Sandhills Publishing: Sandhills Publishing is an information processing company. Sandhills Publishing's trade publications are industry leaders in their respective market segments. These market segments include trucking, construction, agriculture, computing and aviation. In addition to these publications, Sandhills Publishing creates value for its customers by collecting information at machinery auctions around the country and providing inventory management solutions to equipment dealers.

Project Opportunity One: Currently, Sandhills Publishing representatives use a Mobile Auction Results Module dependent on a web interface and a persistent data connection to collect auction data. However, when a data connection is not present, representatives must manually record the information and report it to Sandhills Publishing by phone. Speed and accuracy can be improved by using an installed application to track auction results in the absence of a data connection.

Project Opportunity Two: Present implement dealer subscribers integrate inventory management with other services provided by Sandhills Publishing. The current solution includes input through a web form and non-standard data imports. This system's usability and speed can be improved by providing an enhanced mobile inventory management entry and review application.

Project Solution: The Design Studio team will produce two mobile applications-one for auction representatives who often must resort to "pen-and-paper" data collection and another for equipment dealers who currently use the Sandhills Publishing inventory management system. Both solutions will work in the absence of a wireless data connection through the development of a mobile communications framework.

Project Benefits: The auction results application will increase efficiency and accuracy through a simple but powerful user-interface. The mobile inventory management application will give Sandhills Publishing's customers a simple way to add and edit their inventory information in the field. A mobile communications framework will enable Sandhills Publishing to pursue future efficient and robust mobile projects.

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MP4

Technologies

Windows Mobile 5.0
.NET Compact Framework 2.0
SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition
Visual Basic .NET