7 Hot New Tech Products From XTIFresh

XChange Tech Innovators welcomed the Fresh demo revue for the first time ever last week in San Jose, Calif., as hosts Fred Brown and Ray Robidoux, pictured, of Sightline Group, Santa Barbara, Calif. led a showcase of new products and services from seven vendors.

First out of the gate at Fresh is Netgear, San Jose, Calif., whose new wireless controller interface and tools are pitched by Peter Newton, director of SMB Security Wireless, left, to Sightline Group's co-host Ray Robidoux.

Power management vendor Raritan, Somerset, N.J. has put environmental sensors on its power strips to collect power usage data for developing more energy-efficient data centers, as described by Gary Marks, VP of sales and channel management, right, to XTI Fresh co-host Fred Brown of Sightline Group.

Next up at XTI Fresh is Paragon Software, Irvine, Calif., which has built what is essentially an enhanced version of Apple's Boot Camp operating system partitioning tool. Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X allows Mac users to not only read NTFS files in Windows-based environments, but access and write them as well, explains Don Lewis, director of marketing -- Americas, left, to Sightline Group's Ray Robidoux.

Autotask, East Greenbush, N.Y., defines its hosted Professional Services Automation as the No. 1 tool for any solution provider. Jake Carroll, VP of Strategic Account Sales, right, explains to Sightline Group's Fred Brown that Autotask's IT management software for technology solution providers and managed services providers has the edge over competing PSA solutions because it was built by former SPs in the first place.

Kerio's offering is basically Microsoft Exchange Server tailored for the SMB -- and its Mail Server 6 promises value at about a third of the cost per user vs. Exchange. There was a good deal of buzz on the XTI show floor around this value proposition from Kerio, San Jose, Calif., detailed at Fresh by Chris Peluso, director of sales -- North America, as Sightline Group's Ray Robidoux listens attentively.

Digium, Huntsville, Ala., serves up a Unified Communications tool called Switchvox that features linked messaging, VoIP and CRM integration and taps the Web for features like Google maps and Web app mash-ups, as explained by Tristan Degenhardt, director of product marketing to the Fresh audience at XTI.

Panasonic, Osaka, Japan, delivers a final version of its new Ultra Mobile Rugged PC, the smallest Toughbook in its lineup -- and the Intel Atom-based handheld presented at Fresh by Stoney White, channel business development manager, left, would later survive getting knocked to the floor and doused with water by Sightline Group's Ray Robidoux with no discernable damage.

Kerio's Chris Peluso, left, gets a lot of attention at the cafe mixer following his Fresh performance at Xchange Tech Innovators, as solution providers are eager to learn more about an Xchange Server alternative that's targeted at small business customers and is priced at about a third of the cost per user as Microsoft's offering.

Ashley Fox, right, of Raritan, points out the advantages of the power management vendor's environmental sensor power strips to a solution provider at the Fresh cafe mixer following the Sightline Group-hosted technology demo show at XTI in San Jose, Calif.