for example, optimizing room rates in a tight market," Michael Murphy, Director, IS Support Services, Carlson Hotels, told Microsoft for the case study. "Now they can make those decisions almost instantly using information viewed on the Pocket PC devices."

Greater mobility

To give its managers much greater mobility while letting them retain access to important business information, Carlson recently began deploying about 150 Microsoft Windows Powered Pocket PC Compaq iPAQs, the case study said. The devices provide Carlson’s field managers with more than just access to static information: They deliver real-time business intelligence that lets field managers spot trends in an easy-to-use application that helps them make on-the-spot decisions that can, in turn, positively affect hotel performance. The next step is to begin deploying the MACH-1 to Carlson's hotel operators and owners.

“In the mid-1990’s we made a commitment to be a more customer- and owner-focused operation,” Murphy said. “This entailed shutting down some remote sales offices and using technology to put information such as sales, operations, and key account profiles into the hands of field personnel so they could spend less time on paper work and more time with their customers."

In the Microsoft case study, Murphy said that the company selected the Windows for Pocket PC software as the platform for its mobile software because of its multi-tasking capabilities, the application compatibility with the corporate environment, the ability to record sound, and the inclusion of Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Pocket PC. “From a design perspective, ” Murphy said, "the use of Internet Explorer is key to compatibility with our intranet. Color is also an important aspect of the application because we can use colors such as green, yellow, and red in our alerts to managers on the floor, letting them instantly understand the urgency of a situation.” 

Using the iPAQ PCMCIA Expansion Jacket allows Carlson managers using the MACH-1 implementation to use wireless communications like the IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth standards to access the corporate intranet. 

Lukaszewski, Ubiquio's chairman and CEO, is an experienced entrepreneur who has successfully built and sold two technology companies in the last decade. In 1994, he co-founded eWatch, an Internet monitoring service, used by more than 800 of the world's largest companies. He served as CEO of eWatch from 1994 through the company's acquisition in November 1998. eWatch is now a unit of PRNewswire.