Last
week, Mercury Systems was installed for the first time on a new touch-screen
laptop running Windows 8, and I am happy to report that everything worked
perfectly. The customer had purchased a Dell XPS-12 flip-screen laptop,
and being a touch-screen meant that he can now record customer signatures
directly into Mercury Systems. As it is a Windows device (i.e. not using
Apple IOS or Android operating systems), he can also run Mercury K-Base to look
up installation guides, parts diagrams, service bulletins etc. and run other
Windows software, just as he can in his office.
If you
are considering giving smartphone or iPad devices to your engineers, it may be
an option to equip them with a Windows-based touch screen device instead, such
as the XPS-12, so that they can run standard Windows software. Currently
these are expensive devices, however the prices should fall over time.
(FOR
OFFICE-BASED USERS, at the time of writing I still recommend and prefer Windows 7 if you can manage to
obtain it from your pc supplier)
(note:
do not buy a device with ‘Windows RT’ operating system installed. Windows
RT is designed for tablets, however is it not backwards-compatible with any
software that you are currently running on your office pc’s. The device
must be running either Windows 8 or Windows 8 ‘Pro’ operating systems if you
want to run ‘traditional’ Windows software such as Mercury Systems)
