ForbesOnTech

Demo Fall 2010-- Matt Marshall hits Opening Session Grand Slam with VOntata Connect, Federated Netwoks and EM Clie

Demo Fall 2010’s first day offered a cornucopia of new mobile computing and enterprise products that left me wanting more. Executive producer Matt Marshall’s recipe is one of the best I’ve tasted at DemoFall in years.

From the enterprise menu, I liked Federated FN Networks’ Connect Secure Desktop and Server enterprise cyber security software a great deal. Federated has done something with security software that other vendors should have done a longtime ago; they reinvented a category and have introduced a much better mousetrap. What’s truly unusual about Federated Network’s approach is that it begins b with the users interactions with the computer. All of the users’ interactions and communications with the computer-- are encrypted. If this seems like overkill. It’s not. Analysts quoted by Federated believe the cyber security market is worth approximately $40 billion and say the weakest link in the chain is the user. FN Secure Desktop locks the door on the weakest link in the cyber security chain and makes t impossible for miscreants to intercept all types of data. At the user’s computer or anywhere in the communications pipeline.

I was extremely impressed with this Canadian company’s demonstration. Historically enterprise software developers have needed to resort to gimmicks to get their points across. Federated’s presentation quickly showed the company has set a new bar for this category at the desktop and server.

EM Client popped right up in my ballroom seat. EM Client has an auspicious target-- Microsoft Outlook is the and the enterprise email market. This new application is a full-featured communications client that includes a messaging client and an integrated search engine. What really impressed me is how easy this developer has made migrating from Outlook to EM Client. I’ve never seen any communications application that made migration of everything in my Outlook files--including scheduling-- so easy. EM Client automatically synchronizes and is capable of determining and using the fastest available communications path for message routing. Of all the applications I saw on the first day of Demo presentations, EM Client’s was the one that kicked off my strongest ”gotta use it” instinct.

Vonata’s Connect-- an enterprise telephony and mobile device application was another classic Demo technology introduction. If you’ve ever had to crawl through corporate voice mail hell, you’re sure to quickly jump on Connect’s Vonata bandwagon. One of the most innovative products I’ve seen at Demo in the last 15 years. In theory, once Connect’s enterprise application has been installed and the user has the client on their smart phone, the user would see a list of numbers and corresponding wait times associated with a response from those numbers. Vonata Connect also includes a feature anyone whose ever experienced a dropped call in the middle of a tech support call will really love, direct redial. Vonata could face a tough up hill Sales cycle with Vonata. Corporate telepphoney departments are notoriously conservative and while allowing consumers direct access to an appropriate employee may sound like a strategy that helps a corporation seem more open to consumers, providing such information with client software that runs on smartphone could be perceived by corporate telephony managers as giving bank robbers the keys to heavily guarded vaults and safes.

I got a lot out of the speakers at this year’s event; thanks to incredible planning by Matt Marshall and his staff that resulted in topical questions such as what processes do large enterprise buyers use to acquire new technology. Most of all kudos to Computerworld’s Exec Editor, Julia King, for her skillful questioning of vice presidents of Information technology from disparate companies.

I reluctantly left the main ball room and headed for the demonstrator’s pavilion to get a double helping of “Wow” and “that’s very cool“ but more on that later.--Jim Forbes on 09/14/2010, from Demo Fall 2010..

The Future-- It's about "Your Internet"

    Chris Shipley, of Demo fame and co-founder of the GuideWire Group consultancy in San Francisco is head down putting the finishing touches on the Fall Demo2007 show, which kicks off in a few weeks.

     One of the themes of the forthcoming show could be "Your Internet." It's a classification that covers a lot of companies and technologies. But more importantly it makes a phrase i dislike immensely, "Web 2.0"

What Ms Shipley is doing is highlighting a group of technologies that enable individual and business users by letting them personalize their various approaches to Internet use.

    I can't think of a broader or more interesting topic.

     If you look at Internet usage today most of what you find is a one-way conduit that responds to individual user interest-based queries. Very few people, however have optimized their Internet experience to accommodate the multiple conduits that quenches their thirst for knowledge or discrete chunks of data.

When it comes to "Your (My) Internet" I'm probably at the extreme edge of eclecticism.

    1. I am heavily involved in the construction of a major addition to my home here in Escondido that my 89 year old mother will hopefully move into by early winter. This requires that I stay in touch with my contractor and designer on a daily basis. I prefer that most of the communication I receive in this form come to me as some type of electronic data form, and I really wish that the data would show up as "completed" or "further action required" in the lengthy check list I maintain for this project.

     What I really want far exceeds the capabilities of Word or other text editing applications.  And I want the Internet as its primary transport mechanism. In reading a buddy's blog this week I was forced to acknowledge that the best electronic reader I've come across so far isn't a packable Palm device, but rather my Thinkpad X60 convertible, which is portable and rugged enough that I take it with me whenever I go outside to talk to my contractor. I'm not just reading text files on its screen, I'm pulling up architectural drawings, plot maps and other rich types of non-text data.  And, I have to rely on the data to avoid encroaching on easements, hidden utility lines or my beloved but often abused by my lawn tractor irrigation lines. My tablet computer is not only an electronic reader, it's become my repository and display system for every single element of MaForbes' new living space.

     To accomplish this important task I an;t be tied to a desk or confined to the approx 200-foot radius of my Wifi network. The limited range of most current 802.11 g and n networks is one of the gating factors in where and on what platform I get access to critical information. Yes, I know cell-based data networking could free me from the confines of the limited range of 802.11 networks.  But unlike avocados here, money doesn't grow on trees and I just don't have the financial resources to spend $70 or $80 a month for wide areal wireless networking and I know I"m not the only thrifty person with a portable computer that believes the next big step in personal productivity gains will come with less costly persistent, high speed Internet connectivity.

     My love of fishing is another great example of My Internet usage. I've waste a lot of time and wantonly slaughtered a lot of innocent sardines and anchovies fishing for yellowtail in off shore areas that lack at least two of the key requirements--water temp and the presence of bait fish at the edge of "structures" such as kelp forests-- to attract and hold my favorite tuna subspecies. What I have done to improve my chances of catching yellowtail and the infrequent yellowfin tuna is set up alerts tied to NOAA and other buoy networks that report weather/sea conditions in real time. When the water temp exceeds a certain point, I get an incoming alert. Then I hitch up my boat, fuel, launch and take on $25-$20 worth of bait and join the parade of other fishermen waiting for a hook up.

    Hey, my system seems to work quite handily and its based on "My Internet" an not that of some Biz School grad who's never swung a framing hammer or tied a sharp hook to a leader with a blood knot in a rolling sea using a small flashlight gripped firmly in their mouth.

    And, if you don't like "My Internet," go out and build one that suits your use.  Ahoy mateys!--Jim Forbes 08/14/2007