Tablet PCs and UMPCs - Coming Soon to a Restaurant or Hotel Near You!

As many people know, I have always been one of the most ardent supporters of using a Tablet PC or UMPC for different functions in the hospitality industry. Over the past 2 years, I’ve spent considerable time doing research about the hospitality market, finding perspective partners and attending various industry seminars and trade shows.

Basically, I’ve been the initial hospitality contact for TabletKiosk, so it made perfect sense for me to take on a special project of handling all hospitality sales for TK in addition to my marketing duties. I started the project in the beginning of April and it is amazing how much knowledge I’ve gained over the past 5 weeks.

So with my Hospitality Sales hat firmly in place, here are some of my findings.

1) One of the new buzzwords for restaurants is handheld Point of sale (POS) and the eo works great as a mobile terminal.

2) POS dealers talk. Once one Aloha POS (one of the top selling restaurant software) dealers discovered the eo as a mobile handheld POS device, word spread quickly through the dealer community via industry user groups and forums. I’m now receiving daily inquiries from new Aloha dealers.

3) Accessories are key. People are “discovering” TabletKiosk because of our wide range of business accessories including magnetic stripe reader with a specially designed bracket, VESA mounting plate, docking station and bump case. These accessories really help set TabletKiosk apart from the other Ultra-Mobile PCs on the market.

4) Our partnership with Citizen Systems, a leading manufacturer of mobile receipt printers, helps us provide a full POS solution to take order, swipe credit cards and print receipts without even leaving the table.

5) I'm also beginning to hear interest from restaurant groups interested in the 12" Sahara Tablet PCs. They are interested in providing their managers with a mobile solution to access the full restaurant suite of software including labor management and staffing, inventory control, reporting, communications, and guest relationships. Having a mobile touch screen terminal to access this key information keeps restaurant managers out on the floor where the action takes place instead of in a back kitchen office.

6) Exhibiting and attending industry trade shows HITEC, FSTEC, and Global Gaming Expo hare really helped us gain key exposure in the market. Next year I also want to start attending industry software dealer conventions.

It's amazing how joining the sales team for this project has given me a whole new perspective of our business. I've never officially acted in a sales role before, although I've supported sales teams for years, and it's really helpful for me to see our business from a sales perspective.