Airborne Secures Piece of Wireless Architecture

Computerworld - Airborne Freight Corp. last week tapped Dynamic Mobile Data Systems Inc. to provide mobile dispatch software for its new nationwide wireless architecture. But Airborne will write its own client software for the new Motorola Inc. handheld data terminals it will provide to its 17,500 drivers.
Mark LaRosa, chief technology officer at Somerset, N.J.-based Dynamic Mobile Data, said the contract, whose value he declined to disclose, represents the second-largest deal for the 6-year-old company and was awarded after a one-year pilot with Seattle-based Airborne. The contract with Dynamic Data is a key part of Airborne's five-year project to install a $50 million nationwide wireless architecture, according to David Billings, Airborne's senior vice president of information and technology systems.
The MobileDispatch software enables real-time data communications with drivers and provides status tracking of vehicles and shipments.
LaRosa said the software Airborne will adapt for its own use is compact and well suited for power-sensitive and memory-limited mobile devices.
"The entire application fits in about 150K . . . and with that we can provide guaranteed delivery and notification information and job tracking and vehicle tracking," LaRosa said.
MobileDispatch can work on networks operated by a number of carriers, LaRosa said. Airborne is evaluating proposals from four carriers for its new network: AT&T Wireless in Redmond, Wash., Verizon Wireless in New York, BellSouth Wireless Data LP in Atlanta and Nextel Inc. in Reston, Va. The MobileDispatch software will also support digital signatures to provide proof of delivery, LaRosa added.
Conrad Steffens, an Airborne programmer, said the company was able to adapt the MobileDisptach software "at minimal costs." Starting with the MobileDispatch core software meant "less risk for us, and it took less time" than developing dispatch software in-house from scratch, he said.
Analysts say Airborne's aging, voice-based system needs to be replaced by a wireless data-based system to meet the challenges of e-commerce.
Real-time tracking information "is a cost of entry," said Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications analyst in Atlanta. "Customers will not even consider a vendor that does not provide real-time tracking."

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