Once again the DeviceVM team is at a conference and left me behind. They told me I had to “hold down the fort” or something. In between long lunches and hour long sessions of Guitar Hero, I thought I should put up a little post about Computex. After all, we’ve had some pretty impressive announcements as of late. First, we’re on millions of motherboards. Next, we’re launching on Notebooks.

My trusty friends, Sergei and Kevin have reported a lot of interest in our quick booting, web-centric environment. They say that our portion of the Asus booth is pretty full most of the day and that everyone wants to try out Express Gate (which is what Asus calls Splashtop). Here are some awesome pics from the booth. Thanks Sergei and Kevin - keep the pics coming!

As usual, there’s all kinds of stuff going on over at DeviceVM. We’ve got business people traveling, engineers coding and bloggers blogging. Everyone is heads down working hard. This is a quick roundup of all things Splashtop.

Earth Day

As per my last post, we’re doing our part for that big blue and green planet we live on. We’d like you to do your part by checking out our challenge on Carbon Rally. I know I’m being a bit repetitive but I think that some of these facts are incredible considering how many of us leave our computers on 24 hours a day 7 days a week. By turning off your PC each night, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 51lbs for the month. That’s 51lbs of CO2! That amounts to $200/year in savings.

It’s being covered by some notable press. Check out the article here on Geek.com.

Matt Cutts gives Splashtop a Shout Out!

No we didn’t pay him ten bucks. And, he isn’t my cousin. He’s Matt Cutts and he’s an important dude to us geeks out there. First of all, he’s in charge of Spam for Google. Not creating Spam but preventing it. He’s also widely known as a technical visionary at Google. That’s why we were pretty stoked when Matt gave us a little shout out when asked, “What’s the most important, cool, scary, or useful product or technology (not made by your company) that’s recently arrived or on the horizon?”

He said us…Splashtop. Check it out…

“I like Splashtop, which uses a tiny version of Linux that can be built into motherboards. The result is an instant-boot operating system that comes for free when you buy (say) an ASUS motherboard. Lots of people know about virtualization and lightweight computers such as OLPC and the Asus EEE machine, but Splashtop strikes me as something different. Someone has to do the initial work to modify Linux to work as a built-in motherboard. But after that initial engineering effort, you get a product where paying for an operating system (OS) is entirely optional. A perfectly fine OS is built right into your motherboard when you buy it.”

Don’t believe me? Read it here.
Thanks Matt!

Web 2.0

This brings us to my last item on the roundup. I’m going to be around those halls at the Moscone this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday hanging out at Web 2.0. If you’re going to be there, please ping me - sol[at]devicevm[dot]com. I’ll have a Splashtop demo unit there if you’d like to try out the Operating System that puts the web at your fingertips!

Earth Day is just around the corner (April 22nd) and we here at DeviceVM don’t want to be left out of the festivities. We all know that Splashtop is fast and allows you to browse the web seconds after you hit the power button. We also know that Splashtop is secure as it doesn’t fall victim to the wide variety of viruses as that other big Operating System. But, did you know that Splashtop is amazingly Eco-Friendly?

We talk a lot about “instant-on.” The ability to go from a cold-boot to a fully functional web browser is killer technology. But, sometimes we forget to highlight instant on’s less sexy parter, “instant-off.” Consumers leave their computers on 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Hundreds of millions of people do this because it takes a long time to turn off and we all know that it takes forever to turn back on. We want to challenge you to turn your computer off when you’re done with it this Earth Day (and every day after) so we’ve teamed up with our friends at Carbon Rally to do so.

Did you know that by turning off your PC each night, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 51lbs for the month. That’s 51lbs of CO2! That’s why we’re teaming up with Carbon Rally to promote the “Give Your Computer a Rest for Earth Day” Challenge. You may not have a Splashtop-enabled computer (yet) that makes turning on and off your computer easier. But, by taking this challenge you can do the right thing for the environment and even reduce your personal electric bill by $200.

Sign up for the challenge at Carbon Rally and make a difference this Earth Day!

I haven’t blogged for a bit because I had a baby. Well, I didn’t but my wife did. So, I apologize for being late with this post about our success at Under the Radar, which was almost two weeks ago. In my last post, I put up a nice video of Mark’s great presentation. The thing that I didn’t highlight enough was that this presentation showcased our virtualization solution for the very first time. In fact, Under the Radar has different categories for company presentations. Ours was in the virtualization category. According to the audience present at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, DeviceVM was the best company in the virtualization category.

This begs the question, “why was the audience so taken with Splashtop?” There were other great companies present. My favorite (other than us) was JumpBox. Mark’s presentation was great but I like to think it wasn’t just his charm that won us an audience award. I believe that our solution touches a pain point that every consumer feels about using a PC. They are slow to turn on, slow to turn off and don’t get us online fast enough. I think that when the audience members recognized the promise of a better computing experience they were excited and they wanted it on their PC.

It doesn’t matter how whizbang our technology is (and it is pretty whizbang, by the way) - at the end of the day our solution solves a real problem faced by consumers on a daily basis and that makes it exciting and attractive. Get online seconds after you hit the power button while letting Windows boot in the background. Your favorite web apps at your fingertips. Zero to Internet in seconds. However you want to say it, consumers want a better computing/online experience. That’s why Splashtop won the Audience Award for Virtualization at Under the Radar.

