'Great scope for PDA apps'

MUMBAI: Lauren Information Technologies is betting its future on PDA-based applications. This solution providing company has already deployed PDA applications and provided hardware to several companies in the Indian and overseas market.

Said Lauren CMD Rawlin Pinto, "There is a great scope for PDA-based applications in the pharma and insurance sector and we have already come up with a generic application that can be tweaked and used for any pharma company."

Lauren has recently introduced its portfolio management software, Networth, and is now coming out with the PDA version of this product. It will also launch a CRM software application for PDAs. Citing an example about the scope of the solutions, Rawlin recounts how Lauren has deployed a distribution management application at 1,800 PDA nodes for Colgate's stockists and salesmen in the country. Following a successful run with this technology, Colgate is now marketing this application to its counterparts in Malaysia and Philippines.

Pinto said that these applications have to be all-pervasive and should work with heterogeneous environments to succeed. Lauren makes sure that its products can work seamlessly with Symbian, Linux, Palm and Pocket PC OS. "Since the application works on multiple platforms, we have to configure only the last-mile conduit at the customer site," added Pinto.

Lauren has also developed a PDA-based application for Aventis, which has been supplied to 25 doctors. The deployment is still in the initial stages. Among other pharmas, Lauren has worked with Pfizer for a test deployment of an application to 35 people in New Zealand.


It has also worked with AFL for a trace and track system with Symbian OS. Here the application is loaded on a PDA attached to a scanner. Every consignment is scanned and the data is transferred to a central server, so that customers and the company officials can keep a track of it.


Some of the applications are also created to work with multiple devices like laptops, desktops and even mobile phones. "With the mobile technology catching on, we plan to come out with more mobile-based applications, making sure that it is shrunk to fit the smaller display screen," stated Pinto.

Another sweetener to creating PDA-based application is the supply of the hardware, which is inevitably done by Lauren. However Rawlin insists that he is not into the hardware part of the business, but coincidentally whenever they deploy the application the client prefers to buy it from Lauren. "This is because it is easier for them to go to one company for all their needs," he explains.

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