Shopping Project #2 - Wireless Groupware

The Situation:

The Island Side Realty firm is a very busy office these days. They have 1 principle broker, 6 other realtors, 1 office manager/financial officer, 3 support staff, and 1 messenger. They also have a small office in Hilo which is staffed with only 1 realtor and 2 support staff. The realtors are constantly on the road, showing open houses to potential clients. The messenger runs all around downtown, delivering document to clients, loan officers, escrow officers, etc. The realtors currently each have a pager, which the company pays for, but this has become increasingly inefficient. Only 2 of the realtors have cell phones, which they currently pay for out of their own pockets.

The company currently has 4 Pentium II computers (550 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 15 GB HD) on Oahu, and 1 in Hilo. The Oahu office has one laser printer connected to one of the computers, as does the Hilo Office. The Oahu office currently has 1 dialup Internet connection which is currently connected to only one computer in their office. The Hilo office doesn't have one at all. The Internet connection is used only for 2 things; to check the one e-mail address that their company has, and to use the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) system from the Honolulu Board of Realtors (HBR) which the realtor use to check for houses listed as "for sale". They have MS Office 2000 installed on all of their computers, and the staff is fairly savy enough to use most of the applications. All of their documents are stored on different diskettes so that they can take them from computer to computer, but they have a lot of documentation which makes them difficult to find at times.

The company is having communications problems. They need to be able to schedule staff meetings as well as meetings with clients. They often cannot find common times to have the meetings, and sometimes they schedule 2 meetings at the same time and find the conference room already in use! Realtors who are on the road of course need to be informed of any changes immediately as well. Additionally, each realtor feels that they would like to have their own e-mail addresses, which they would like to be able to check on location. Better yet, they would like to be able to check the MLS system on location, and if possible even provide clients with documents on the spot.

Your Task:

Build a system which will facilitate all of this functionality for them. Obviously you're looking for some kind of groupware. Make sure that you list all of the different hardware and software that you're going to be specifying for this company. Be sure to describe the configuration you're using to put all of these systems together and how you want this office to function.

Hint: There are all kinds of hardware for you to choose from:cell phones, PDAs, laptops, cell modems, PCS, etc. There are various groupware packages to consider the leading ones are Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, but there are many many others. Get creative!

You will be graded on the same Shopping Project Grading Criteria.