Dan Weirich, president of GW Micro Inc., a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based VAR and developer offering IT solutions for the blind and vision-impaired, on selling UMPCs to a sometimes-skeptical customer base.
Be honest about trade-offs, especially regarding price: When you compare UMPCs to the price of desktops, it's incredible how inexpensive desktops have gotten. But that's the trade-off: You're trading off size for price. Currently, the OQO's battery life is similar to that of a laptop, so compared to a CE device, it's not the same. It's another trade-off, one you make because of the power you need with full Windows. There are other note-taking devices that blind people use, and they're fine, but why not have a full Windows computer?
Stress portability: People come to me and say they want a laptop. I point to the portability. If portability is the main driver of their purchasing decision, they need flexibility and I/O capabilities. So when you're choosing a UMPC, you need to understand what I/O ports are available and how much RAM it has, because those are things that aren't going to change. Storage can be an issue, but for a lot of users, the portable computer isn't their only computer. So storage capacity isn't always that important.
Add value to the UMPC offering: We've taken a separate 88-key Bluetooth keyboard and put it in a carrying case we designed that has a pocket for the OQO to slip into. It's still smaller than a laptop, and it folds up to be about the same size as the OQO 02.
Have other solutions to offer: There was a time when I thought there was a 'magic bullet' solution, one device that would be the overall winner. But the longer I'm around technology, [the more] I think that's not really the case. People are going to pick the solution that works for them. I use a Palm Treo because I get long battery life, I can take notes, read e-mail and use it as a cellphone. But it has limitations. It's not a full-blown computer. The UMPC fills that gap. It's the size of the PDA, yet has more power.
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