20 DEMO Products That Matter To VARs

DEMO 08 hosted 77 companies in Palm Desert, Calif., each vying for the attention of venture capitalists, customers and journalists with six-minute presentations of their cutting-edge wares. For the purposes of solution providers, system integrators and VARs, a smaller number really stood out with products and applications designed for business implementation. Here's a look at 20 DEMO 08 products the channel is really going to love.

YOICS UNIVERSAL NETWORKING FROM YOICS

Kicking off our list is Palo Alto, Calif.-based Yoics, which serves up a product that automatically configures network connectivity for broadband connected local area networks, essentially transforming any broadband connected computer into "an Internet accessible and shareable personal server."

VIDYOCONFERENCING FROM VIDYO

Vidyo, headquartered in Hackensack, N.J., has a product that enables HD-quality video conferencing over general-purpose IP networks across a broad range of environments, from the home-office desktop to the dedicated corporate video-conferencing facility. Under VidyoConferencing's protocols, each endpoint receives the highest quality video it is capable of handling. VidyoConferencing also features H.264 /SVC, a new video compression technology.

TEST CENTER FROM STACKSAFE

The StackSafe Test Center was built for IT operations professionals as a staging and testing solution that better helps teams understand the business impact of IT change before it goes live on production systems. Powered by virtualization, the Test Center provides a solid, easy-to-use platform for enhanced software infrastructure testing.

StackSafe CEO Loren Burnett believes his Vienna, Va.-based startup has built a product that will be a hit with VARS. "It's a great channel product, easy-to-use, easy-to-buy and it provides immediate ROI for your customers," Burnett said.

SQUIDCAST FROM SQUIDCAST

Squidcast offers a solution to the massive storage and bandwidth headaches that come with large e-mail attachments, many of which are being blocked at the gate due to size. The San Francisco company's eponymous product is a platform that integrates with e-mail and other applications to let users send and stream unlimited amounts of full resolution files for free.

LIQUIDTALK FROM LIQUIDTALK

Chicago-based LiquidTalk's on-demand application converts podcasts across a variety of formats, making it easy for a mobile workforce to create, organize, distribute and find proprietary audio and video business content using disparate devices such as the iPhone, iPod and Blackberry. Color DEMO selectors impressed. Their take: "By lowering the bar to production, distribution, and participation, LiquidTalk puts a valuable communications channel in every manager's kit and turns down time into productive listening time."

LEGITEXT FROM LEGITIME TECHNOLOGIES

Out of Westport, Conn., comes an enterprise application aimed at the mobile workforce. LegiTime's LegiText reduces smartphone inbox clutter by allowing users to prioritize and manage messages as they receive them and by enabling the creation of on-the-fly messaging groups on those devices. LegiTime calls its tagging system a "professional SMS client." The most intriguing thing about LegiTime? The company's going after channel business big-time, particularly managed service providers.

KAAZING ENTERPRISE EDITION FROM KAAZING

The Enterprise Edition from this Mountain View, Calif.-based startup is a Web solution for the Java enterprise, providing a scalable and high-performance Java environment for browsers. Kanzing EE works with smartphones, too, and it requires no browser plug-ins or installations.

UNIVERSAL POWER PROTOCOL INTEGRATED CIRCUIT FROM GREEN PLUG

This San Ramon, Calif.-based company is a developer of digital technology that enables real-time collaboration between electronic devices and their power sources. The Green Plug Universal Power Protocol Integrated Circuit is a new electronics component chip that processes a digital protocol for charging of multiple DC powered devices with differing power requirements from a single power supply. The upshot is very green -- overhead savings via eco-friendly technology.

XENDESKTOP FROM CITRIX SYSTEMS

Citrix is ready to show off the results of its acquisition of open-source virtualization developer XenSource last August. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based vendor wowed DEMO attendees with XenDesktop, a virtual desktop solution that in some cases provides thin-client performance that's actually faster than a traditional PC desktop. Here's a fully integrated, easy-to-deploy platform that might get you thinking twice about building a virtualized desktop practice sooner rather than later.

HYPERMESH NETWORK FROM ASANKYA

Atlanta-based Asankya's Hypermesh Network provides transport of high-quality real-time and two-way traffic over IP networks regardless of existing disconnects between CDNs and P2P solutions. The product is built upon Asakya's core technology, Packet Level Multi Pathing (PLMP), which characterizes the network in real time and intelligently directs each packet through the Hypermesh to avoid congestion and bottlenecks that impede streaming quality and large file transfers.

