Hits And Misses At Demo 2000

Among the more "established" companies displaying at the annual Demo show was Handspring Inc., the year-old maker of handheld devices, showed off third-party addons including a kids' PDA made by Citizen's Corp. The tiny device plugs into the Springboard slot on the Handspring Visor device to synch up play dates and other important information needed by both parents and children. (The synching is represented on screen by a large dog rounding up a puppy and running across the screen.) That device probably got the biggest round of applause at Demo 2000, here. Citizen is looking for partners to help manufacture and distribute the device, according to executives from Handspring, Mountain View, Calif.

Another crowd pleaser was GuruNet Corp.'s GuruNet utility, which lets PC users who are online get the definition of any on-screen word with a simple alt-click of the keyboard. GuruNet is based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Trellix Corp., Waltham, Mass., showed off a full function server version of its Web-site design and construction program. "It's as easy to use as e-mail," said co-founder Dan Bricklin. Users need not even know HTML before launching their own site, complete with embedded pictures and links. Trellix also announced that Lycos, Inc., also of Waltham, will take up to a 9.5 percent equity stake in the company. Using Lycos' Tripod platform, Trellix along with partners, will offer hosting capabilities to online communities, the company said.

"It's an ASP play and one that might be attractive to groups that don't have a lot of Web savvy," said one Demo attendee.

But, some other demonstrations were "clearly technology in search of a problem," said another attendee. "Some of these people seem to have no idea that they have competition in the space, that what they have is technology and not a product," added Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates, Narberth, Penn.

One company's plan was to aggregate content related to any subject, offer it as ancillary material to other Web sites and not take any payment until the strategy "worked."

The attendee was incredulous. "Do you know how many aggregators there are out there already? Tell me what the metrics on this one are again?," asked the attendee who requested anonymity.