Honeywell has announced that they are retiring the entire Dolphin 7900 line and the Windows CE version of the Dolphin 7600.

The Dolphin 7900 is being replaced by the new Dolphin 9700, and the Windows Mobile version of the Dolphin 7600 is still being produced. The End-of-life plans for these devices call for the Last Time To Buy in October 2010.

Intermec published the results of a survey of Fortune 300 companies where they find 67 percent are interested in replacing their consumer PDAs, cell phones and smartphones with ruggedized handheld devices. Of course 'Interested in' is not necessarily the same as 'has the budget for', so we will see if spending in this area increases. We also found it interesting that only 38% are paperless, with another 29% transitioning. This means there is a large market for conveting paper processes to mobile, almost 40% of the surveyed companies!

We are often asked about ITScriptNet OMNI communications, how best to provide security of the data. To address these questions, we have posted a whitepaper entitled Security Considerations for ITScriptNet OMNI Communications and posted it to the ITScriptNet Knowedge Base. The paper discusses topics such as Wireless security, WLANs, VPN, and ActiveSync.

Vartech Canada is coming up this spring, on June 7th and 8th in Montreal. If you are interested in attending, visit http://www.vartechcanada.com/ for all of the information.

We've talked before about the new features of Windows Mobile and Windows Phone, and whether they make sense in a Data Collection device. Here is an article from earlier this year on this topic.

Honeywell has announced that they are retiring the entire Transaction Terminal and Image Kiosk line of devices. We have not seen very much interest in these devices, but we do have support in ITScriptNet.

Our plan is be to support them until the next release of ITScriptNet after the retirement date. At that time, we would also retire our support for these devices. They would still be supported in previous versions of ITScriptNet, but would not be included in any new releases.

Two brand-new Windows Mobile 6.5 data collection device are now available.

The Motorola MC75A has just come out, and is the successor to the MC75.

At the same time, Datalogic has just announced the Elf, which is a new PDA-style device.

We will be evaluating ITScriptNet support for both, but we expect our existing Windows Mobile 6 clients will work on these devices.

Unitech has released the HT680, a successor to the HT660. This device features Windows CE 5, Bluetooth, WiFi, and Available GPRS. It is available with either Laser or Imager barcode scanners.

We have tested the HT680 with ITScriptNet 3.1b, and it works correctly with the existing Unitech CE client. We will be officially adding the HT680 as a supported device soon, but you can use it now with the HT660 client selection.

Tim is at the Motorola Channel Partner event in Las Vegas, and reports that he has made some interesting contacts. We'll have more to report when he returns!

Tim will be attending Motorola's Channel Partner Event in Las Vegas next week. If you will be there and would like to get together to talk shop please send him a message with a convenient day and time (Sunday evening or at breakfast, lunch or after classes Monday or Tuesday). We have exciting new products he would like to tell you about. He would also like to know what application challenges you have that we might be able to assist with using ITScriptNet, an inexpensive Ready-To-Go program or one of our high value Solution Packs. Have an RFID app? Need voice-enabled data collection? Let's talk!

AML has released an interesting new device with On-Screen Scan Verification. The AML M7225 will flash the screen green or red to indicate whether the barcode was sucessfully scanned or not.

ITScriptNet supports several AML devices, and we are evaluating whether our M8050 client will be able to be used on the M7225, or whether a new client will be required.

ITScriptNet has the capability to integrate with Vangard Voice Systems AccuSpeech system, which allows for voice prompting, navigation, and data entry. A properly designed voice input system can yield excellent productivity improvements. Vangard has a new Field Force Automation product that is targeted at mobile field-service applications.

If you are interested in learning how Voice integration can help you, contact us for more information!

Honeywell has announced a new addition to the Dolphin line, the Dolphin 6500. This device is similar to the Dolphin 6100, but with a larger screen size. The full product specs are available on Honeywell's site.

We added support for the Dolphin 6500 to ITScriptNet with our recent 3.1b release, so it you have downloaded this update, you already have the Dolphin 6500 client!

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Microsoft has officially announced Windows Phone 7. This new OS is more like the Zune OS than the traditional Windows CE-based OS.

What is not clear is the future of Windows CE, and the future of Windows CE and Windows Mobile-based Data Collection devices. Will this new OS be suitable for these devices? Will Windows CE still be supported? We will continue to monitor these developments.

We have just released an update to our Check In / Check Out Solution Pack. Version 2.0 is now available!

There are lots of rumors that Microsoft is planning to show off Windows Mobile 7 at the Mobile World Congress on February 15th in Barcelona. The consensus is that this version will not be backwards compatible with the previous Windows Mobile versions, and will not directly run Windows Mobile 5/6 applications. This suggests that Windows Mobile 7 might not be based on Windows CE, but something more like the Zune OS. It sounds as though Microsoft is aiming this version more squarely at Consumers to compete with the iPhone and Android, instead of Enterprise users who need Office and Exchange integration.

The impact of this to the Data Collection world would be interesting. Would device manufacturers use this new version, or will there be a compatible flavor, or will this turn out not to be true? Hopefully we will find out in a few weeks!