Joe

>>Just a quick question...have you considered Psion devices?<<

Oh yes, I am aware of Psion! One of the directors of the firm is an Orthopaedic surgeon who has been a Psion lover for years and has a fair chunk of his investment portfolio in Psion shares.

According to him, the keyboard issue you raise is a strength and a weakness. The overwhelming reports from surgeons is that the opening and closing of the keyboard eventually causes an < expensive > connection failure. Plus, the director I mention above dropped his 1-month-old Psion (? psion V) as he juggled with the keyboard and the keyboard broke away from the screen.

It has to be something simple. Rushing around a ward with an open Psion is much more of a balancing act than with a stylus and PocketPC or PalmOS.

The other issue is the dictaphone. If you have a dictaphone it reduces the number of tools you need to carry, plus you can speak far more quickly than you can type. The popular PocketPC devices all have dictaphones and there are attachments for Palm and Handspring. Again, an open Psion just doesn't cut it as a dictaphone.

We also need to consider what our doctors will be doing. If they are static (at a desk) they may as well use a keyboard and PC. On the hoof on ward rounds or in clinic they are unlikely to be writing emails or designing powerpoint presentations, so the keyboard is a lot less important IMHO.

Then there are tools like Transcriber. It isn't perfect, but it allows you to scrawl in cursive across the whole screen and have that converted to text. Once it works, I'd prefer to use that in combination with speech, moving to full speech as that becomes a reality.

>>I believe that Psion (or Symbian) offers the SDK for Psion devices free of charge, but it is not the easiest thing to start using. Psion devices also come with (or can use as a download) the OPL programming environment.<<

Symbian certainly looks good, especially with the alliances to cellphone companies that were established during 2000 (though I see that some shifted to MS more recently). But Psion is in a similar position to VFP IMHO. The pundits compare PalmOS to PocketPC in the same way as they compare VB to Java.

I hope you don't perceive this as "knocking" Psion. There are some cool Psion apps out there and industries where it mekes great sense. For my company's needs, however, it does not seem as suitable as the alternatives.

Regards

JR