Leveraging Rugged Systems to Meet the Needs of Your

Mobile Computing Environment

Sponsored By: Dell Inc.

Speakers: Kevin Beaver, Independent Information Security Consultant for Principle Logic,

LLC, Steve Gilbert, Worldwide Business Development Manager for Dell Rugged Computing

Solutions, and Patrick Seidensticker, Director of Marketing for Augmentix

Moderated By: Kyle LeRoy

Kyle LeRoy: Hello, and welcome to a SearchMobileComputing.com presentation,

Leveraging Rugged Systems to Meet the Needs of Your Mobile Computing Environment.

This presentation is being brought to you by Dell Inc. For more information on Dell Inc., you

can click on their logo in the lower portion of your screen. My name is Kyle LeRoy and I am

the moderator for today’s presentation. Joining me today is Kevin Beaver, Independent

Information Security Consultant for Principle Logic, LLC, and Steve Gilbert, Worldwide

Business Development Manager for Dell Rugged Computing Solutions, and Patrick

Seidensticker, Director of Marketing for Augmentix.

Before we begin the presentation, I would like to review a few items with you. The slides for

this presentation will be pushed to your screen automatically. If you have any questions

throughout the presentation, you can type them in the “Ask A Question” area, which is

located on the right side of the viewing console, and they will be addressed at the end of the

presentation. If you have any difficulty reading or viewing the slides, there is an “Enlarge

Slide” button that you can click on, which is located just below the slides. And, if you

experience any technical difficulties with this presentation, there is a “Help” link that you can

click on, over in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. With that being said, I am now

going to turn things over to Kevin to begin the presentation. Kevin?

Presented by Kevin Beaver, CISSPIndependent Information Security Consultant, Speaker, Author, & Expert Witness

Principle Logic, LLC

www.principlelogic.com

Copyright © 2010, Principle Logic, LLC - All Rights Reserved.1

Presented by Kevin Beaver, CISSPIndependent Information Security Consultant, Speaker, Author, & Expert Witness

Principle Logic, LLC

www.principlelogic.com

Kevin Beaver: Alright. Thanks, Kyle! I would also like to thank Bireny and Karen with

TechTarget for getting me involved with this presentation and all of the folks at Dell for

making this happen. So, for those of you listening and watching, thanks for joining us today!

This is going to be a great talk on a really neat topic that I believe is finally getting the

attention that it deserves.

So, when it comes to managing IT and keeping up with a mobile workforce, I’ve seen so

many issues arise that end up getting in the way of business. Really, all of the complexities

and politics, and user management issues seem to take away more than they contribute,

especially when it comes to managing business risks and keeping the joint running. So,

whether you’re in IT, you’re a road warrior in Sales, or you’re somewhere in between, I’m

sure you’ve seen or have been affected by some of the issues we’ll be discussing today and I

know without a doubt that you and your mobile workforce will be able to benefit from more

rugged, more robust mobile computing systems that we’ll cover.

Over the years, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly associated with managing mobile

systems that is keeping the hardware running, keeping sensitive information safe, and

keeping people productive so they can do their work. And, having worked in IT for over 21

years, on both the technical and operational sides of the mobile equation, and seeing and

experiencing the notebook failures and really all of frustrations and business ramifications

that go along with that, I realize now that the time has come for rugged notebooks. So, let me

first talk about what rugged is all about.

2

Now, looking at the dictionary definition, rugged means strongly built or constructed. So,

rugged notebooks or laptops, or whatever you want to refer to them as, are systems that have

been hardened to withstand harsh use in industrial and field environments. That’s the essence

of it. And, having owned a dozen or so notebook systems over the years and seeing many of

them fail, often due to something dumb on my part, this is something very near and dear to

my heart. This is actually one of the less visible benefits of rugged notebooks that is using

them in the context of IT, by IT professionals. We take our laptops everywhere we go and

they tend to be exposed to a few more elements than the average system, and I know I would

have saved thousands of dollars and weeks of my time had I chosen to go this route early on,

but I digress.

3

“Strongly built or constructed” Merriam-Webster

With rugged notebooks being, well, rugged I guess, I do want to point out that they’re not

indestructible. Give me a sledgehammer and a chainsaw, and I can demonstrate that, but

these rugged systems are, however, really tough and really resilient. They’re built to defined

environmental requirements and specifications. In fact, there are two that we’ll be talking

about today that are the primary methods of certifying a rugged system. One is the IEC IP

ratings, which basically cover the environmental protection ratings of the enclosures, and the

other are the military standards, the MIL-STD 810G standard that outlines the specific test

methods.

So, let’s take a look at what rugged means in the context of the day-to-day work that we do.

Really, why is it that we need these rugged systems? Well, in essence, we’ve got rough and

often careless users taking their notebooks in rough, often hazardous environments, and

demanding that their systems work when they need them to, regardless of any carelessness or

bad choices, slamming their notebooks around and beating them to a pulp. The general

expectation is that the system will be there and be operational when they need it most. So,

there are different levels of ruggedization, and the reality is that different customers require

different levels.

Rugged in the business context

Rough users

Rough environment

Hardened against the elements

Form meets function

4

So, here are the different levels on the screen, starting out with business rugged or durable.

