Online Extras: May 2003

An assortment of articles, presentations and content exclusive to Baseline online.

No Deposit, No Return

A salty-snack maker in Texas pioneered the use of wireless communications on delivery routes. Among the copycats: Pepsico, Pepsi bottling companies and such Pepsi subsidiaries as quaker oats and tropicana. So how come all these Pepsi units invested in different wireless systems?


Planner (p.45)
Calculating Costs of Standardizing Mobile Sales Systems
You are a consumer-packaged-goods giant. Four divisions, hundreds of popular products, hundreds of thousands of employees, $23 billion in annual revenue, respectable operating margins ... and unimpressed Wall Street analysts. Where to begin? Start by downloading this interactive planner.

Dossier (Online exclusive)
Handheld Devices Symbol Technologies
Durability certainly matters—whether it's a handheld device that can withstand a four-foot drop onto concrete, or the reputation of a company suddenly facing intense SEC scutiny. PDF for convenient printing on the way.

Is a Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words? (p. 81)
It's been more than two decades since videoconferencing vendors began promising to revolutionize the way the world does business. The revolution still has yet to arrive, but when—or if—it finally does, at least we'll be able to watch it together in really high-quality video.

Be sure to check out our Dossiers on videoconferencing specialists Polycom ("Out of Many, One"), Tandberg ("Norwegians Would"), and VCon Telecommunications ("This Time, It's Personal")—all of which offer their own specialized take on automated expense reporting.

And, as a special tie-in to this month's Community package, don't forget to check out our Calculator on measuring application performance (See Workbook, below).

Calculating Return (p.90)
Performance Beyond the Ping
Why invest in software that measures the performance of applications? Find out how with this PDF version of the calculator tool. Check back soon for a downloadable Excel spreadsheet to calculate your own numbers.


Primer (p.94)
The Virtual Database
Compare the benefits and drawbacks of technology that manages many different data sources as though they were all in one centralized database.


Managing Projects (p.96)
Change Is a Hard Row to Sow
Forewarned is forearmed, the saying goes. Download this 42-question survey to assess your organization's readiness for change.