ITWeb conducted an online survey late last year on the current state of adoption and the appetite for rugged devices among SA businesses as well as local IT resellers.
The survey, sponsored by Dell Technologies’ authorised distributor Pinnacle ICT, hoped to establish the interest in these types of devices as well as how much local businesses know about them.
Rugged devices are designed to tolerate the harshest environments and allow you to stay connected and productive in severe conditions. For example, rugged laptops and tablets can withstand exposure to extreme temperatures, shocks, being dropped, water, dust...
Different sectors face different challenges when it comes to electronic devices, and the survey hoped to unveil which sectors have the most appetite for rugged devices as well as the features that appeal to them.
A total of 119 valid responses were captured, with 69% of respondents being at executive and middle management level, working in a range of major industry sectors. Some 46% of respondents came from the IT sector while 8% came from the telecommunications sector, 7% from education and 6% from government.
Just over a third (37%) of the survey’s respondents came from end-user organisations, 33% came from resellers and 16% came from systems integrators.
Dell, at 60%, was the laptop / tablet / PC brand most commonly represented in respondents’ product portfolios, followed by HP (54%), Lenovo (54%), Acer (38%) and Asus (30%). Almost half (44%) of the respondents say they already offer rugged devices as part of their product portfolio, while 39% say they don’t but are considering it.
The single most compelling quality of a rugged device is durability, according to 57% of respondents. About a quarter (27%) of respondents say field productivity and 13% say value for money. Asked to list the top features that their customers would look for in a rugged device, respondents ranked shock and vibration protection as the most important (72%) followed by the ability to withstand temperature and humidity (51%), minimal size, weight and power (36%), protection against corrosion and abrasion (31%) and finally ingress protection (22%). Other qualities highlighted by respondents include electromagnetic interference (18%), acoustic noise reduction (8%) and low pressure/altitude (3%).
The majority (60%) of respondents felt that the cost of ownership of rugged devices was higher than normal devices. A quarter (23%) felt that it would be lower while 18% felt it would be about the same.
The survey has separate results for respondents from end-user organisations to differentiate their experience from that of resellers. The majority (59%) of survey respondents were Dell resellers, while half of the respondents said they had sales opportunities for rugged devices.
Nearly half (46%) of respondents from end-user organisations provide rugged devices to their employees. Forty-three percent say they don’t but are considering it.
Just under half (41%) of respondents from end-user organisations rate their experience with the computing devices / technology provided by their company as follows:
- Good 41%
- Average 28%
- Acceptable 13%
- Excellent 11%
- Poor 7%
Almost three-quarters (71%) of respondents from end-user organisations believe that having a rugged device would improve employees’ productivity and user experience.
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