These devices, they may not meet any specific standards but they’ve been designed to be a

little bit more durable. They’ve got more durable materials and so forth, to take some abuse

and to help ensure data is protected. The next level is semi-rugged. These devices meet

various standards, such as the military standards, and are designed for durability on the road.

Then, we move on to rugged. These are systems that may not be fully rugged but they’re a

little tougher than the semi-rugged stuff, and they’re semi-rugged systems and they’re pretty

darn tough. Moving on to fully rugged, these are systems which meet a lot of the military and

IC standards, and then finally ultra rugged, devices which meet the most stringent

environmental requirements, and there’s nothing puny about these guys. So, as you can see,

not all rugged systems are alike.

Business

Rugged

Semi

Rugged

Rugged

Fully

Rugged

Ultra

Rugged

Now, on to my next point. Let me talk about the rugged market for a second. Here are some

numbers put out by a research firm, VDC, that validate the legitimacy of rugged systems in

the marketplace. This year alone, we’re looking at rugged mobile computing sales projected

to reach over one million units, with steady growth in 2011 and 2012. Really, total sales are

expected to reach nearly 1.4 million by 2012, so I think that’s a legitimate market and I think

it’s a good sign that things are on the uptake.

Now, we know these rugged systems are tough and we know there’s a positive market

outlook, but what’s the real value of these systems? What are the market and customer

drivers behind the increasing adoption of these mobile computing devices that we’re seeing?

Dell Confidential 6

0

200,000

400,000

600,000

800,000

1,000,000

1,200,000

1,400,000

1,600,000

2010 2011 2012

Un

it S

ale

s

Projections

RUGGED MOBILE COMPUTING PROJECTED SALES (UNITS)

2010-2012 (VDC, 2009)

Notebook/Convertible

Notebook

Slate Tablet

On Board/Fixed Vehicle

Total

• $3.3 Billion market in 2010 to almost $4 Billion by 2012• Historical market share leader:Panasonic (>60%)• Strong challenge/push by Dell as only true Tier 1 vendor in rugged market

Well, first, mobile computing, in general, has obviously taken off in the past few years. I

imagine one day in the near future some of the generation wires who are entering the

workforce are going to say, “What’s a desktop?” They’re just not going to know. It’s just not

reality. It’s not their reality. They don’t see them in schools. Everybody has a laptop or a

notebook system and that’s just the way it is, especially in our increasing mobile society. So,

on top of that, users are really becoming more savvy and they’re taking it upon themselves to

administer their own systems. We’re actually seeing a certain level of IT commoditization

happen, really right before our eyes, and being a security guy I hate saying this but users are

more…they’re really in more control of their systems now than they ever have been, and I

don’t see that changing. It sort of goes against the core principle of managing business risks

and enhancing information security, but it is what it is.

Mobile computing

User sophistication

Need for instant gratification

Rugged adoption

7

I would say perhaps the biggest driver behind mobile computing and having systems that

work when people want them to work is this awful need for instant gratification we have in

our society. We want it now. We’ve got to have it now and by gosh we’re going to get it now.

It’s actually created a sense of disposable computing, where if a notebook breaks we just

throw it away and get a new one, and that may work for some college students with parents

providing them economic outpatient care, but I just don’t think that’s a good strategy for

businesses long-term.

Another thing that many people don’t think about is the acquisition cost of a notebook. It’s

much different than the real cost of deploying and maintaining these mobile systems. And,

sure these rugged systems cost a bit more but once you factor in the cost of lost productivity,

downtime, potential data loss and repairs, because someone spilled their drink on the

keyboard or they dropped the notebook and broke it into a thousand pieces, then it starts to

become clear that there are much greater prices to pay that could really come back to bite you

in the future. And, another thing about rugged systems is that they’re enabling the mobile

workforce to gather data and make decisions at the point of interaction, out in the tough

environment, out in the field. So, there are measurable costs in productivity and lifecycle

benefits going beyond the traditional military and first responder markets that we’ve seen,

which are allowing many more workers to become mobile and to do more in their work. So,

in a nutshell, the cost of downtime, lost productivity, missed meetings and the general lack of

business continuity creates tons of problems for yourself, for IT, for information security,

arguably even compliance and risk management, really the business overall, many things that

I’m willing to guess that most businesses aren’t ready to take on.

Lost Productivity

System Unavailability

Additional IT Headaches

Things you

cannot afford

9

Now, let me shift into top gear and share with you a few things that I’ve seen in my work,

sort of involving rugged systems and why I think this stuff is important. So, when I’m

performing my information security assessments, I look at a lot of different areas, from

technical flaws involving operating systems and web applications to operation weaknesses

associated with policies and security plans. Looking at all of this stuff, I can say that

consistently a very large percentage of the risks I see involves mobile computing and

notebooks. And, taking rugged into consideration, the first thing I see is system unavailability

when a notebook stops working. What if a user’s hard drive fails? If it’s an average

employee, it may mean trying to find them a replacement. If it’s an executive, it may mean

that someone in IT better fix it now or his or her job could be on the line. What if an

employee spills a drink on his notebook? That actually happened to me. Actually, someone

spilled their drink on my notebook when I was giving as presentation, not too long ago, and I

