By Michelle Johnson, Globe Correspondent, 07/29/99

At Logan Airport, commuters tapping away on laptops are a common sight. (Globe Staff Photo / Janet Knott)

On planes, trains, and buses, commuters tap away on laptop computers and poke at hand-held devices with pens that don't use ink. Deals get clinched via cell phones, and e-mail is accessed from the car.

More people these days are working on the road - some 6 million from their cars, according to a survey by the Yankee Group, a Boston-based research/consulting group - and there's a growing market for lighter, faster, gizmos that make an office optional for these "mobile professionals."

According to Giga Information Group, a market research outfit based in Norwell, the mobile computer market is growing almost twice as fast as the desktop market, and sales of other mobile devices such as palm-size computers will outpace mobile computers by 2001.

But this mobile revolution, like all revolutions, comes at a price.

As their mobile-enabled employees and executives scatter, companies face the challenge of managing them and gauging their productivity remotely.

"Companies have realized that you have to figure out ways to look at the output side, and not worry so much about the input side," says Raj Sisodia, a trustee professor of marketing at Bentley College who has researched the future of wireless technology.

"In other words, [companies can't] worry about how many hours somebody's sitting at a desk, or otherwise engaged," Sisodia says. They must have some "very well-defined output measures, linked to revenue, contribution, customer satisfaction, or some combination of those things," as a way of measuring productivity, he says.

Under that scenario, whether somebody works eight hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or where he or she physically works becomes irrelevant.

According to Sisodia, mobile technologies can boost productivity.

"There is clearly an impact on efficiency and effectiveness," Sisodia says. "You look at the impact of this on a salesperson for example, who is sitting in a client's office and can directly tap into the corporate database and give [the client] availability, delivery schedules, and customization of the order - live, in real time."

Sisodia believes technology that gives employees the ability to work off-site, or during nonpeak hours, gives them "a lot of flexibility back, an ability to manage their lives in a more realistic way while continuing to be productive."

Here are some tools that help those mobile workers stay productive:

LAPTOPS
Laptop computers, a standard tool for mobile workers, have slimmed down.

Today's mini-notebooks are 1-inch thick or less, and weigh around 3 pounds. Laptops in this category include:

The Thinkpad 240 from IBM (www.ibm.com) weighs in at 2.9 pounds (without AC adapter and a plug-in floppy drive). It includes a built-in 56K modem, 64MB of RAM (upgradable to 192MB), and a 6.4GB hard drive. Although the unit has drawn praise for portability, it's been panned for short battery life - about an hour in one recent test, a serious drawback for a traveler, say, on a 5- or 6-hour cross-country flight. When you think Thinkpad, think extra batteries. The 240 runs about $2,000.

Toshiba's Portege 3110CT (www.toshiba.com) sports new technology aimed at the short-battery-life problem. Using something called a low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) TFT display panel (a super-thin display), the machine is able to work unfettered by an AC adapter for just under three hours. The Portege's specs include a 300-MHz Mobile Pentium II processor, 64MB of RAM (upgradable to 128MB), a 6.2GB hard drive, and an integrated 56K V.90 modem. It weighs 2.9 pounds, about 3.5 pounds with an AC adapter, and costs $2,300.

Apple (www.apple.com) is billing its new PowerBook G3 as 20 percent thinner, and at 5.9 pounds with CD-ROM drive and battery installed, about 2 pounds lighter than its predecessor. Built-in features include a 56K modem and an Ethernet connection for hooking up to networks. The PowerBook G3 comes in 333- and 400-MHz flavors, with 64 MB of RAM and a 4, 6, or 10 GB hard drive. Apple says the unit can work up to five hours off of one battery, or up to 10 with two. Prices start at $2,499.

Sony's VAIO 505 Slimline Notebook, (www.sony.com) with its snazzy magnesium alloy case, tips the scales at 3.1 pounds. It's available with a 300 MHz Pentium MMX processor, 64 MB of RAM (upgradable to 96 MB), a 4.3 GB hard drive, and a built-in V.90 modem. It runs about $1,999.

VOICE RECOGNITION
Voice recognition software has developed a following among doctors and lawyers, as well as professionals in other fields where dictation and transcription are routine.

New products aimed at mobile professionals have been paired with voice recorders, allowing you to dictate into the recorder, hook it up to a computer, and run voice recognition software that automatically transcribes it.

