Success breeds success and more work. And heavier workloads demand more powerful tools.

This article originally appeared in Inc. Technology magazine

And in an attempt to keep pace with that growth, ORI's 10 salespeople were working late into the evening and even coming in on weekends to fine-tune their sales proposals and PowerPoint presentations.

"If you're going to be successful, you have to spend your working hours out seeing people," says company principal Paul Fraser. "Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time for the necessary details. I didn't want people to feel they had to drag themselves into the city on the weekends just to get their work done."

The answer, Fraser knew, was to invest in laptops so that his people could work off-site. The purchase would also mesh nicely with the company's development of a product portfolio for on-site presentations, which with laptops could be run on CD-ROM rather than on the LCD projector Fraser had originally planned to buy. "A pictorial reference would really show the end result of our work," says Fraser.

Word travels fast. When ORI's designers--who work in a customer's office once a sale has been made--got wind of the laptop shopping trip, they spoke up, pointing out that their three-year-old notebook computers were just too slow for the team's AutoCAD files, which had been growing at the same rate as company sales--from an average 0.5MB to 5MB.

Nevertheless, Fraser says, "I couldn't just go out and buy 20 laptops for everyone's individual use." He decided to start small, instructing information-systems director Ray Theberge to buy two laptops: one to replace the PC used by the vice-president of corporate accounts and a second for the designers and the sales-account managers to share.

Theberge wanted to purchase two identical laptops that would share a single docking station from which users could connect to the office network and its peripherals. He also wanted to have only one vendor for technical support.

To run the designers' AutoCAD files, the computer would need at least a Pentium II 300MHz processor and 64MB of memory (64MB shy of Theberge's ideal of 128MB). To run the planned product portfolio, the computer would also need an internal CD-ROM drive and decent speakers.

Theberge had a low opinion of Compaq laptops, but because ORI already had Compaq PCs and servers, he stopped at a local retailer to evaluate Compaq's Armada. Despite its attractive styling, he remained unimpressed, particularly with the sound. "Compaq makes fabulous servers and really good desktops," he says, "but they haven't quite made it to laptops."

After checking Deja News, a consortium of Internet users' discussion groups, and such industry publications as InfoWorld and Mobile Computing, Theberge added three highly rated computers to his roster of considerations: Dell's Inspiron 7000 D300LT and NEC's Versa LX and Versa SX.

Theberge explains that he quickly eliminated the Dell from consideration when engineers at a customer site complained that their Dells "were flimsy and kept breaking." When the battery pack fell out of the Dell he picked up to examine, Theberge found himself agreeing with them.

It's worth noting, however, that Anthony Bonadero, Dell's Latitude business-planning manager, maintains he has never heard of an accidental battery-pack ejection and adds that for five consecutive years Dell Latitudes have survived PC Computing's "Torture Test" for laptops.

A clear choice started to emerge. Prowling NEC's Web site, Theberge learned that unlike the Dell and Compaq docking stations, which rested alongside a monitor, NEC's Versa Dock featured an integrated monitor stand--a sort of "garage" beneath the monitor--in which the user could park the laptop (in this case, either an LX or an SX), saving valuable desk space. It was time to make sure that NEC's laptops met Theberge's performance goals.

He couldn't find a local Versa reseller, so he went directly to the manufacturer, which, unlike the makers of the other laptops he considered, offered him an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee. He accepted the offer, opting to try both Versa models before deciding on one.

Each of the 300MHz Pentium II models had the desirable 14.1-inch active matrix display, but the LX--which could hold two drives--weighed 6.8 pounds, while the slimmer SX, with one drive, weighed 2 pounds less. Its single drive, however, did allow for "hot-swapping"--that is, switching between the floppy, the CD-ROM, and the DVD without having to reboot the computer.

As it turned out, Theberge liked both units, and ORI paid $3,577 for the Versa SX and $3,665 for the LX, including extra memory--96MB for the SX, 64MB for the LX--to bring the total to 128MB for each model.

Although ORI's salespeople had said that portability was their highest priority, they preferred the heavier Versa LX, because its high-quality speakers enhanced the effect of their new CD-ROM presentation, which was completed in December. In fact, the LX spent so little time docked in Theberge's office that three weeks after the initial purchase, the company placed an order for another Versa SX and LX.

The ORI salespeople, for their part, are antsy. Account manager Kevin Murray, who uses the LX twice a week, is anxious to get a laptop of his own. "I can't wait to integrate it with my PalmPilot," he says.

ROAD SHOWS

When key staff members have to spend Christmas Day trying to get a new piece of equipment to work, it's time for another solution. At least that's what Von Best, CEO of IVP Pharmaceutical Care, thought.

The focus of his problem was a new Gateway Solo 9100XL laptop. It refused to recognize the video file that had prompted the laptop's purchase in the first place. "I'd heard that system was a killer for sound and video," says IVP's IS director, Mark Ingrum, "but I had no way to find out if that was true."

He'd overseen the laptop's purchase and was confident that he'd covered all the bases when he had ordered the Solo from Gateway's Web site. With four employees ready to board a plane with the laptop, he was frantic about the wall he'd hit.

Why was a drug company so vested in its audiovisual presentations? First, a little history: IVP, a $28-million specialty pharmacy based in Carrollton, Tex., had been providing fertility drugs to clinics and hospitals since 1991. In early 1998, IVP's principals realized that they could offer their customers a new product-related service: patient instruction.