was out of a computer and, thus, billable work for almost three days until I got a new system

and everything restored. So, one of the key issues here is keeping people productive,

especially in this era of got to have it now, immediate gratification. So, notebook availability

is a top priority you can’t overlook. And, then the other big thing I see is good old-fashioned

data loss. Be it that the laptops or notebooks are lost or stolen, or they’re somehow damaged,

whatever, once they’re gone, they’re gone. And, most of the time, I find that notebook

computers are not getting backed up. People say, “Uh, well, I’ve got a backup,” or , “I’ve got

a fallback plan.” That’s not really the case. In the situation where I had someone share his

drink with my laptop, I was lucky I had a backup and the fact is I know that in most business

environments these laptops and notebooks do not get backed up. I can’t tell you how many

notebooks I see that are just completely overlooked and if they are being “backed up,” all too

often it’s really the user’s responsibility. So, maybe data is getting backed up, but no

applications, no metadata, no local databases, no data stored in odd places, and it’s probably

not happening all that often. So, nothing real or adequate is getting done and I just can’t

imagine the horror of losing all of my e-mails, my files, my everything and not having a

fallback plan. Reality is, when I look at it, my notebook computer is my business, just like it

is for so many mobile users, and things do happen. It’s just a matter of time.

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Not understanding

the risks

Management being

disconnected

Trusting users

Hoping policies are

enough

So, I’ve listed here the most common contributors to these problems, these business risks.

The first thing is not knowing what’s really at risk and what it will take to respond and

recover once an incident occurs. Generally speaking, the perception of risk is still not there

when it comes to protecting mobile systems. In order to move ahead, we have to come to

terms with the underlying issues, because really this is sort of a universal law, we cannot fix

what we don’t acknowledge. The second point, management, basically assuming that

everything is fine, trusting that all is well in IT land, really, thinking that those “IT folks” are

handling it all, and it’s really this disconnection that’s one of the greatest barriers to success

for IT and for mobile computing, and I think it’s a big, big problem I’m seeing in a lot of

different businesses, regardless of how small or large they are. Third point, depending on

users to always do the right things to protect their systems. Yeah, we’re all grown ups. Yeah,

we know that most people have good intentions but stuff happens. And, the general mindset

of a lot of the people that I talk to is, “Well, this is an IT issue. IT is handling all of that

stuff.” And, the fourth point, hoping that security policies are the answer, and hope is not a

strategy. You’ve got to have something tangible in place, otherwise you’re going to continue

this cycle and it’s just going to continue becoming a bigger issue. So, all in all, some very

costly mistakes are being made, even with things as seemingly innocuous as mobile users and

notebook computers. You can’t wait for a better time to address this stuff.

Now, one final note. I actually subscribe to a quote of the day mailing list and I thought

today’s quote was very fitting. It’s from Soshiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor

Company. Mr. Honda said, “To me, success can only be achieved through repeated failure

and introspection. In fact, success represents 1% of your work that results from the 99% that

is called failure.” I love that! Don’t you think we’ve gone down the wrong path and failed

enough when it comes to choosing mobile systems that are right for our working

environment? I do. It’s time to look at the big picture and think long-term, how rugged

systems are a better fit in so many areas of our business once and for all, and if not now then

when? So, that’s it from my perspective. We’ll now go into a question and answer session

with Patrick and Steve, and talk about the value proposition that Dell has to offer in this

market. Welcome guys!

Kevin Beaver, CISSPIndependent Information Security Consultant,

Speaker, Author, & Expert Witness

Principle Logic, LLCwww.principlelogic.com

11

12

Patrick Seidensticker: Welcome! Thank you!

Kevin Beaver: Alright, so I’m going to go ahead and jump into the first couple of questions

that I’ve got for you here. How does one know that these rugged systems are really going to

meet the needs of their mobile computing environment?

How does one know that these rugged systems are really going to meet the needs of their mobile computing environment?

Are there other rugged specifications to consider?

13

Patrick Seidensticker: Yeah, this is Patrick Seidensticker. So, there are a couple of things

and one of the main things that our customers tell us that they do and one of the things that

we would actually advise is to check the specification list on these devices. There are two

main specifications that are somewhat standard in the industry and help to define rugged or

fully rugged. Those are MIL standard tests for mobile devices, currently called MIL standard

810G, and there is another set of tests, a standard set of tests, called IEC IP ratings, and IP

stands for ingress protection, water and dust. A couple of other things to remember, these

units are designed to withstand accidental and occasional hardships that the units may incur

in the field. They’re not indestructible. They’re not bulletproof, though some people have

said before. But, they’re designed to withstand the occasional incidents over a three- to five-

year lifecycle, lifespan. So, go to the next slide and we’ll talk a little bit about the 810G

testing.

WHAT IS A RUGGED

DEVICE?

• Per dictionary the word rugged is defined as "strongly built and constituted.”

• Rugged mobile computers are products which are hardened to withstand harsh use in industrial and field environments.

• Rugged devices are not indestructible, but built to defined environmental requirements.

