Small
Objects Of Importance
DEMOmobile
DEMOmobile
is a successful spin-off from its older brother, DEMO, which is
itself a spin-off of the fondly remembered Agenda conference,
started by industry luminary Stewart Alsop, back at the height of
the PC era. The idea is
to show lots of new stuff, in an environment that’s highly
structured, so both the audience and the demonstrators can survive
the pace. If you
don’t think it’s tough, you try giving a compelling
demonstration of a not-quite-hatched high tech product in a brand
new category in six minutes!
Every
year, a few “DEMO Gods” manage to do exactly that and win the
applause of a very jaded – they’ve seen everything – audience. But, remember, they’re technology buffs, so if they see
something they really like, they’ll be right in line with the
kids, demanding a pre-alpha copy and a priority place on the first
customer ship list.
This
year 33 demonstrating companies joined DEMO producer Chris Shipley
in La Jolla, CA. They
ranged from Adesso Systems (enterprise software) to Xora (tracks and
records and location and work times of mobile employees).
You can find all of this year’s demonstrators, with access
to company information at http://www.idgexecforums.com/demomobile2/demonstrators/;
you will also find information on demonstrators from previous
DEMOmobiles.
(Since
they are designed for the mobile market, these products are
typically small in some way – physically, in software footprint,
etc. – hence the title of this piece.)
Of
course, we were amazed, amused, or interested in at least a few of
the products. Here is a
selection of some that caught our attention.
Adesso Systems offers a platform for automating processes that connect the
mobile worker to the enterprise.
It supports a broad variety of Windows-based mobile devices
and business users should be able to build and deploy a customized
process-based solution in a few days, moving information from the
mobile worker in the field to and from back office or legacy
information sources. Changes
to a process can be implemented on the fly without disrupting
productivity. The
solution is designed to be used without writing code.
With our propensity for user-managed enterprise software, we
found Adesso quite appealing. www.adessosystems.com
Aliph
was one of the most interesting demonstrators – but you won’t
care about that. You
will care about the pristine quality of their Jawbone mobile phone
headset, which provides dramatically better audio quality than
anything, you’ve heard before. It does this through a new approach
to noise cancellation. Let
me say we all wanted one – now.
www.aliph.com
Evernote lets you take all of your notes – typed, handwritten, sketches, forms,
documents, emails, web pages, URLs – and make them into a
completely accessible document.
Everything is indexed by time, but it may also be indexed by
appearance (after all, you can spot a sketch amid your emails) and
also indexed by categories, keywords, or other references.
Access can occur anywhere, anytime from any computer or
device, including a Smartphone.
It’s not just the aggregating of all the types of notes and
the indexing, but also the fact that it synchronizes all your notes
among all your devices. Looks
intriguing. www.evernote.com
Pepper Computer is one of those ideas that you think is sort of cool, but
you’re not sure whether anyone (that is large numbers of anyone)
would buy it. What
Pepper has in mind with its PepperPad 2 device is to offer a
user-friendly mobile device for consumer that can browse the Web, do
IM and email, play music, videos, and games, share photos, and so
forth. It includes
Wi-Fi, IR, a 20GB hard disk, color screen, keyboard, Bluetooth, USB
2.0, etc. It’s
intended for OEM’s and broadband providers who are looking for a
service platform. But
Pepper thinks it could sell this device for $800.
They’re dreaming. We
think a device like this would need to sell for about $300 to be
interesting to consumers who can “buy” digital phones seemingly
for free (bundled with telco services) and consumer PC’s for $400.
Maybe someone will figure out how to price it with a service
bundle? www.pepper.com
Skype
is not new, but it’s certainly leading (if not still bleeding)
edge. It offers its
VoIP telephone service for free or nearly so, nudging traditional
telcos further and faster in the direction of VoIP services. (Crossborder
VoIP traffic grew from 150 million minutes to 19 billion minutes
from 1998 to 2002 according to PriMetrica & TeleGeography 2004.
Project that line out and you’ll see why there’s so much
excitement.)
Non-believers
either don’t know about it yet – or complain that the voice
quality or convenience of the service isn’t good enough.
At DEMO I had a few revelations.
-
Revelation
1: Skype
announced Skype for the Pocket PC (via videoconference).
That means you can make a voice call via Skype from any
Wi-Fi enabled Microsoft Pocket PC from any hot spot, including
free Skype-to-Skype worldwide calling, conference calling,
instant messaging and more.
It’s also possible to place calls to landline and
mobile phones for small per minute fees.
-
Revelation
2:
While we were sitting in the audience, my DEMO colleague
Orlando software entrepreneur (ActiveWords) and attorney Buzz
Bruggeman volunteered to demo Skype to me. (Buzz is the biggest
technology enthusiast I know.) Over the Wi-Fi connection and his
Thinkpad laptop we called a friend of his in Australia (so they
were showing off). It
was clear as a bell. Don’t
take my word for it. Buzz’s
Australian friend, Cameron Reilly wrote about it on his blog at http://reilly.typepad.com/cameronreilly/2004/09/amy_wohl_micros.html
Small Objects At DEMO
The
thing that I find so interesting at events like DEMO is that while
all the planned activities are going on, the participants in the
audience are busy telling each other about all the great new stuff
they’ve found, are looking at, using, investing in – you’ve
got it. This is always
the best part of any conference.
