Bulletin Board

 

What prevents executives from using the Internet more often 

 Too slow 48%Accessibility/lack of knowledge amongcustomers, colleagues, suppliers 29%Security issues 29%Difficult access in general 21%Poor Web-site design 14%

Source: 1997 American Management Association survey of 3,500 executives and 700 systems and administrative managers.

Drop a Dime--and More

When AT&T orders you to "know the code," it's referring to its 800 number for collect calls. But there are codes it would prefer you didn't know--codes that would give you access to cheaper long-distance carriers, even if AT&T is your primary service. "The industry knows a dirty little secret," says Robert Pokress, founder of MediaCom Corp., a manufacturer of PC-based telephony software in Bedford, Mass. "You don't have to be locked into one long-distance company."

Pokress developed the Phone-Miser system so that small companies and individuals (who can't afford to pay someone to worry about phone issues) could take advantage of the peculiar design of the telephone infrastructure--lines piggybacking upon lines--to find the cheapest fare for long-distance calls. The system consists of a software program and a hardware device that plugs into the parallel port of a PC. Each time you dial a long-distance number, Phone-Miser "listens" and routes the call, using special codes to access the cheapest carrier.

Though the product won't be available until July, MediaCom is accepting orders for it at its Web site (www.phonemiser.com). Phone-Miser costs just under $100, but Pokress estimates it could save small businesses more than 50% on their phone bills. --S.S.

Track Record

They said it couldn't be done. But William Robinson, founder of Sovereign Technologies Corp., in Point Pleasant, N.J., may have invented a system that enables your inventory to keep track of itself.

Robinson's PalTrack (908-892-6540; sovtech@injersey.com; www.sovtechcorp.com) uses a global positioning system (GPS) to track products without manual labor or even bar-code scanning.

Here's how it works. Imagine you have a warehouse packed with 300 items. Each item is fitted with a tiny transmitter that emits a unique code. Transceivers scattered around the warehouse pick up the code, and using a variation on GPS that works inside buildings, they track the path of the item each time it's moved. The transceivers then send the information to a central database that uses software developed by Sovereign Technologies to keep a digital log of each item's location.

Buildings aren't the only place PalTrack works. You can install the transceivers in, say, a fleet of trucks to make sure items are delivered on time or to find out if they've been lost or stolen en route.

The price of PalTrack varies, depending largely on the number of transmitters and transceivers used. An average-size warehouse--approximately 100,000 square feet--would probably need 15 transceivers ($380 apiece), one copy of the software ($12,000), and about 500 transmitters ($6 apiece). Now if you could only put the transmitters on your cash to see where that's going. --S.S.

Why people revisit a Web site 

 Very entertaining 56%Grabs my attention 54%Extremely useful content 53%Information is tailored to my needs 45%Thought provoking 39%Visually appealing 39%Highly interactive 36%Loads quickly 21%

Source: IntelliQuest Web Evaluation Services, 1996

Lost in Space

E-mail might be a cheap way to reach thousands of people with the touch of a keystroke, but it's not always reliable. At least that's what Neodata, a subscription-fulfillment and direct-mail company in Louisville, recently discovered when it tried to E-mail a message to 85,000 names. As of last count, only 17,000 messages were ever delivered.

The problem, according to Mark BoschÉ, Neodata's director of Internet Services, is that E-mail addresses change at an astounding rate, and there is no clearinghouse to track the constant churn. "There's a huge turnover of E-mail addresses right now," says BoschÉ, "and we have no great way of keeping up with it."

Physical mailing addresses, on the other hand, are fairly stable. Plus, the U.S. Post Office sponsors a national change-of-address program. The result: of the 1.9 million pieces of snail mail that leave Neodata's facility each day, fewer than 1% are undelivered. --J.M.

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