• The two primary methods of certifying:

– Environmental protection ratings of enclosures (IEC IP ratings)

– Test method standards (MIL-STD-810G)

Dell Confidential 14

So, a big part of the market is, of course, the military market. So, as it is, the military, they

define a set of tests and conditions and parameters that units have to pass before they could

be considered fully rugged, and this actually works really well for nonmilitary customers

looking to standardize or looking to evaluate rugged devices, because they can go to the test

specs and see if the units have passed. So, a couple of things about the 810G testing. One,

there is a set of tests that cross a pretty wide parameter of events. There’s a test for drop.

There’s a test for water, dust, temperature, vibration. You can see the list on the slide. The

second piece is not only are the units intended to pass these tests but it’s important for small

business customers that they’re able to access the test, and the test should be accessible and

also should be delivered and produced by a third body, a third-party body. So, for instance, in

this case, it’s important not to (Inaudible) the test and produce the test, but you can see that

the test report is produced and published by a third-party audit, that it was actually done to

the standards set by the MIL standard body 810G for each of these.

MIL-STD-810G TESTING

• The MIL-STD specification is a series of guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Defense in order to define specific performance and manufacturing requirements for all types of equipment.

• Common MIL-STD tests include:

– Transit Drop

– Aggravated Rain

– Blowing Dust

– Temperature Extremes

– Thermal Shock

– Humidity

– Vibration

– Salt Fog

– Altitude

– Functional Shock

– Explosive Atmosphere

Dell Confidential 15

So, the second set of tests is IEC, or IP, ratings, environment protection ratings, and with this

test, this is specific for dust and water. And, just a quick highlight and a quick overview for

the folks that are not familiar with this test. The first set of numbers is related to the dust

rating and the second set of numbers is related to the water rating, the higher the number, the

higher the protection against each of those. The rugged standard historically has always been

54, and you can read there what each of those stand for. Dell, when they launched their

rugged devices, increased that standard to 65, and you can see now that some of the

competitive devices that are available today have also increased their rating. So, it’s also

important that the minimum for rugged boxes are set at 54 and anything above that provides a

pretty good protection against dust and water.

IEC ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION RATINGS

OF ENCLOSURES

The IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has created a standardized method for Ingress Protection (IP) ratings, which refer to the equipment's ability to resist the ingress of solids and liquids into the enclosure.

• Rated as IP-XY, where:– X represents level of protection against ingress of solid foreign objects

– Y represents level of protection against water ingress

• The fully rugged standard is IP-65:– Level 6: No ingress of dust. Complete protection against contact.

– Level 5: Jetting Water – Water is projected in jets against the enclosure from any direction with no harmful effects.

• The rugged standard is IP-54:– Level 5: Ingress f dust is not entirely prevented, but it must not enter in

sufficient quantity to interfere with the satisfactory operation of the equipment; complete protection against contact.

– Level 4: Splashing Water – Water splashing against the enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effect.

Dell Confidential 16

So, going to the next slide, what are some of the things that manufacturers have done that

have increased the rugged capabilities of these devices, beyond what are normally and

commercially available? Well, there is a handful of different things. Some of the things are

done on the exterior and outside of the box, which the customer can see, and some of the

things the customer can’t see and that are done from a design and technical standpoint on the

inside of the box. There are chassis enhancements and different materials that are used, both

interior and exterior, to protect the unit against drop, vibration, shock. There are different

thermal management technologies that are built within the unit. The MIL standard states, for

instance, that rugged devices are supposed to operate in extended thermal bounds, from -20

degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. If you compare that to non-rugged devices,

they normally have a thermal boundary of 32 degrees Fahrenheit to about 95 degrees

Fahrenheit, so you can see that the thermal bounds have been vastly increased, and that’s

important for units that are deployed in very, very hot conditions or outside conditions where

it’s very cold, or maybe if they’re deployed within vehicles. If you can imagine a vehicle on a

hot summer day, it can get well over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. So, different thermal

technologies are incorporated into these units to allow them to continue to operate safely

without them breaking down.

RUGGED

CONSTRUCTION

PRACTICESRugged devices employ the following construction

practices during the design to ensure ruggedization:

• External & Internal Construction: Using magnesium alloy casing and new high performance hybrid materials (ie. XRF’s PR-481) as well as durable paints in the chassis and internal structures helps strengthen the system and protect internal components.

• Thermal Management: Incorporate either low power and low heat components (CPU, GPU, etc) or employ specialized convection and conductive cooling technologies to meet a broad range thermal boundaries

• Shock Absorption: Critical components such as HDD, LCD, Motherboard, etc are protected via external bumpering systems, shock-mounted designs, shock absorbing materials and components, and special chassis material designed to absorb and dissipate external drops and shocks.

• Sealing: To protect from rain/dust ingress, ports, keyboard, touchpad, antenna, LCD, fingerprint reader, etc must be sealed with rubber (or polymer) gaskets sealing technologies such as form-in-place and compression.

• Latches, Doors, Hinges: All reinforced with heavy-duty metal construction designed to withstand high cycle count testing, drops, shocks, vibrations, and water.

Dell Confidential 17

Shock absorption is done within the exterior piece of the chassis and special materials for the

chassis interior and exterior, and also different shock absorbing materials are placed around

the critical components within the chassis, and that includes the motherboard, the memory,

the hard drive and the GPU. Ceiling, different ceiling technologies are incorporated in the

unit, then they have to do a combination of the technologies themselves. Different

compression and gasketing technologies are used around the doors to protect all of the ports.

