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MOBILE DOCUMENTS
How to use ebooks in your enterprise
By Ray Rischpater
Everybody knows that ebooks are great for entertainment. Few, however, recognize their value in the enterprise as well. With today's heavy reliance on the Web and laptops, the small, easily carried reference book that a generation ago was the constant companion of many professionals has all but disappeared. These days, you're more likely to find your staff booting up their laptops to find a critical piece of information in a document or email, or carrying rumpled printouts wherever they go.
It doesn't have to be like that. You can quickly augment your enterprise with ebooks, often at little or no expense other than preparing the manuscript itself. In fact, as you'll see in a moment, if the document's available, you may already have all you need at your disposal!
Why ebooks in the enterprise?
In the enterprise, your staff refers to countless bits of information throughout the day. From engineering reference material to corporate policy, much of this information is already in electronic form on Web pages and in email throughout your company. Even more often, specific information may be required by staff on the go for a particular group, such as product features for your sales organization.
The ebook provides an easy-to-use repository for this kind of information for both fixed and mobile workers. Ebooks are easy for you to create, immanently portable, and quickly searched. With today's Palm OS organizers, an employee can carry hundreds of kilobytes of text and images in ebooks for reference whenever needed.
Ebooks are ideal for reference information that seldom changes. While much of this information in the enterprise is already available over the Web, not all handhelds are equipped by their users with anywhere Web access, and it's inconvenient to access the Web for static information. Instead, you can place this information in an ebook on a handheld, where it's readily searched and read when needed.
Harnessing the Web
Almost all organizations today have an intranet, a private network of Web pages that contain company information such as vacation policy, travel policy, product pricing, or what have you. Many intranets include department-specific procedures, like sales, system administration, or engineering process documentation that you need to read frequently as part of your job.
These documents are in HTML (HyperText Markup Language). For years, Palm OS handheld users have enjoyed HTML documents on their handhelds thanks to Web browsers such as AvantGo (at http://www.avantgo.com) and the Palm Mobile Internet Kit (MIK).
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