The challenge of porting CSPro/X to Windows Mobile 5.0 has been successfully accomplished and today, you can run the same CAPI application on a desktop or notebook under Windows 32 or on a Pocket PC (PPC). The amazing fact is that nothing got lost in the conversion process and therefore the same application can be run without any changes on a PPC or a desktop . The application development is carried out in Win32 and after generating a set of binary files, they are passed to the PPC.

The new software, as was probably expected, has a totally new interface specially designed for the small PPC screen. The entire conversion and design project has been entirely performed by SERPRO under a direct contract with MACRO International Inc . (financed by USAID). At this point, both CSPro as well as CSProX are currently working under Windows Mobile 5.0 and in order to complete the client/server communication module of CSProX, a new synchronization module is being developed. We hope this important software component will be ready shortly.

The system has been tested in the Dell Axim X51v with the following features:

• Microsoft ®  Windows Mobile TM   5.0 software with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile
• Powered by the Intel ®  XScale TM   PXA270 Processor at 624MHz
• Brilliant 3.7" color TFT VGA display with 640x480 resolution
• Integrated Intel ®   2700G multimedia accelerator with 16MB video memory
• Integrated 802.11b and Bluetooth TM   Wireless Technologies
• 64MB SDRAM and 256MB Flash ROM
• Integrated CompactFlash Type II and Secure Digital / SDIO Now! / MMC card slots
• VGA-Out support with optional VGA Presentation
• Removable Primary Battery with optional High Capacity Battery
• 3.5mm Headphone / Headset Jack for Headsets to support VoIP and voice recognition applications
• Built-in microphone and speaker
• USB Cradle including Battery Charging Slot

The system should also run on the HP iPAQ hx2790 since it has practically the same features:

• Microsoft ® Windows Mobile T 5.0 software - Premium Edition
• Intel® PXA270 Processor 624 MHz
• Wi-Fi (802.11b), Bluetooth® wireless technology, Serial IR
• Integrated Compact Flash Type II (CF) and Secure Digital (SDIO) slot - Supports SD/MMC type standard, SDIO ready
• 384 MB total memory (320 MB ROM and 64 MB SDRAM); Up to 256 MB user available persistent storage memory
• 3.5" Transflective TFT QVGA; 64K colors; portrait and landscape mode
• Touch-sensitive display for stylus or fingertip
• Integrated microphone, speaker and one 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
• 4.71 x 3.01 x .65 in.
• 5.8 oz

The Intel processor has demonstrated to be powerful enough to run the demanding CSPro/X software with a very large CAPI application for a household survey having around 700 questions. Amazingly, the delay between questions is not an issue even when complex consistency checking rules are applied.

The PPC version of CSPro/X will be especially attractive for those institutions/companies having applications using a large number of concurrent users where the ratio in price between a notebook and a PPC can be at least 2 to 1 (for example: UMPC Origami vs. PPC).

It's important to point out that the processor's speed requirement is not primarily related to the size of the application but to the number of demanding CSPro/X features imbedded in the application (lookup files, long dynamic lists, average number of parameters in questions to be replaced in runtime, automatic coding/classification, etc.). The size of the application is only relevant at the beginning when it's loaded (probably just a few times during the entire day).

The results and experiences are exiting due to the impact the software has in the behavior and response of the small machine. The new features especially designed to deal with the known PPC shortcomings (when compared to notebooks or bigger tablet PCs) seem to make wonders, tending to diminish the impact they could have in long data capture sessions.

The new implemented features are focused in minimizing three shortcomings of the PPC machines: the size of the screen, the lack of a QWERTY keyboard (unless an external keyboard is used) and the difficulty to navigate back and forth through the captured data.

It's also worth to emphasize that besides having the development component in Win32, the application can be tested using the CSPro/X Win32 interface or the Windows Mobile CSPro/X interface. This will save a substantial amount of developers' time.

The fact is that the couple CSPro/X-PPC opens up new markets given the cheap cost of the hardware and the ease to generate complex PPC applications with CSPro/X.

Pocket PC Data Capture Demo (Flash)

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