Comparing iOS, Android and WP7

CI develops enterprise mobile products that work on iOS, Android and WP7 platforms. From a software perspective comparing the different platforms:

Features	Apple iOS	Google Android	Microsoft Windows Phone
Current OS Version	4.3.1	2.3.3	7
OS Kernel	OS X derived (iOS)	Linux derived (Android)	Windows Mobile derived (Windows CE)
Update process	Issed by Apple, applied by user	Issued by phone manufacturer, applied by user	Issued by Microsoft, approved by telco, applied by user
Updates applied	Using synchronization application tool on computer	Over-the-air	Using synchronization application tool on computer
Multitasking	Limited	Yes, multiple types	No
Clipboard Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Third-party Applications	Yes vetted by Apple	Yes not vetted by Google	Yes vetted by Microsoft
Application Store	Apple only	Several	Microsoft only
Applications available	370,000 approx	90,000 approx	9,000 approx
Ad Hoc App Distribution	Yes but only up to 100 devices	Yes	No
Application Control	Yes, Apple infrastructure	No	Yes, Microsoft infrastructure
Media Store	iTunes	None	Zune marketplace
Flash Support	No	Beta testing	No
Silverlight	No	No	No
HTML5 support in Browser	Yes	Yes	No
MS Office Document Support	No, third-party solutions available	No, third-party solutions available	Yes
MS SharePoint Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Device Synchronization	Using iTunes	Over-the-air or third-party applications	Using Zune

Source: Redmond mag

 

Sage Accpac – Order Entry through Excel

Retaining the interest of the person performing data entry can become quite difficult. In a sales environment, where there is coordination involved with numerous field salespeople, it is best to use a tool that minimizes the confusion and data entry errors. Order entry through excel is a tool integrated with Sage Accpac to improve the productivity of not only the person at the head office but also field salesperson.

The tool is useful in an environment where large batches of orders are entered into Accpac on a regular basis. Items and customer details are exported from Accpac. Order details are entered in an excel spreadsheet. For each new order, excel is filled. The salesperson fills in the customer and item details and sends it to the head office for updating. At the head office, excel(s) is uploaded and the details are automatically synchronized with Accpac with the salesperson’s identification code. Since the actual order entry is handled only by the salesperson, there is no question of erroneous data from the head office side.

To know more about this product, join us for a webinar:

• Session 1: June 24, 2011 at 11:00 AM EST
• Session 2: June 24, 2011 at 11:00 AM PST

 

Mobile SalesPerson with Sage Accpac

Mobile SalesPerson, integrated with Sage Accpac is a real time end to end order / sales management system for field sales person. It lessens the back office work load and encourages the salesperson to meet more customers directly. Salesperson can collect sales orders on the move and even from customer’s location. With two modules, PC and PDA, MSP is integrated with Sage Accpac.

Features

• Create quotation, generate order and raise invoices
• Customer signature for order confirmation
• Instant access to customer, item and stock details
• Integrated to barcode scanning instead of manual item code entry
• Multi selection criteria to select customer and product details
• Printing of sales orders or sales summary using handy printers
• Reporting facility to track Accpac sales orders against sales orders booked by remote sales teams
• Route scheduling
• Transfer of sales orders to Sage Accpac

 

MVP – Minimum Viable Product

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an approach popularized by Eric Reis. In product development, MVP is a strategy used for fast and quantitative market testing of a product or a product feature. MVP has just those features that allows the product to be deployed.

A MVP may be an entire product or subset (feature) of a product. There are two approaches:

• Build the product with the minimum viable set of features
• Build the landing and signing pages and start testing the customer interest without a product

A common question that people usually ask is the difference between proof of concept and minimum viable product. A proof of concept is usually a prototype on its way to become a fully functioning product and it validates technical or business feasibility. A MVP is the minimum set of feature that represents the first working product. It validates customer feasibility and helps you in validating the learning’s.

 

Mobile Inventory Suite

Mobile Inventory Suite (MIS) is an end-to-end inventory management system for warehouse personnel. It integrates with Sage Accpac ERP. The solution has four modules to address the inventory management cycle:

• Mobile inventory count
• Mobile shipment entry
• Mobile purchase receipt
• Mobile location transfer

Mobile inventory count

This module is used for synchronization between the physical stock and online stock entry. End users can use bar code readers for inventory counting instead of manual count.

Mobile shipment entry

This module captures shipment details and creates shipment batches based on the sales orders generated in the ERP.

Mobile purchase receipt

This module is used for receiving goods at warehouse against the purchase order. It creates purchase receipts batch in ERP.

Mobile location transfer

This module facilitates goods transfer from one location to another and handles additional cost for transfer location.

All the modules are standalone modules and can be integrated with the ERP as individual solutions depending on the business need. To know more contact us at sales@ciindia.com