You notice that in these rugged devices, none of the ports are exteriorly exposed. They all

have doors that can close and protect the ports. And, there are also different conditions or

different technologies in the material which help to complete those ceiling technologies. And,

then you’ll see, with these rugged devices, enhanced and ruggedized latches, doors and

hinges. They’re all fully upgradable. They’re generally composed of different types of metal

compounds or metal alloys, not plastic, and that’s due to cycle counts testing, so they can be

opened and closed hundreds of times or thousands of times over their lifecycle, and also

protect against shocks, drops, salt, fog, dust, corrosion, and anything else that these units may

encounter outside.

Kevin Beaver: So, Patrick, this actually sounds like some minimum specifications for a

laptop that I need flying around in my trunk, going back and forth to work on a hot Atlanta

Summer day. Right?

Patrick Seidensticker: Exactly. Yeah, so there may never be…there are a bunch of different

use cases. That would be a use case, if you’re in a construction site or a field service site and

the unit is caught out in the rain, or if it’s in a high dust condition area, any of those

conditions or exposed events could kill a lesser laptop, for instance.

Kevin Beaver: Right, and having worked in the K through 12 educational environment, I

know that these could be a good fit for that as well, as much as those kids bang on the

computers, so really good stuff! Let me ask you. Are there any other rugged specifications to

consider?

Patrick Seidensticker: There are a couple of other tests that customers, depending on their

specific environment, may want to consider, and these are tests that you can check

specifications for, to see if the units have passed and are qualified. There is an LCD impact

test. It’s really a homegrown test actually that Dell has devised. There are hazardous location

tests. There are electronic interference tests. There is a night vision test. So, the

recommendation here is to check the specification of each of the units to see which of these

tests the unit is qualified for.

OTHER TESTING

• LCD Impact Testing

• UL1604 Hazardous Locations Certification: If the device is compliant, it will not cause a spark in an explosive environment.

• MIL-STD-461F: Protection against electromagnetic interference.

• MIL-STD-3009: Sets requirements for aircraft display equipment for use with night vision imaging systems

Dell Confidential 18

Kevin Beaver: OK. Excellent! Thanks, Patrick! Let’s go to the next question that I’ve got

here. When it comes to notebook abuse, what are the conditions and/or causes of most

hardware failures that you’re seeing?

When it comes to notebook abuse what are the conditions and/or causes of most hardware failures?

19

20 –

VDC

Rese

arch

Grou

p,

Inc.

TCO Analysis

Annual notebook mobile computer failure rates

• Annual failure rates by device type

– Fully Rugged: 4.7%

– Semi Rugged: 7.1%

– Durable: 20.3%

– Non-Rugged: 33.6%

• Wireless failure an increasing issue, especially for ‘beyond the fence’ deployments

– Issue is losing connection during transmission resulting in lost productivity and frustration

– Not a coverage issue

Source: VDC, 2009

Patrick Seidensticker: Yeah, this is Patrick again. So, we’ve leveraged this data off a third-

party research firm and they’ve looked at failure rates and causes of failures across non-

rugged boxes all the way up to rugged boxes, and it kind of ties into your TCO discussion

that you had talked to earlier. But, across…the annual failure rates, on average, across

varying levels of ruggedization within these units, you can see that non-rugged boxes have an

annual expected failure rate of over 33%. Now, I’ve got to say that these are devices that are

deposed in, we call it, vertical applications, and vertical applications would be anything

outside in a rugged environment, whether it would be first responders, construction, field

service, military applications. In any of those conditions, you can see that the failure rate is

very, very high for non-rugged boxes. And, it’s not listed here but they actually see that these

devices have to be replaced on an average cycle, non-rugged have to be replaced on an

average cycle of two years, versus four years for fully rugged. You can see the fully rugged

expected failure rate, on average, is at less than 5%.

Kevin Beaver: OK.

Patrick Seidensticker: So, going to the next slide, the causes of failure, the primary source

of failure, on the right section of bars, is generally most highly driven by drops, so accidental

drops. Then, after that, you can see that causes of failure, vibration, temperature, water, dust,

and then some others.

Display, hard drives and peripherals

cited as the primary source of device failure.

HW failures mostly caused by drops.

Primary Causes of Device FailureMobile Deployment Trends

Source: VDC, 2009

TCO Analysis

Primary Sources of Hardware Failure

Cause of Failure

Primary Source of Failure Primary Cause of Failure

Kevin Beaver: OK, sounds like the typical use of a laptop, at least in my environment, and I

know that these things certainly get banged around in the average business, whether

someone’s in Sales or whether they’re out working in the oil fields. I could see this…I can

certainly understand the underpinnings here. So, let’s go to another question here. Are there

any other security, business or lost productivity related consequences when laptops suddenly

become unavailable?

Are there any other security, business, or lost productivity related consequences when laptops suddenly become unavailable?

22

• Lost of critical data (customer information, invoices, intellectual property)

–Financial Impact

–Time of work impact

–Business impact

• Loss of productivity (hours? Days? Weeks?)

