RM order 120,000 PDA's worth up to 300m

[POSTMAN]

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/softwar ... h-up-300m/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Royal Mail to order 120,000 mobile devices worth up to £300m

It requires a managed service for the provision, support and maintenance of rugged handheld devices

The Royal Mail Group has revealed plans to distribute up to 120,000 mobile devices to its staff under a new managed services deal worth up to £300 million.


The 'Postal Digital Assistants' (PDAs) are likely to be made available under a managed services deal, where the chosen vendor will provide, support and maintain a range of 'ruggedised handheld computing devices'.

Royal Mail is planning for a phased replacement of the current handheld PDA estate, which totals some 120,000 devices, and will be distributed across 1,500 sites and 38,000 vehicles within the UK.

The contract will last for a minimum of five years, with the option to be extended by up to another three, and will include the provision of replacement spares, peripherals, accessories and secure storage facilities.

Royal Mail is also expecting the service provider to deliver device configuration management, remote device management, helpdesk and support, reporting, independent testing and applications.

An online notice states: "The contract shall provide an end to end service to ensure that all designated employees have an appropriate device available when needed, providing the required functionality, based on their role.

"The supplier of services will be required to deliver a high level of integration and collaboration with other relevant providers of IT related services to the Royal Mail Group."


It continues: "In order to ensure that the required service levels are provided the Royal Mail Group require this integration and collaboration to be formalised between the supplier of the services for this contract, and the other suppliers engaged in enabling or providing parts of the services related to this contract."

Those interested in participating in the tender process have until 4th January to submit their proposals to Royal Mail.

In other news, the Royal Mail is advertising a number of senior IT job roles on LinkedIn, which require candidates to have managed projects worth hundreds of millions of pounds in the past.

The roles include IT portfolio director for data, head of strategic supplier & contracts management, infrastructure architect, head of mobility systems integration and supplier chain solution architect

[POSTMAN]

Royal Mail is planning for a phased replacement of the current handheld PDA estate,

How long have we had the old ones now,is this not a waste,£300m spondoolies!

[blackadder]

120,000 pdas ? well there aint that many posties on the streets delivering. so there for 1 for every postie inside or out. nice thought the dims will know exactly where we are

[Mr Rush]

Royal Mail is planning for a phased replacement of the current handheld PDA estate,

How long have we had the old ones now,is this not a waste,£300m spondoolies!

All the PDAs I've seen have a manufacture date of June 2008 and I don't recall seeing one in my office before 2009. Not that long, but it feels like centuries when they crash as you try to get a signature.

[north london driver]

120,000 pdas ? well there aint that many posties on the streets delivering. so there for 1 for every postie inside or out. nice thought the dims will know exactly where we are

so this will mean all the registered letters and small tracked items going back onto the walking staff.
this will not please certain reps in north london.

[oypostie]

120,000 is the number of PDAs needed to find one that works OK

[Stormproof]

hopefully we will all be issued a new PDA that holds a charge and is'nt the weight/size of a brick to lug about.

[Lincox]

Seems strange that a company looking to bring in outside capital/privatising is prepared to inject this amount of investment into an industry in advance of any confirmed plans.

[POSTMAN]

The thing is (and yes i know they are kack) but they are only about 4ish years old,this deal is a 5 year deal worth £300m,what will it be after that,£4-£5-£600m?

[fishtank]

The thing is (and yes i know they are kack) but they are only about 4ish years old,this deal is a 5 year deal worth £300m,what will it be after that,£4-£5-£600m?

It's a computer.
They're obsolete the minute you unpack them from the box.
New software and old hardware don't mix.
Intermec CN4 here we come.

[SpacePhoenix]

Hopefully they can't be any s**ter then the current ones

[wabbithunta]

I know of a firm that approached RM a few years ago with an offer of new PDA's and the system and the backup to go with them, even then they'd have made the current ones look like a pile of pony!
What did RM do/say?
"No thanks, we're happy with what we have" (Even though the PDA's were out of date!)

So new ones are needed, ones that will work correctly and also not break down/freeze up etc etc. Ones that are not as cumbersome with better battery life and also easier to use as well.
Not a case of wasting money at all, modernisation (it's S over here not z you dumb "spellchecker) is needed and this is part of it if RM don't want to be left in the slow lane of technology. The current ones we use are useless and may as well have come from the Ark for what they are worth as the architecture and software etc are basically so out of date they may as well be obsolete also they don't mesh well with current technology, hence the problems encountered all the time.

It's like RM discovering Windows 3.1 and saying "That'll do the job.. we'll get that as a system to use. It's cheap, easy to use and it works, even if it is a few years old!"
It won't work well, is out of date, unsupported and a waste of money.

[PhilthyPhil]

It's like RM discovering Windows 3.1 and saying "That'll do the job.. we'll get that as a system to use. It's cheap, easy to use and it works, even if it is a few years old!"
It won't work well, is out of date, unsupported and a waste of money.

Aren't RM PCs still on Windows 2000 which is 13 years old and has been unsupported by Microsoft for over 2 years?

[wabbithunta]

It's like RM discovering Windows 3.1 and saying "That'll do the job.. we'll get that as a system to use. It's cheap, easy to use and it works, even if it is a few years old!"
It won't work well, is out of date, unsupported and a waste of money.

Aren't RM PCs still on Windows 2000 which is 13 years old and has been unsupported by Microsoft for over 2 years?

Ours are either XP or later, either way, out of date and will not get any support from M/soft when they stop doing that, if they're not already doing it.

Typical of a large company, take the cheapest course and maximise profits as much as possible.
The company I used to work for before being made redundant there - the whole site was closed down - at least they were up to date with things like this. Sad to say it was outside influences from other sectors of the group of companies that forced the closure of the one I was at. We were making a profit too, not huge but at least it was a profit. They decided to chop it - citing costs!

Hopefully getting this done is a step in the right direction, as this at least helps posties in their jobs... and being new and up to date, hopefully when they get this all in place it will see an improvement and far less problems caused by failures of PDA's and the system it uses.


Will we see our bonuses though, because if RM are splashing out this kind of money they sure as hell can afford to pay the bonuses that are outstanding for everyone that is due them! Somehow, again, I doubt it.

[Minischoles]

PCs at Royal Mail International and on Redirections were brought specifically to run Vista - then ran into all the problematic that had and reverted to xp (incidentally about the same time that Vistas problems got sorted)
A roll out to Windows 7 is planned but that would mean every single pc being replaced as the current ones are crap.