Tesco plans to provide staff with handheld PCs in a massive investment of up to£30 million.
Nearly 10,000 shop-floor staff will be issued with Intermec 700 series colour handheld PCs, so that they can find product and store information, and check availability at the shelf.
According to Tesco strategic development director Philip Robbins-Jones, the system has already achieved a 1 to 2 per cent improvement in product availability.
'Before, staff were using two separate systems to control stock' he said. 'Now they can do stock control on the shop floor.'
The handheld runs the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system and can be connected to the company's infrastructure through an 802.11b RF wireless network, GPRS phone network or managed Bluetooth radio, which means information can be distributed to staff centrally.
'Staff now feel more confident in answering customers queries,' said Robbins-Jones.
The investment is in line with the retailer's strategy to run every non-mission critical operation through thin client computing, supporting browser-based applications.
Content is centrally managed and delivered to staff on the shop floor where it is needed, rather than at a desk in the back office.
Tesco opted to buy the unit because it supports Microsoft Pocket PC and a contract win of this magnitude is sure to be a blow to PalmSource, the company spun off from Palm Pilot the PDA maker.
PalmSource was set up to independently market the Palm OS and the retail sector is one of its key targets, through handheld device producers such as Symbol Technologies.
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