• Customer dissatisfaction

DELL CONFIDENTIAL 23

Steve Gilbert: And, I’ll take that one, Kevin. This is Steve Gilbert, with Dell, and yeah,

actually there are actually quite a few that people usually don’t think of. It’s like they usually

start with, “Well my laptop’s broken and I can’t do my work.” Well, depending what your

laptop was used for and what you were doing, and I mean I’m sure you’ve had experience

with this personally, but I mean there could be customer information on your laptop. There

could be invoices. There could be intellectual property that you may not have been able to

back up. So, I mean, there is the financial impact of, “I did lose a set of orders. I lost a set of

invoicing. I’m not being able to send out my invoices in time.” Small and medium business

customers, even large enterprise customers, may not be able to get paid until they can get

those invoices out, and that could be days or weeks before they have to do it. The other thing

that I always point out is that there is a time of work impact that people usually don’t

consider, and the one that I will kind of give you an example of, because I think we’ve all

been there, is that your cable TV installer guy may call and say I’ll be there between like

eight and three, but if he broke his laptop at nine o’clock, it may be a couple of more days

before that guy can actually come out and do that work, because he can’t get your work order

together, he can’t put your stuff together. So, there is a time of work impact when these

systems fail. And, then of course, there is just the general business impact. Right? The IT

department has to get a new unit out. You may have to return to depot a product. It could take

two or three days for them to get a hard drive image back on it, restore your data. And, all of

those days, you’ve got literally not only hours but days, maybe even weeks where you’re just

not being able to work. I heard you mention earlier about how you were like down for a

couple of days on billable services just because your laptop broke, and that’s a huge impact to

the business.

Kevin Beaver: Right.

Steve Gilbert: One of the other things that I kind of also like to point out is that it’s not only

going to affect the user but it could also be affecting your customers. I know that when I sit or

wait for four hours for the Comcast guy to come install my cable TV and then he calls and

says he can’t come for another two days, there is some pretty good customer dissatisfaction

with that and that’s something to keep in mind, that depending on your job and the role that

you’re in, that downtime has a negative impact on your customers, and their lives, and their

schedules and their productivity as well. So, yes, just far beyond the reaches of just the

hardware itself, the impact of downtime can be very, very substantial.

Kevin Beaver: Absolutely, and just beyond the reaches of a sole proprietor, like myself, I’m

just one guy and I was down for a couple of days, and it did impact customers. But, luckily I

had backup computers. I had a backup method to access stuff, but it was still a big deal to

both me and my customers because -- getting back to the whole instant gratification thing, a

lot of people want…they send you an e-mail, they call you, or whatever, they want to hear

back immediately. And, unfortunately, many of these things are learned in that old school of

Hard Knox. People don’t think about it until they experience it. Right?

Steve Gilbert: Absolutely! Absolutely!

What are other IT cost savings opportunities in purchasing both non-rugged and rugged laptops from the same Tier 1 vendor?

24

Kevin Beaver: OK, let’s go on to my next question here. What are other IT cost savings

opportunities in purchasing both non-rugged and rugged laptops from the same tier-one

vendor?

• Same level of service and support

• Single point of contact

• Single line of procurement – increasing buy power

• Common IT platform

–HDD Imaging

–Patch Management

–Common peripherals

• Managed lifecycles and transitions

DELL CONFIDENTIAL 25

Steve Gilbert: That’s a very good question and one that has actually become much more

popular in these kind of harder times that we’ve looked at. Two years ago, when Dell got into

this rugged market and started with the rugged solutions that we put together, we actually

started offering a bunch of things to customers that…at least in the client, and the desktop,

and regular notebook space, we’ve been offering for a very long time, but now they were able

to get some of those benefits that -- the same level of support and service that you’ve had for

the rest of your IT stuff, or that you’re at your desktops or maybe even your server, you are

actually now able to get that within the rugged category as well. The other thing that we

found that the customers really gave us good feedback was that they still have the single point

of contact, not only from a procurement standpoint but also from a service and support

standpoint. If you have your sales rep, Jim, or your sales rep, Jane, or whoever it is that

you’re used to working with, you can actually call them now and that’s that one point of

contact to get all of your stuff done. One of the things that also, particularly for business

customers, that they can leverage is now when you talk about their IT buying power, it used

to be, “Well, I’ve got my desktops here and I’ve got my notebooks here, and I got a rugged

notebook somewhere else, you’re actually breaking up your buy power into three segments.

When you go to a single tier-one vendor, you get to consolidate that buy power to possibly

get better discounting or better pricing on your solution because you’re actually spending

more money with one customer. And, again, the other thing we kind of talked about in that

last slide is that the tier-one vendors also bring to you a common IT platform. So, depending

if it’s fully rugged, semi-rugged, non-rugged products, you’re talking about common hard

drives, in terms of their imaging and their BIOS. If you have to do all of these Windows

patch management and all of these upgrades, it’s a common platform that you can work from,

in terms of your patch management. And, the other thing that customers have really

gravitated toward was that they actually have common peripherals. So, it doesn’t matter, oh

I’ve got to grab the right A/C adaptor, or the right CD-ROM drive, or, “Well, do I need this

docking station or this docking station?” It doesn’t really matter because they’re all common

and they’re all the same, and they can all be used interchangeably.

