Roadmap for success
Jonathan Oakes, director of Palm's Enterprise Planning and Strategy, followed with details on Palm's roadmap for success within the enterprise. "Today's enterprises have more mobile workers than ever before," he said. "They need ways to 'mobilize' their existing applications as well as develop new ones." Oaks highlighted plans to work with Palm's enterprise customers, developers, and traditional software vendors via its new WMS (Wireless Messaging Server) and an upcoming database initiative. Palm's WMS solution will provide and end-to-end, Palm-branded, secure, centrally-managed solution for wireless "always on" enterprise mail. It will support Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino with push email to Palm's new i705 handheld including end-to-end encryption.

Oakes closed his presentation, noting, "Palm's road map for success will provide corporate customers with advanced notice on future directions, capabilities, and partnerships."

IntelliGolf and the enterprise
With business matters covered, Karrier Communications got to take the stage as Palm invited me to discuss our IntelliGolf scorecard application (at http://www.intelligolf.com/hole-in-one.asp). I'm pictured in Figure C.

FIGURE C

That's me...Craig Schmidt, discussing the IntelliGolf scorecard application. Click picture for a larger image.

IntelliGolf automates on-course golf scoring and wagering, plus it provides golf enthusiasts with game-improving graphs and statistics. During my presentation, I explained that IntelliGolf was designed using a four-tiered enterprise development model. IntelliGolf includes:

• Data collection and reporting on the handheld for on-course scoring and wagering;

• Data management and analysis on the PC for handicap approximation and performance evaluation;

• Wireless and network access to over 14,000 Internet-based scorecards for mobile golfers;

• Open systems information distribution using XML, HMTL, and beaming technology for scoring local golf tournaments.

By using an enterprise development model, we've been able to meet the needs of our customers in over 100 countries worldwide. This same technology can be used for developing corporate applications.

ShotLink tracking system
Closing Palm's executive briefing was Gail Moody, director of Palm's Enterprise Marketing team. Gail provided an excellent overview of the PGA Tour's ShotLink tracking system (at http://www.shotlink.com). She explained that the ShotLink system was a multi-million dollar cooperative development effort between the PGA Tour, IBM, Palm, and various technology partners. The system provides real-time information on professional player standings and hole-by-hole scoring via wireless-enabled Palm handhelds. Impressively, every official (walking) scorer on the PGA tour keeps score for every professional golfer on a Palm handheld, as shown in Figure D?

FIGURE D

Every official (walking) scorer on the PGA tour keeps score on a Palm handheld. Click picture for a larger image.