Newton-based Dragon Systems Inc.'s new Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile (www.dragonsystems.com) has taken this scenario a step further with a new generation of software that analyzes dictation and acts on it. So, for instance, if a user records, "Remind Joe that we're having a marketing meeting next Friday," once the recorder is plugged into a computer, voice recognition software transcribes the speech, recognizes that it's an e-mail, searches the user's e-mail address book to find Joe, generates a message and fills in the subject field with the words "Marketing Meeting." And if it's set to do so, it will automatically send the message to Joe.

"What we're trying to do is not just recognize the text, but to analyze what you've said, and to take action on that analysis," says Roger Matus, Dragon's vice president of marketing.

NaturallySpeaking Mobile ($299) comes with a digital voice recorder that can record up to 40 minutes (80 additional minutes on removable memory cards), and "linking" software that makes the system work with programs such as Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Palm Desktop. A recently introduced headset that plugs into a computer's USB port can be used in addition to the voice recorder.

Mobile workers are also an important segment of the market for Burlington-based Lernhout and Hauspie, (www.lhsl.com) according to Paul McNulty, vice president of the PC Applications Group. L&H recently began shipping Voice Xpress Mobile Professional ($229), a package that includes L&H Voice Xpress Professional software and an Olympus DS-150 digital voice recorder, which can record up to 75 minutes.

Requirements for both products include a computer running Windows 95/98/NT, 48-64MB of RAM, 180-200 MB of free hard disk space, and the equivalent of an Intel Pentium processor.

McNulty notes that while mobile devices are getting smaller and more feature-laden, they're difficult to control via tiny keyboards or styluses.

"Speech is becoming a far more sought-after user interface for these devices," he says.

Dragon's Matus agrees that speech will be an important feature for a wide range of hardware and applications.

"[Users] are going to be accessing information from wherever they are by voice, and getting the information delivered in the format that they want to see it in," he says.

Both companies are working with partners to integrate their voice recognition "engine" into products such as automobile systems that allow drivers to send and retrieve information via voice commands.

This summer, DaimlerChrysler and IBM will offer European drivers a $12,000 option in a Mercedez-Bens V-class van called the Mobile Executive Office that includes an IBM laptop, printer, telephone, fax, and voice-controlled e-mail. The system may hit US showrooms later in the year.

L&H's voice recognition engine is built into a product by Clarion that allows drivers to send and receive e-mail.

PALM-TOPS/HANDHELDS
These palm-size devices, initially slow to take off, are now standard fare in mobile workers' toolboxes. But they're not just for tracking appointments or keeping to-do lists anymore.

New sleek, colorful models can download content from the Web, run slideshows, take dictation, send and receive e-mail wirelessly, play games, and more. Tap at the screens of these units with a stylus to launch applications or input data, or press a button for one-handed operations. Drop them into a cradle connected to your computer and sync them with your laptop or desktop. Anodized aluminum bodies and color screens have been turning executive heads.

3Com's (www.3com.com) top-selling Palm Pilot line, including the Palm IIIx and Palm V, runs the Palm Desktop operating system, and includes the standard address book, calendar, a memo pad, and e-mail applications. New to the line is the $600 Palm VII, the first to use wireless technology. It doesn't fully browse the Web; it uses "Web clipping" to retrieve news, weather, and sports from subscription wireless services, and it's e-commerce savvy. Don't rush to the local reseller just yet; it's currently available only in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. A national rollout is in the works.

The Nino 500 ($450) by Philips (www.philips.com) runs on Windows CE, and sports a color screen, software for voice command and control, and pocket versions of Microsoft's Office applications. It will run about eight hours off its rechargeable battery pack or two AA lithium batteries. A $299 version, the Nino 200, is available, but doesn't include a modem.

At around $500, the Hewlett Packard Jornada 420 (www.hp.com) also runs on Windows CE and is one of a new crop of color-screen palmtops. A voice recorder, Pocket MS Office applications, and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery round out the package.

REMOTE ACCESS SOFTWARE
While ultra-portable devices may keep the mobile office humming, they can't do it all. There may be times when it's necessary to log into the office computer. Remote access software to perform such chores has been around for years, and products on the store shelves offer a similar lineup of features, including: file transfer and synchronization, the ability to log in and run applications as if you were sitting in front of the remote computer, and remote printing.

Among the top-rated packages in this category are Symantec's pcAnywhere (www.symantec.com) and Traveling Software's LapLink Professional (www.travelingsoftware.com).

Michelle Johnson, a former editor for the Globe, is an Internet consultant. Her e-mail address is mijohn@mail-me.com.