Oliver Huggins, Managing Director at IT Link

Oliver Huggins, Managing Director at IT Link, says that winning the competition has already created new business opportunities and sales.

“Since winning the Frontier competition, our company has experienced the most media coverage it has had for the past seven years."

SalesLink Mobile makes it simple for sales staff to check inventory, place orders, and get customer information immediately even when they’re in the field.

Jeremy Hope, Ericsson partner manager, says: “SalesLink Mobile is designed for ease of use for non-computer users. It enables them to enter orders, capture the customer’s signature and print a professional invoice via infra-red to a portable printer. Orders are then sent wirelessly via CDMA/GPRS to the SalesLink Server for immediate processing and integration to their accounting system.”

Huggins says: "Our philosophy of design was to ensure that SalesLink was suitable for non-computer users, that it was simple to operate and that it was an out-of-the-box solution.

"SalesLink has been commercially available since 1999, but it is only recently, since the introduction of GPRS and CDMA wireless networks, that the product has grown. More than 300 businesses are now using it, recording thousands of orders per day."

Employees at Cookie Time New Zealand use the application over Kyocera 7135 Smartphones via a Telecom CDMA Network. Cookie Time is New Zealand's number one cookie brand and is known for its over-sized cookies with big chunks of chocolate.

Exide Batteries is another SalesLink Mobile customer in New Zealand. The company equipped 30 sales people with the application on Symbol SPT1800 devices running via a WLAN network. They use it as a tool to support their sales activities, both in-house and in the field.

SalesLink Mobile is up and running at 300 sites, primarily in New Zealand and Australia, and some sites in Canada and the US. The application is compatible with a variety of mobile models and PDAs, and networks.

Hope says: “SalesLink delivers an out-of-the-box wireless solution that integrates with more than 25 popular accounting systems for businesses, which have one to 100 users.”

SalesLink Mobile is sold on a per license basis. Each Palm device registers SalesLink Mobile and receives a registration key. The server also requires activation. This commercial model reduces risk of piracy and enables IT Link to maintain a marketable database of users.

A software maintenance contract is optional for end-users. Sales are made through their reseller and distribution network via monthly accounts.

SalesLink Mobile was selected as the winner of the latest Ericsson Frontier Developer Contest in September. The Frontier Developer Contest in New Zealand and Australia invites developers to submit applications that fully utilize next generation technologies. Judges of this year’s competition praised the finalists’ applications for clearly demonstrating the uses and advantages of 3G and broadband.

Kendal von Sydow