Alpha
Maintenance and Building Ltd, the Derby-based building services
company, discovered just how useful their Avixsys service
management software can be last month. Hearing that two
of their engineers had had their vans broken into and a
PDA stolen, office staff consulted their desktop ‘mapping’
facility to discover that the thief was so preoccupied with
hot-footing-it that he had forgotten the first rule of petit
larceny: if you nick a PDA, make sure you switch it off.
He was inadvertently tracking himself all the way home.
Alpha, who are contracted to provide services to the leading
UK pub and restaurant operator Mitchells & Butlers,
chose to issue their engineers with O2’s XDA Orbits
as part of their Avixsys system provided by Vixensoft. Unfortunately
for the unwitting thief, the device has integral GPS which
Alpha normally use to help them schedule reactive work based
on engineer location. Being able to track thieves is just
an added bonus.
Relaying the news to Vixensoft, a delighted Sarah King
wrote, “Had a good day today – two engineers’
vans got broken into, one of them has a smashed window and
they’ve stolen his PDA! Unfortunately for them they
left it all switched on, and we’ve tracked them to
their home address where there’s a police unit now
sat outside!”
We toyed with the idea of suggesting Alpha send a message
to the PDA along the lines of “Come out with your
hands up” but thought the thief would be embarrassed
enough as it was. |
Alpha PDA thief gets picked up PDQ