OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => 6000 - Tosa => Topic started by: chaosteo on December 01, 2004, 04:41:43 pm
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Hello
I want to give a sale pitch for Sharp Zaurus SL-6000 tomorrow in my oral communications class for business majors. It is worth 25% of my final grade. Any suggestion what I should put in the presentation? Any lines?
thank you
chaosteo
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Im sure you already thought about the specs (wifi, 4inch screen and the other stuff) but you could add that it runs linux (Qtopia and Full Debian) and most of the software is free. Also their is a great place to get help (here) and you could list some of the accessories for it.
All I can think of right now.
Gl!!!
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Software can be developed right on it, using Python.
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If the target audience is Bus majors, then getting too technie might be a waste of time and maybe even your grade, what would be their visual image when you mention python?
Are you trying to sell them on a 6000 or a hand-held computer/PDA? If it's a 6000, then you could check out some of the stuff that IBM published about the 6k. IBM targeted this to be an enterprise hand-held so they have software for hooking into the corp. DB2 databases using their DB2 connect package. Their Websphere connection software is supposed to help manage your WiFi connections as you move between cells.
The overall body is more rugged so a business could deploy them to supervisors on a factory floor and not worry about it being dropped. With the built in Wifi, a floor supervisor could check on production statistics on the floor in real time.
Check out the product description for the 6K on Amazon to see some of the marketing spiel.
With it running Linux and Java out of the box, the 'company' can leverage their existing IT resource skill sets to deploy applications for this platform as well. You could recite some of the lower total cost of ownership figures that are published on Linux as an OS as compared to MS or other operating systems.
Good luck with the presentation!
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Technical specs are great if you're selling to engineers. But for business folks, it's all about ROI. Point out that you get the functionality of a PDA + the most commonly used functionality of a laptop at a cost far less than the two combined and your mobility goes way up (how many people haul their laptops to every meeting? Not many - it's too painful). Plus your software cost is virtually zero and your IT maintenance cost is also next to nothing (spyware? anti-virus software? 100MB service packs? not necessary on the Zaurus).
How about the cost benefit of the improved security of Linux? Not much chance of a Zaurus that's been "out in the wild" coming back home, plugging into the WLAN, and trying to infect the whole corporate network with the latest Windows worm that you picked up from the WLAN at the airport because you've been on the road for a week and missed a critical security update. Can't say the same about a Windows laptop How much more expensive is that Windows laptop when you factor in the cost of your whole IT departement working through the weekend to clean up and patch the machines that got infected when the infected laptop came home?
How about the reduced cost of custom software development? Creating a non-trivial buisness app for PocketPCs is very labor intensive. With the Zaurus you have the power of Open Source behind you and you can leverage far richer software libraries and more efficient app development tools like Python. With Python or Java you can even have some portability with the same app able to run on the Zaurus, Macs, and Windows PCs. Yeah, you can port from PocketPC to Windows and vice versa but you gotta plan for it up front and really know what you're doing (or have a big development budget). .NET will improve this someday, but the Zaurus can give you app portability now.
Now if Sharp had just hired me to consult on their Zaurus marketing strategy ...