Demo 2004 offers new ideas for IT problem-solving

Computerworld - SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- It's the IT equivalent of speed dating, where eligible partners have just a few precious minutes to sit across from each other and tell all they can offer, hoping to make impressions that will stir interest.
Here at the Demo 2004 conference, a hand-picked group of 67 innovative IT vendors began showing their wares yesterday, one by one, in staccato six-minute bursts, hoping to score a first date for their nascent products with those in the audience of around 550 enterprise IT leaders.
Some of the products being touted offered significant improvements for existing software or hardware, while other presenters pushed new ideas to improve and update business IT processes.
Among the highlights of what's hot on the lists of IT vendors at the event: The use of blogging, or "Web logging," in business IT; a new office productivity suite from China that aims to challenge Microsoft Office with a host of innovative features; and several approaches to repackaging desktop or laptop computers so they can be slipped into a pocket for less burdensome travel.
Blogging for business?
John Patrick, a former executive at IBM, where he helped develop the company's Internet strategy, moderated a panel discussion on business implications of the online blogging phenomenon. He called it a new medium that will allow customers, partners and vendors to communicate, share and find information.
"The Internet is one of those things that comes around every 100 years and changes everything," Patrick said, discounting criticism of the emerging form of communication. "Blogging is another one."
Over the past 10 years, many business leaders called the Internet "interesting," he said, but insisted that they would "never connect our company to the Internet." Many of those same business people are today wrongly discounting the idea of blog use for business, he said.
SilkRoad Technology, in Winston-Salem, N.C., demonstrated its new SilkBlogs secure enterprise blogging application, which the company targeted as a new dimension in its collaboration strategy. With easy-to-use tools in SilkBlogs, workers can share ideas, information and documents in real time, while automatically notifying recipients when new information is posted on the Web log.

Another company offering blogging tools, WaveMarket Inc. in Emeryville, Calif., showcased its WaveBlog application, which could enable workers to use cell phones or wireless PDAs to create "location-aware" blogs that can be used for fleet management or other IT needs.
Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO of WaveMarket, said his company hasn't yet targeted its product to corporate users. But demand from businesses is growing, including interest in