Buzz
Bruggeman (see above) is the master of this art. Because he goes around the universe trying to show as many
influencers as possible how great his own software is (ActiveWords,
a tool for letting you access information and applications with far
fewer key strokes, www.activewords.com
), he gets to see lots of interesting stuff.
Because he loves to try new stuff out (he’s utterly
fearless), he often gets new applications in their early stages to
actually work. Then he tells his friends about them.
At
DEMO, in addition to the Skype demo mentioned above, Buzz showed me
some neat tricks with ActiveWords (naturally), and some other cool
little products
-
A
$3.99 adapter from Radio Shack that would let me use the very
cool earphones (which he had gotten for me from another friend
of his) as my telephone headset on a laptop, so I could make or
receive a Skype call.
-
The
headset itself (another Buzz recommendation) is the best, as far
as I can tell, and I’ve tried lots – Etymotic.
They are made by hearing aid researchers and the noise
cancellation is wonderful.
You’ll find them at http://www.etymotic.com/
Small Objects Elsewhere
The
search for small, incremental pieces of software that will make
users’ lives more pleasant without (a) costing a lot or (b)
requiring much effort goes on.
We note a few more found (or coming) in the last few weeks
since DEMO in various times and places.
Search On The Desktop
Everyone
wants fast desktop search. We
keep cramming more and more into our desktops and it now takes much
longer to find something on my own computer than on the whole
Internet. Well, perhaps
not more.
Microsoft Looks At Search
The
computer press has long speculated about just what Microsoft is up
to in the Search market, how it will compete with Google, and when
that might happen.
Last
week, Microsoft hosted its new Search Advisory Group, nicknamed,
Search Champs, according to Robin Good’s website, masternewmedia,
at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/10/04/
hotshots_the_members_of_the.htm, and including some well known
industry players from among the blogging, technology journalist,
software, and search communities.
The
activities at the three-day meeting were under non-disclosure, but
we’d guess they discussed what people want in the next generation
of search engines and how Microsoft can intersect the market.
Keep in mind that Microsoft purchased the Outlook search
engine company LookOut (which we have and love) and we suspect their
clever and very fast technology might be part of this solution.
Desktop
Google
In
the meantime, Google brought the beta of its Desktop Search Engine
out this week. (If
you’d like to try it, just go to Google and click on the New
Desktop Search button to download a copy.
You might want to read the instructions carefully.
It can (if not instructed otherwise) mix web and desktop
searches and it will need to index your hard drive before it can
provide you with meaningful desktop info.
That takes in the realm of hours – done while you’re not
using the machine – but it does seem to slow things down a bit.
I’m
sorry I didn’t set it up right before I left for the day rather
than in the middle of a busy afternoon.
Early
reports are mixed. Search
is very fast, but some of its beta aspects (it doesn’t let
multiple users of a single machine index their files separately)
will make it a nonstarter for some.
Nevertheless, this is viral marketing at its best.
I’ve told at least 20 people, including the students in my
U of P class about it, and I’ve at least five people call me to
tell me about it. That
means it’s already a winner – but did you doubt it would be?
Your
Software Enhances Its Outlook Tools
Microsoft
has been encouraging ISVs to think of Office and its components as
platforms on which to build additional components and applications.
You is one of the companies that has done just that.
The Seattle-based ISV came out earlier this summer with You
Perform 1.0. This
version, You Perform 1.1, adds 70 enhancements to its collection of
15 software utilities that improve the performance of Microsoft
Outlook. All of them
blend seamlessly with the Outlook interface.
You
Perform increases productivity by eliminating duplicate messages,
contacts, and events, saving email attachments in the folders of
your choice, noting where outbound mail requires an attachment and
reminding you if you’ve forgotten to attach one, and monitors the
use of Reply to All, preventing users from accidentally using it.
It can send recurring emails automatically, insert phrases
easily with quick key, add email addresses to your contact files,
print emails when they’re received, and time stamp mail.
Calendar management remotely is enabled.
You
Perform 1.1 is $49.95. It
is available for a 15 day trial download and purchase at http://www.yousoftware/perform
IXI and AT&T Wireless Launch Ogo
AT&T
Wireless believes there is a market for a mobile messaging device
that combines instant messaging (IM), email, and text messaging in a
sleek clamshell package, priced and aimed at the next-gen, young
consumer market. We
think they may have found one.
The
device assumes you already have an IM account from AOL, Yahoo, or
MSN and an email account from AOL, Yahoo, MSN, or a major ISP. (You can get one for free if you don’t have one already.)
The
device is being built for AT&T by IXI Mobile. In an interview with IXI we learned that the price point
selected by AT&T defined the services offered on the Ogo. Web browsing, for instance, would have made the device too
expensive. IXI assured
us, however, that this is not a technology limitation, and that they
could readily build other versions of a wireless portable for
another OEM customer with a different target customer.
Ogo
is available at AT&T Wireless stores, priced at $99 plus a
monthly charge of $17.95 with one email account.
AT&T Wireless GSM users get a $3.00 per month discount.
There are no long commitments required – life is lived in
the fast lane in this demographic.
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