Posted on 06/14/2006 12:10:07 AM PDT by nickcarraway
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- How's this for a perk? A free iPod from the boss.
National Semiconductor is giving each of its 8,500 employees a video iPod.
It helps that National makes the chips used in many digital audio players and other portable entertainment devices.
A statement from the company said the iPod giveaway caps its best year ever.
The iPods aren't just to entertain workers. The company said it will communicate with employees via downloaded podcasts and other media playable on the iPods.
I wonder if they put extra plumbers on retainer?
This was posted before, but it is an interesting use of the iPod perk.
It may even have some real uses in an organization that needs to distribute video training material quickly and securely over a company intranet.
Look at post 4 that would have been better, it has email, web browsing, Video Telephony, Streaming video and playback of video (30 fps QVGA), picture editor, still and video camera, bluetooth, Memory Stick PRO Duo support up to 8GB, and MORE!
That is cool. And if everybody was given a choice between the iPod and the P990i, I'd say that the company would benefit from increased productivity from both its non-geeks and geeks.
Naturally the geeks would go for the hitech phone, and the non-geeks for the iPod.
But the iPod plays to the lowest common denominator. Everyone can operate an iPod, but not everybody can figure out their cell phone. Most people don't use a quarter of the features on their cell phone. I'm afraid the P990i would be useless in the hands of anybody with a geek factor rating less than 8.
How much?
its National Semiconductor lets hope that all of them are "geeks" :D
Sony Ericsson K750i GSM Unlocked Triband Camera Video Phone - Retail $319.99
Not sure how much the newer p990i costs.
One can hope, but one would be severely disappointed.
Most managers aren't geeks, and this is probably evidenced by the choice of only distributing iPods. I can see the value in the iPod as an aid in distributing audio and video training materials, and company news - but a moderately competent tech department, such as a company like national semiconductor would have, would be able to make any content available to either P990i users and iPod users with minimal effort.
If they bought the ipod for videos alone i think they also messed up, better products are on the market with larger screens and with better specs.
ARCHOS 2-Tone 40GB Mobile Digital Video Recorder Model AV 700 - Retail $449.99
or this...
iRiver Black 20GB USB 2.0 Portable Multimedia Player Model PMC-120 - $215.99Retail
or this...
ARCHOS 2-Tone 20GB USB 2.0 Portable Camcoder Model Gmini 402 - Retail $266.99
Once you get into that area, it becomes a matter of personal preference. I've used both, and I tend to prefer the iPod video for its compact design and extremely easy to use podcast/videocast subscriptions.
A moderately competent techie can take any content and publish it for download by any device with minimal investment in time and energy on the distribution end. But what matters is whether or not the end users will actually use the device as intended. A device as simple as an iPod makes that likelihood a better bet, even if it isn't necessarily the best solution from a features point of view.
does the ipod have bluetooth or do you have to be connected to get "podcasts"?
A wired or wireless connection for updating the unit is immaterial to ease of use of the interface, from the end users point of view. Wireless is more convenient, but it is the implementation of the interface that matters. Convenience is only one factor of ease of use, and wireless does lend itself to convenience, if it is implemented correctly.
I remember playing around with the Sony Clie with bluetooth capability. It was literally no more convenient than plugging it into the wired base unit. Bluetooth is getting there, but a lot of bluetooth implementations are rather primitive.
iPod versus your other options, and it comes down to personal preference. For what the company wants to achieve, the iPod is probably the simplest device for the task. It is easy to use, and it does the job adequately. There are probably better devices with more features out there for similar cost, but which are more complicated to use, or don't multitask between audio only and video podcasts, or just aren't as easily portable or likely to be ported around by employees.
A tool that employees don't want to use doesn't get used. Could the company have provided a choice? Yes. They could've. Should they have? Well, I'm not a shareholder, or in management, and so I can't dictate terms to them. If the iPod does the job and the employees use it as a tool, and actually carry it around with them so it becomes a useful tool, then it actually works out better.
But I bet if the techies were introduced or allowed some of the other devices, I'm sure they'd find niches for them where the iPod is not necessarily workable or useful, but these are probably a minority of the possible uses.
No use arguing that something else could do one or two things better. The total functionality and usefulness of the iPod in this instance is dictated by NS management. Perhaps the decision was motivated by mere pandering, or perhaps the iPod will be fully put to use as a media player for company content. As both, it serves the purposes of the company well enough, and if it doesn't, next year perhaps they'll replace them with one of your ideas.
Try write to them... maybe they'll send you a coupon.
I just remember reading in the other article posted about this that the company wanted to find "a better way to communicate"... well... the ipod is pretty poor at that, any video phone, would have been a better choice.
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