And, then the biggest thing is that the hardest thing for business people to have to deal with is

unpredicted change in their environment, especially in their IT environment. It causes loss of

productivity. It increases cost. One of the things about dealing with a tier-one is that it does

offer you some very managed lifecycles of products and very managed transitions. We have

long lifecycles on our products here at Dell. We always let our customers know on our

commercial grade products if Windows transitions are coming so that they can plan months

and months in advance of, “OK, the new technology will be here approximately this time and

I can plan to move my IT resources at a given time.” So, if you add all of those things up, it

makes going with a tier-one almost a no-brainer type of an answer.

Kevin Beaver: Thanks, Steve! I’m glad you brought up the common peripherals thing.

That’s been a huge deal for me, just in power adaptors, having different notebooks and

having to keep up with all of these different adaptors. It’s such a pain! And, then now that

I’m on the other side of the table, looking at it from a true security perspective, pointing out

the flaws, pointing out the weaknesses, I can’t tell you how often I see operational

weaknesses related to patch management, related to system hardening and what not, because

the administrators have been too busy managing all of these disparate systems from all of

these different vendors. If you have one set of system, one set of notebooks or a couple of

notebooks from one particular vendor, to me, you get to spend less time spinning your wheels

and focusing more on strategy type stuff rather than just reactive, putting out all of the fires

and hoping that you don’t get hacked by a malicious insider. So, this is all (Inaudible).

Steve Gilbert: Absolutely! Absolutely!

Do you have some examples you can share related to the ROI and total cost of ownership benefits of rugged systems?

Why would you recommend spending more money upfront on a rugged notebook versus a non-rugged notebook ?

26

Kevin Beaver: OK. A couple of more questions here, guys. Do you have some examples you

can share related to the ROI and the total cost of ownership benefits of rugged systems, and

then I guess the second part of that, why would you recommending spending more money

upfront on a rugged notebook versus a non-rugged notebook?

Notebook Computer Annual TCO

An

nu

al

TC

O

Fully Rugged Semi Rugged Durable Consumer-Grade

Annual hardware failure exceeds 30% for non-rugged notebooks

– Display and hard-drive failure two leading contributors

– Plug-in peripherals significant source of failure

– Recently developed ‗durable‘ solutions shifting source of failure, not changing overall failure rate

Wireless failure a significant contributor to TCO

– Average of 30 wireless transmissions per day

– 7% of transmissions fail – disruption to workflow process

$1,207

$1,738

Hard Costs

Soft Costs

$978

$2,264 $3,717 $4,344

$851 $788

TCO Factors:

• HW Failure

• Wireless Failure

• Peripheral Failure

Source: VDC, 2009

Patrick Seidensticker: Yeah, this is Patrick. We were going to look at what VDC, the third-

party research firm, again has provided, in terms of average industry rates related to cost of

ownership, between fully rugged devices down all the way down to consumer grade devices.

So, one of the first things or one of the main costs that customers tend to look at, obviously, is

what we call acquisition costs, or how much does it cost to buy the unit at the front end. Not

very often do customers, especially small business customers, think down the line a little bit

and say, “Hey, how much is this unit going to cost me to own down the line? How often is it

going to fail and what’s that going to cost?” So, what VDC has done is they’ve taken a look

at average cost to own each of these devices over time and what you’ll see here, on this slide,

is that, yeah, the initial cost, the acquisitions costs, are higher for fully rugged devices but the

cost to own the unit over a three- to five-year lifecycle become much higher in that overall

consumer grade notebooks deployed in hazardous environments are going to cost you more

to use, manage over the lifecycle of the device, related to hardware failure, peripheral failure,

lost productivity, etc.

So, going to the next slide, just to summarize…I know we’ve hit the TCO stuff a lot but there

are a couple of stats here that summarize what we’ve been talking about. Again, failure rates

for these mobile devices, deployed in vertical applications, is a lot higher for non-rugged

devices versus rugged devices. That’s going to result in lost productivity time, customer

impact and higher costs. And, then finally, I think I mentioned this earlier but the stat here

listed is 83% of commercial notebooks have to be replaced when they’re deployed in vertical

applications versus just 18% of fully rugged devices. So, they last longer. They’re going to

cost the customer less over the long haul.

TOTAL COST OF

OWNERSHIPSUMMARY

Based on independent market research studying field failure rates and total cost of ownership of rugged and non-rugged notebooks the following summations can be made:

• Commercial notebooks deployed into mobility or vertical market applications fail at a much higher rate than rugged notebooks – 5.9% vs. 27% - approx. 4.5x greater annual failure rate

• Further, failures of commercial notebooks cost more in lost productivity minutes when compared to rugged notebooks – over 35% more time is lost per failure in productivity minutes when commercial notebooks fail

• When commercial notebooks are deployed into mobility or vertical market applications, the annual total cost of ownership of a commercial notebook is 57% higher than that of a rugged notebook

• By the third year over 83% of commercial notebooks originally deployed into mobility applications have been replaced compared to just 18% of rugged devices

―…being able to marry the best possible mobile computer with the target user and

application is ultimately what will set apart mobility innovators. It is imperative to

balance the user, application, deployment environment and—perhaps most

importantly—the mission criticality of the applications‖, (VDC)

28Dell Confidential

What are the most important features people need to consider before going down the path of acquiring rugged laptops?

