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Starting February 8, 2000
Demo 2000, Trellix Corporation will be offering browser-based authoring
8-10Feb00
2000_02_08.htm
Thursday, February 10, 2000
Demo 2000
I had a little time on the plane ride back from Palm Springs to write up a few observations about the Demo 2000 conference:

This can be a great conference for presenters.

At Trellix Corporation, we worked our tails off to follow the suggestions the conference coordinators sent: Spend no more than 1 minute of corporate stuff before getting to the demo, have one person talk and another type, don't go over the allotted time (we only had 5 minutes), etc. Chris Shipley, the main organizer, told me on the phone that if we could show that you could make a complete, very personal, multipage web site in under 3 minutes as part of our demo of Trellix Web Express it would be super. We did.

Don Bulens, our president, made a web site announcing that he and his wife Lynne were expecting a child, complete with a picture of an ultrasound and a Web Gem that played the sound he recorded last Friday at a doctor's appointment of the baby-to-be's heartbeat. Many of the attendees know Don and Lynne, and the announcement was a big surprise.

Our presentation received one of the few "Demo god" awards. Like many of the other products showcased, we're coming out of the conference with the "buzz" we hoped for. Hard work by many people in the company paid off. I've posted the script. There is a RealVideo recording on the Trellix site.

Two guys smiling at each other carrying our notes
Don and me stepping out on stage
Another "Demo god" award went to Jeff Hawkins and the Handspring people.

Jeff behind Elmo camera setup for showing handhelds
Jeff Hawkins demoing
Handspring showed some new Springboard modules for their Visor PDA. All three just snap into the slot in the back.

First, they showed the eyemodule from IDEO. This turns the PDA into a digital camera. It's supposed to be available in the spring for $149, and can capture up to 320x240 images in B&W or color. It comes with a PC application to manipulate the pictures. It barely makes the PDA much bigger, as you can see:

View of module being put in slot of Visor  Front of Visor with picture of boy
eyemodule for Springboard slot of Visor
The second item was the CUE radio module which adds an FM receiver to the Visor. It also receives a 1.2Kbs data subcarrier that can give you email alerts ($15 for 100 local messages), weather and news (free), and traffic info ($60/year). Here's a picture of the unit -- you get the sound out with an earphone jack. (The keyboard on the desk in their booth is a GoType! keyboard -- there was a sample Stowaway keyboard in the booth, too.)

Visor screen showing FM tuner display  Desk with keyboard and Visor with radio module with wires coming out
CUE radio module, on desk next to GoType! keyboard
Finally, they showed a prototype "Mini" module. This was a complete PDA from Citizen that fits into the slot. The info slide said: "Syncs with Visor to become an ultra-portable viewer, Touch screen for easy navigation, Runs Palm OS applications". Citizen is looking for partners to market it.

Inserting mini-PDA into slot  Mini-PDA screen running Palm OS  Jim holding tiny module
Citizen Mini PDA module; Jim Louderback posing for ZDTV camera with it
There were lots of other products shown, including really neat stuff from Be, but you'll have to find the write-ups elsewhere.

There were lots of fun things for the attendees.

An incredible number of logoed things were given away to everyone, from watches and binoculars to candy bars with stock warrants in them (most had 50 shares, a very few had 1000).

Pile of stuff on the floor
Tiny fraction of the giveaways, including fleece vest, bag, binder, headset, water bottle & holder, literature
The Jam Session Monday night, hosted by NotHarvard.com, had performances by Shawn Colvin, Eric Johnson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and the Austin All-Stars. If you were brave enough, you could go up and sing or play along with them. Here's Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal on stage singing and playing guitar with the All-Stars -- Shawn Colvin is singing backup on the right:

Stage with musicians
Don Clark of WSJ on stage
Watching some of our own get the thrill of playing with Grammy winners was a great way of establishing a communal feeling. Hearing an old-timer like Jerry Jeff Walker sing Mr. Bojangles helped get me in the mood for announcing yet another product the next day.

Tuesday, February 8, 2000
Trellix Corporation will be offering browser-based authoring
This morning, Trellix Corporation, the company I founded and for which I am CTO, will announce that we will be offering a browser-based web site publishing tool and a private label hosting service. There will be a smooth integration path for moving sites made with the browser-based tool, called Trellix Web Express, to our client-based Trellix Web. I'm demoing an early version of Trellix Web Express at the Demo 2000 conference this morning. (I'm writing this late the night before.) See the piece I did last week, "Server vs. Client Authoring", for some thoughts on why you need both.

We're also announcing a major community as our first customer.

For more information, see the Trellix web site.

People looking at a stage  Ari, Don, and me looking at a PC
Demo 2000, Preparing for our demo
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