FRONTLINE PERFORMANCE INTELLIGENCE FROM ATERNITY

Westborough, Mass.-based Aternity is an Intel Capital portfolio company that seeks to redefine end-user experience management with its Frontline Performance Intelligence platform. This product transforms real and virtual desktops into self-monitoring platforms via real-time analysis/correlation of all components impacting end-user experience. These include desktop performance, application usage/usability, human productivity and end-to-end performance of application transactions.

VIRTUAL INSIGHT FROM AVISTAR COMMUNICATIONS

This visual Unified Communications (UC) software from New York-based Avistar combines high-quality video with enterprise-class dynamic network bandwidth management capabilities to offer up instant, seamless, face-to-face communication between users anywhere in the world. With Virtual Insight, IT administrators control the infrastructure stress put on enterprise networks by UC tools, making business communication from disparate locations a winner in the IT budget as well as the travel books.

LIVEBROADCAST FROM BITGRAVITY

BitGravity's LiveBroadcast is a carrier-grade live broadcasting solution, building on the Burlingame, Calif.-based companies initial offering of an Internet-based high-definition video delivery service. Does this flash-based streaming service deliver the HD goods? Tom Green wouldn't have been our first choice to show off a new live video platform, but visit BitGravity.com to see Tom at his high-def, um, best.

HUDDLE FROM HUDDLE

London's calling and it wants us all to leverage social networking fun for more efficient workflow. U.K.-based Huddle is the brainchild of Alistair Mitchell, who arrived at DEMO to promote the integration of his hosted workspace builder with Web 2.0 giant Facebook. On Huddle, users from disparate locales can build or join work spaces -- called "huddles," natch -- for personal or professional projects. Each huddle gets a project calendar, a "filing cabinet" for sharing documents and files, a whiteboard for brainstorming and other useful tools. With its Facebook-style interface, Huddle is billed by Mitchell as the place "where work and play collide."

LIQUIDPLANNER FROM LIQUIDPLANNER

Bellevue, Wash.-based LiquidPlanner tackles the problems of change and uncertainty in project management by using ranged estimates and probabilistic scheduling for accurate schedules, giving team members using the company's platform a complete, collaborative project environment.

INTELLIGENT RESPONSE FROM MANDIANT

The expert incident responders and security software developers that make up this company from Alexandria, Va. have built an enterprise-grade, appliance-based solution that streamlines incident response and e-discovery. The whole point of MANDIANT Intelligent Response? To focus efforts, accelerate investigations and discovery, and eliminate wasted effort in responding to real-world IT incidences.

NIRVANIX SDN FROM NIRVANIX

The Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN) is a Web-based platform for developers enabling the integration of scalable storage and delivery into any application. The San Diego-based company says it designed its SDN to meet 'the explosive and unpredictable needs of user-generated content applications.'

PATHWORKS FROM PATHWORKS SOFTWARE

This Software-as-a-Service application from Mountain View, Calif.-based Pathworks is a Web-based, on-demand Customer Support and Help Desk solution built to support self service and collaboration from the ground up. Pathworks helps organizations drive down costs while tickling customers pink with an easy-to-deploy self-service and collaboration technology that's tightly integrated with existing agent-based problem resolution processes.

TIMEDRIVER FROM TIMETRADE SYSTEMS

TimeTrade, out of Bedford, Mass., offers a Web-based tool that allows sales and service professionals to fill up as much or as little of their schedules as they want, automatically and with one click of the mouse. With TimeDriver, users can leverage existing Outlook or Google calendars (Salesforce.com and Lotus Notes integrations are coming soon) to expose available blocks of time for appointments, and can also customize and distribute an e-mail invitation to individuals or groups with an embedded call-to-action button that allows recipients to schedule an appointment in real-time.

STERNA BPS FROM STERNA TECHNOLOGIES

Sterna's Business Positioning System (BPS) combines advanced analytics, dynamic reporting and real-time business data in a business analytics platform that can be implemented in just a few weeks or even a matter of days. 'Business navigation is here,' proclaims the San Mateo, Calif.-based company, promising business managers who use BPS 'central and real time visibility into deviations from operational goals -- and the monetary impact of these deviations.'