Are there other important features that generally found only on rugged laptops?

How do these features add value to field-based customers?

29

Kevin Beaver: This all makes sense to me. OK, let’s move on to the final block of questions

that I’ve got for you here. Let’s talk about some features, sort of a three-parter. The first one

is, what are the most important features people need to consider before going down the path

of acquiring a rugged laptop and then are there other important features generally found only

on rugged systems, and then how do these features add value to field-based customers?

SOLUTION ELEMENTSRUGGED SOLUTIONS FOR A BROAD RANGE OF VERTICALS

AND APPLICATIONS

RUGGED

COMPUTERSLICES

& Adapters

DOCKING STATIONS

Vehicle & Office

CARRY

STRAPS

Specific Peripherals

30Dell Confidential

Sunlight Viewability

Rubber

Keyboards

Dedicated GPS

Patrick Seidensticker: Yeah, so most of the things that we’ve talked about so far are the fact

that the devices are rugged and how they save customers money, but there are some specific

things that fully rugged notebooks have related to peripherals and also features that can

actually add value to a customer and are not found on commercial devices. So, a handful of

these things listed here are, for instance, vehicle docking. Generally, vehicle docking stations

are only designed for fully rugged devices and if you’ve got an application where you want to

have the unit securely locked down in your vehicle, you’re going to have to look at a fully

rugged device, specialized backlit and rubber keyboards, specialized peripherals that allow

for multiple charging or multiple batter options, or multiple, I call it, legacy I/O, so some

ports that are not currently offered on a lot of generally available commercial units are still

necessary in the fully rugged device roles, and so there are specialized adaptors, specialized

carry straps. A carry handle, for instance, is one thing you may take for granted, but a carry

handle is standard generally on all fully rugged devices and are not on non-rugged units.

GPS, dedicated industry acceptable GPS is a feature generally found on fully rugged devices.

Outdoor viewability, a lot of customers don’t realize if you’re inside and you’re looking at a

computer, yeah it looks great, but how often do they take that device outside into direct

sunlight? If it’s fully rugged, there are different technologies and features that are built into

the LCD which allow that unit to be essentially usable outside in direct sunlight, and you

won’t find that in commercialized notebooks. So, handful of different features that are only

found in fully rugged and it’s worth the consumer to look at the spec sheet and evaluate one

versus the other.

Kevin Beaver: This is good stuff! Thanks! I think the handle could really come in handy.

You try loading up both arms with junk that you’re carrying from your car to your office, or

vice versa, and you realize you forgot your laptop, and you’ve got to hold it between your

knees and try to wobble out to your car, and pray that you don’t drop it. I think another thing

that would come in handy is this in-vehicle docking station. At least for me, I know I could

send and receive e-mails when I’m going down the highway and there could be a lot of

productivity benefits from that perspective. I’m just joking but...

Steve Gilbert: Well, one of the other pieces of that, Kevin, is it’s also a…it’s a huge safety

benefit. Right? So, I know a lot of people that basically take their laptop and they just leave it

in the passenger seat, and God forbid you actually get into a car wreck! That thing suddenly

becomes a projectile and a very heavy projectile, at that, flying around the interior of the car,

and you really need to get that thing secured into something.

Kevin Beaver: Absolutely! Absolutely! That’s one of the things that people sort of take for

granted, all of the junk that they have laying around in their cars. And, you’re right. If you do

get into a wreck or even if you have to steer really quickly, or you have to jam on your

brakes, or whatever, that thing is going to go flying into the floorboard, potentially flying

over on your side of the car. It could get stuck up under the accelerator or the brake,

whatever. Yeah. I mean, there are all sorts of scenarios with that, so definitely some

beneficial stuff here.

Where do we go from here?

Know your needs

Risks and realities

Two-sided coin

Think long-term

31

Kevin Beaver: So, that’s it. I think, finally, I want us to take a brief moment to give our

audience some closing thoughts on rugged mobile computing, and I’ll start by saying that you

have to ask yourself what’s important here. What do we really need in order to have a sound

mobile computing environment? And, you also have to ask yourself if we choose not to

acquire more resilient notebooks and something bad happens to one or more of them, what

am I going to do and what are we going to do? There are two sides to this coin, what you do

to prevent mobile computing problems and how you react after they crop up. And, based on

my experience and the misfortunes of others, the former is much easier and cheaper than the

latter. So, think long-term. Guys, any final thoughts?

Patrick Seidensticker: Nope. I think you’ve covered it pretty well!

Steve Gilbert: Great!

Kevin Beaver: Excellent! Thanks a lot!

32

Kyle LeRoy: Alright. Thank you all for your presentation! That concludes today’s

presentation, leveraging rugged systems to meet the needs of your mobile computing

environment. If you’d like to review today’s material at some later date, an archive version of

this event will be made available on our SearchMobileComputing.com webcast library. I

would like to thank today’s speakers for taking time to be a part of today’s presentation and

I’d also like to thank Dell Inc. for sponsoring this event. And, as always, thank you all for

taking time out to join us today! This is Kyle LeRoy wishing you all a great day!