Indiana HVAC Company Implements AT&T’s 3G Netbook Plan
JMI Mechanical Services is a commercial heating, ventilation, and AC company located in Indianapolis, Indiana, and it has recently implemented AT&T’s two-year netbook contract to keep employees connected when on the job.
AT&T is providing JMI technicians with Acer netbooks with 3G access as well as “a third-party application that pushes important data and company news to technicians, whether at home, on the road or in the field.” JMI President Rick Johnson commented on the effect this netbook plan is having on the company’s productivity:
“A mobilized, expert service force gives us greater business velocity in today’s marketplace, and we started to see the benefits of our netbooks from AT&T within the first week of deployment… Thanks to AT&T, our technicians are connected wherever they are to the information and resources they need to provide the service our customers have come to expect over the past 28 years.”
The 3G netbook service will also be used to coordinate technician placement and help JMI attend to customers’ needs.
Via PRNewsWire.
Chesterfield County Proposes New Educational Netbook Program
Milton, Olander, and North Kansas City schools may soon be joined in the ranks of schools with netbook programs by the Chesterfield County Public School system, pending an upcoming vote. However, their plan doesn’t give netbooks to the kids – it gives them to the adults.
The new proposal involves a five-year plan delivering netbooks to all teachers and administrators. Some of the netbooks will have touchscreens for unique applications in science or art, and Wi-Fi technology should come standard.
Further steps in the plan involve the addition of digital cameras and interactive whiteboards, to be used in conjunction with the netbooks to improve students’ experience in the classroom.
The plan will cost $13 million and will be voted on this December.
Via Examiner.
HP Announces Pre-Paid Netbook Broadband Plan in Japan
HP plans to attack the netbook mobile broadband sector in a new way, a good departure from the cheap-netbook-with-purchase-of-two-year-plan setup we’ve seen altogether too often.
The manufacturer will be offering Japanese customers netbooks with prepaid mobile data usage, accessed via SIM card. The airtime and data will be purchased from DoCoMo and resold by HP as mobile virtual netbook operator. Consumers can expect to get 100 free minutes of service with netbooks that cost between $50 and $100, with further fees to compensate for usage past those minutes.
The SIM card will allow users to use their minutes on devices from laptops to tablet netbooks. The netbooks sold by HP will all have Wi-Fi as well.
All in all, this is a nice change of pace for the netbook market. If the plan is successful in Japan, it’s likely US consumers will get to see the plan as well.
Via InformationWeek.
Schools May Use Netbooks To Transition to Electronic Textbooks
What with the PeeWee PC, Disney netbook, and Dell Latitude 2100 on the market, netbooks have been taking a larger and larger role in schools. It seems to follow that a move from paper to digital texts would allow schools to save a lot of money. So when will schools make the switch?
One blogger over at Blorge noted that that switch could be expensive but effective on the long run. It would require a large investment in e-readers, like those offered by Pixel Qi. Here’s how Blorge sees the transition going:
“They will have to start with the students who already have computers, then take the money saved on textbooks from them and funnel that into helping lower income students with the purchase of some sort of e-Textbook reader, a laptop or even something as small as a Netbook.”
It would be even easier to implement these type of plans in schools which already have netbook plans, such as the Indiana schools of the ESVC.
Check out the full article here for more on the transition to electronic texts.
