A Real-World Look At Tablet TCO

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

Eaton County, Michigan has saved thousands of dollars in IT expenses since deploying rugged tablets.

For public safety officials, mobile computing solutions provide a critical link to applications, data, and maps that help police, emergency medical personnel, and firefighters do their jobs better. However, the types of rugged and powerful computers needed to run these systems are often expensive and can strain the budgets of counties and municipalities.

Eaton County, Michigan, is currently wrapping up a rugged tablet deployment that has enabled new functionality in the field to meet public safety requirements, while also saving the county money in terms of hardware and support costs. The rugged tablets have reinvigorated a mobility initiative that was temporarily derailed by consumer- grade mobile devices.