The Handheld Partner Conference 2010

The annual Handheld Business Partner Conference was recently held in Stockholm (Sweden) at the brand new Elite Hotel Marina Tower, located right by the water and the beautiful inlet to Stockholm.

Mingle evening

The conference was kick-started with a casual mingle evening where all attendees were welcomed by Jerker Hellström, CEO of the Handheld Group and Thomas Löfblad Managing Director of Handheld Europe. They also introduced the participating Showcase Partners: Brodit, Sigma Seven, Sigmax Mobile Solutions, GroupTalk, The Institution, RAM Nordic, and Sacci.

During the evening everyone had a chance to network and check out the solutions provided by the Showcase Partners, whilst background music played from an Algiz 7 tablet PC.

The main conference day

The conference day, held on Thursday 3 June 2010, was opened by Jerker Hellström, who held a brief summary about Handheld and the developments since last year's conference in May 2009.

Jerker Hellström was followed by one of the external speakers: David Krebs, Director of Mobile & Wireless Research at VDC, who discussed industry trends in the rugged handheld market, and for example, how the market is expected to recover after the challenging year of 2009.

After a nice coffee break, Conrad Conrad Blickenstorfer, Editor in Chief at RuggedPCreview.com, held a presentation about trends and concepts in rugged mobile computing, from processors, to outdoor viewable displays, and emerging new technologies.

Thomas Löfblad and Jerker Hellström of the Handheld Group gave presentations about the latest products, as well as products to come, and took the audience through the whole processes of how Handheld works when developing a new product. Everything from design choices, choosing components and integration options was covered.

In addition to every product presentation, a special "Show and Tell" area was set up, where attendees were able to view all the products. And of course, Handheld representatives were there to answer any questions asked. The Showcase Partner area was open all day, showing great solutions and accessories to compliment the Handheld product line-up.

Sofia Löfblad, Marketing Manager of the Handheld Group, talked about a variety of marketing support, which Handheld provides to its partners and resellers. Max Dahlbom, Service and Support Manager of the Handheld Group, gave an interactive presentation of Handheld's service programme "MaxCare".

To round the day off with even more inspiration, we had invited the energetic author and business consultant Dean Lindsay, to talk about customer care and the concept of being a "BAM"; a Business Attraction Magnet. Dean also spoke about the importance of Progress, and how all progress is change, but not all change is progress. This was illustrated by some fun examples which filled the room with laughter.

Dinner cruise on M/S Riddarholmen

After a full day of conferencing followed an informal dinner on board the old cruise ship M/S Riddarholmen, built in 1916. The weather was spectacular and showed the beautiful Stockholm archipelago at its best, whilst a number of Algiz 7s, mounted on the sides of the ship with RAM-brackets, provided navigation data along the route.

During the dinner, awards were presented to those who:

was the first company to order an Algiz 7 upon release
was the first person to register for the Handheld Business Partner Conference of 2010
had travelled the longest distance to get to the event (Australia)
had travelled the shortest distance to get to the event (a few streets away from the hotel)

A reward was also given to the person who had the best result in the "Handheld Mingle Quiz". The exceptional reward for getting all the answers correct was one unit of the next Handheld product soon to be released (!). The happy winner was Knut Lilloe Salvesen, from Strekmenn, Norway. Well done Knut!!

The Handheld team would like to thank each and everyone who had the possibility to attend, and we hope that you will be able to join us again next year.

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