Like diabetics responsible for their own insulin injections, many patients who take regular doses of fertility drugs must administer their own injections. But first they need to learn the correct procedures.

IVP's answer? A video training kit. Though he "didn't have Spielberg's budget," Best says, the company did invest substantially in its instructional video, using trained actors and professional mixing and mastering. The clinics and hospitals that used IVP's products could order the videos and play them in their waiting rooms or give patients a copy to take home.

But first IVP had to sell the idea to its customers. That meant that the company's team of four training specialists would have to take the show on the road--as it were--and play it for doctors and clinical staff.

Logistics ruled out using VHS tape: finding a TV and a VCR in every hospital or clinic seemed too much to plan on. Best decided to save the video as an MPEG computer file on CD-ROM and then copy the file to the hard drive of a laptop computer that the trainers would carry with them.

Instructed to select IVP's traveling theaters, Ingrum set out to find a laptop that would run the video without hiccuping. Crisp displays and excellent sound production were the critical factors. His requirements meant nothing less than a Pentium II 300MHz processor, 100MB of memory, a built-in CD-ROM drive, a 14-inch active matrix screen, and high-quality speakers.

Accustomed to buying "just one step down from the cutting edge" to get the best value, Ingrum let capabilities rather than price dictate his selection. And because the training specialists were medical rather than computer professionals, Ingrum also looked for glitch-free machines that would be easy to operate.

IVP had been using Gateway PCs for years, but Ingrum had been unimpressed with Gateway's technical support. Often, he said, he "knew more about the problem than they did." Nevertheless, because, among other things, he preferred not to oversee a menagerie of computer brands, he decided on Gateway's Solo 9100XL laptop, customizing and ordering it on-line at Gateway's Web site. He was surprised and pleased that he was able to configure it with Windows NT, IVP's primary operating system.

When the unit arrived, Ingrum set out to test the quality of its 16-bit speakers. However, he immediately ran into trouble. The Windows NT demanded a password, but nothing he tried would get him in. After searching the documentation and finding no solution to the problem, he called the Gateway technical-support line. He got no help from the first rep he reached, but the second instructed him to ignore the prompt and hit Return. To an IS professional, that was beyond counterintuitive, but it worked.

Thinking that at last he was in business, Ingrum proceeded to load the MPEG file, but 15 minutes later, unable to get it to run, he was back on the phone. The new problem wasn't so easy to diagnose, especially on Christmas Day, when support is mighty scarce.

Three days later the laptop still wouldn't recognize his MPEG file. He had tried a laundry list of suggestions, from restarting the computer to reinstalling drivers. Negative. When the support reps suggested getting into the guts of the operating system, he says, "red flags went up. The average new computer owner shouldn't have trouble like that."

At last, on the third day, Ingrum reached a supervisor who explained that Windows NT was incompatible with a special component he'd ordered to make the video run smoothly. Ingrum wasn't pleased. After all, the site had allowed him to order the laptop with the fateful combination. "It was a major oversight," he says.

Fed up, Ingrum packed the unit for return and spent the next two weekends power shopping. CD-ROM in hand, he visited computer superstores throughout the Dallas area, looking for a laptop that would do justice to his MPEG file.

Most stores required him to get the approval of the manager and have someone stand by and watch while he loaded his file. "Those stores are designed so the computers don't walk away, not so you can actually use them," he says.

Ingrum particularly liked the Compaq Presario 1710. He thought that the computer's brand-name speakers produced impeccable sound and had excellent volume control. And though the laptop's 12.1-inch display wasn't as large as he would have liked, it ran the file adequately.

He also had high hopes for IBM's ThinkPad 770X, with its 14.1-inch monitor. But its sound was disappointingly tinny, and instead of a touch pad, which he preferred, the model used a pointing stick to navigate the cursor. The Compaq was looking good.

Still not completely convinced, Ingrum continued his quest with Dell, even though he would have needed to order a Dell computer direct from the manufacturer. IVP already had a few Dell computers and a Dell sales rep it trusted, so Ingrum figured it was worthwhile to consider the vendor's laptops.

When he visited Dell's Web site, he was particularly impressed by the Inspiron 7000, with its 15-inch screen--and he placed an order. The Inspiron's speakers were smaller than the Compaq's and its sound quality was inferior, but the Inspiron had an Intel Pentium II processor. In the end Dell's larger screen edged out Compaq's nifty audio. But, Ingrum says, "if I could get a laptop that combined the Inspiron's screen size with the Compaq's speakers, I'd buy one tomorrow."

Each of IVP's two new 8.9-pound Inspiron 7000 laptops runs on a 300MHz Pentium II processor. In addition to a floppy drive, each of the machines that Ingrum purchased has a DVD drive (which reads CDs as well as DVDs), a 6.4GB hard drive, and an 8MB video card. Ingrum padded its standard 32MB of memory up to 128MB. With its leather carrying case and two-year extended warranty, each laptop cost $2,994.

The field training specialists, who use the laptops as their primary computers to handle E-mail and to access the Web, report that the video presentations have gone smoothly. And when there's a technical problem, says Ingrum, the Dell support reps deal with it efficiently.

For those reasons, Ingrum says that when it comes time to buy more laptops, he'll look at Dell first. But he hasn't discounted Gateway, especially after learning that it corrected the ordering options on its Web site.

"I'm happy to know they listened," he says. "The real question of what people are made of is what they do when things fall down."