Sears buying new laptops, wireless hardware for repair technicians

Computerworld - Sears, Roebuck and Co. has signed a deal to purchase equipment from Itronix Corp. and Wireless Matrix Corp. to build the next-generation "Sears Smart Toolbox," a laptop computer used by its repair technicians.
Sears will purchase 10,000 GoBookT semirugged computer laptops from Spokane, Wash.-based Itronix and 10,000 Mobile Base Stations (MBS) from Calgary, Alberta-based Wireless Matrix, according to Tom Turner, Itronix's president and CEO.
Turner said the three-year deal for parts and services is worth tens of millions of dollars.
Initially, Sears, which has been testing 700 of the systems for the past eight months, will outfit 10,000 of its 13,000 technicians with the units, according to Willy Medina, a spokesman for the retailer. Ultimately, he said, Sears will provide the new equipment to all 13,000 technicians.
The rollout will begin in early 2003, according to a statement from Itronix.
"The new equipment will add satellite communication to the current land-based radio system," Medina said.
Repair technicians will have access to online diagnostic information, wireless communications for real-time parts inquiries and customer information, as well as a Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine the best route to get to a customer's home, he said.
Turner said the new Sears Smart Toolbox will be equipped with a DVD drive and a wireless LAN based on the 802.11 standard.
He said the Wireless Matrix MBS will sit on top of the Sears van and provide GPS, as well as terrestrial and cellular communications to the technician's laptop.
"In the trials, technicians were able to communicate 99% of the time, regardless of where they were in the U.S., including at the tops of mountains, because of the architecture of this system," Turner said.
In addition to the Sears deal, Itronix said it and Trident Systems Inc. in Fairfax, Va., have received approximately $8 million from the federal government to develop mobile computing applications for the U.S. military.
Itronix and Trident will develop a Dismounted Situational Awareness System for battlefield intelligence, Itronix said. The U.S. will use the system to defend against threats and attacks on the country and to assist it on the battlefield.