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Autumn 2008
Pay-as-you-go PODs from PODfather
Momentum is said be building behind The POD Father, a pay-as-you-go real-time proof of delivery system from Scottish developer Valley Technology. It is aimed at carriers, hauliers and any business making deliveries and needing to collect PODs in real time. The company claims to be unique in its pay-as-you-go model, in which there is no up-front cost to use the system. The software is also unusual in working on any standard mobile phone running Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0. There is no need for a separate PDA device. Users access the POD data over the internet. Whilst emphasising the stand-alone nature of the product, the company points out that it can be integrated into a wider management system. For instance, delivery instructions can be extracted from existing order management software and delivered to the driver's mobile device via the company's open XML programming interface. The price per transaction varies according to the volume of PODs handled. The maximum is believed to be 33p. There is also a small fee for handling file attachments. 
Early users of the system were in the plant and equipment transport market, but now the company is also targeting courier operations and doorstep deliveries.
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