I know that most of our loyal readers woke up this morning and thought, “I sure wish I could watch Mark Lee present today at Under the Radar.” Never fear! We have the video right here at the Splashtop blog. Mark did a great job and so did Sergei who manned the demo unit. Thanks to David Speiser for helping out with the video.

Sergei and Kevin are hard at work at CeBIT. Sergei sent me an update this morning…

This week we are helping ASUS promote their Splashtop-enabled products at the CeBIT show in Germany. ASUS has an awesome booth – complete with a Lamborghini on display – appropriate given their position as a top mother board vendor, and one of the top notebook vendors in Europe. Also, they make the Lamborghini laptop which is the yellow laptop in the left of the picture.

They have a number of motherboards with Splashtop (branded “Express Gate”) on display, and for the first time they are showing the top-of-the-line M70 notebook with Splashtop (called “Instant Fun” on this line). M70 is a beast of a machine, with surround sound, 1 TB of hard disk, and HD graphics. Here is our Kevin with the M70.

And here’s a sweet Splashtop Motherboard:

ASUS is getting a ton of visitors to the booth. It is lots of fun working together with their team - like Jessie from the Taiwan team and Dmitry from their European team here in the photo. These guys know every single feature of every ASUS notebook ever made, which is quite impressive!

Thanks, Sergei for the updates. Tomorrow I’d like to see a pic of you and Kevin in the Lamborghini.

This is an early warning for our friends who will be attending CeBIT in Hannover, Germany. It’s taking place March 4-9 and we’re going to be there showing off our latest Splashtop wares at the Asus Booth. I guess CeBIT is even larger than CES because according to the website it’s “the world’s largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments.” We’re all about hanging out with the international geek crowd.

In fact we’re sending out the A-Team to CeBIT. Sergei and Kevin are going to represent Splashtop and DeviceVM. Go and meet them and ask them why they didn’t bring me at the ASUS Booth, which is in Hall 26 D39.

If you’re looking for a convenient map to the CeBIT madness, look no further than this link. I am promised a daily report of EVERYTHING that goes on, so I’m sure we’ll be blogging the good stuff here.

Next week, our CEO, Mark Lee will be presenting Splashtop at the Dow Jones VentureOne Summit. Being selected to participate in this event is a great honor. The event happening in Redwood City, CA sounds pretty exclusive and cool.

I noticed that we’re amongst a great group of startups that are presenting. One I like, in particular, is Jott. I found their service recently and thought it was amazing. It’s one of those services that you wonder, “how did they do that?” Basically, you set up an account, give them your mobile number, import your contact list and all of the sudden you’re able to call Jott’s number, tell them a name and then leave an email message for your contact. They transcribe the voice into text and email it to your contact! It’s amazing how accurate it is. You can also leave reminders for yourself and it is all saved on your own personalized Jott page which you can access from your Splashtop Browser. Pretty cool stuff!

Mint is also going to be presenting. I think Mint is like Quicken for the web. It’s a perfect Splashtop web application. You can organize all of your finances in one place and they even help you to save money. The interface is incredible. I use Mint all the time and they are constantly improving their service. I like to use it with Splashtop because if I have a question about finances I can get it in an instant.

A couple other services I have reviewed in the past will also be presenting. You know how I feel about Twitter. I hope someone Twitters the presentation. And then there’s Meebo, the browser-based chat system which is very popular. Good luck, Mark, with your presentation!

Earlier this week, DeviceVM and our Splashtop Product got to spend some time at the China Linux Developer Symposium. According to my co-worker and friend, Shawn, there were about 300 people who attended. There were about 7 or 8 booths and Splashtop represented our instant-on system at one of them. Eric and Evrin (pictured above) handed out hundreds of business cards and talked to many press about the value of having your web applications at your finger tips seconds after hitting the power button.

Other groups that attended included the OLPC team. They were giving plenty of demos. This category of ultra-mobile/affordable PC is one that is really heating up. We got an OLPC in the San Jose office and played with it quite a bit. It has a very unique interface.

This picture also caught my eye. Shawn nabbed this one as Evrin was playing with something by a company called RedFlag Linux. Apparently, they are running their OS on a Samsung UMPC. You can see it is very iphone-like. It looks very cool.

Thanks, Shawn, for all the photos and info!

We are very excited this morning that DeviceVM and Splashtop has been selected to present at the Under the Radar Conference March 19-20 in Mountain View. There are a lot of cool companies that have been selected to present. You can check them all out on their homepage. We applied for Under the Radar hoping we could get in. Apparently hundreds of companies apply for the honor to present but only a handful are picked. Getting to participate is a great honor and the whole team is really pumped up.

Now that we’ve been picked the pressure is on! We’re going to have to do a great job presenting and answering questions. Here’s a description of the basic format from their website:

“UTR conferences showcase 32 of the most disruptive startups in a sector. We take a hands-on look at the true innovators fueling an explosion of emerging technology and new business opportunities. Each company demo’s their product to a panel of industry experts who are active in the sector, along with an audience of early-adopter technology insiders. Both audience and experts get a chance to ask questions and offer feedback on business models, market opportunities, areas for improvement, and how best to reach out and build up their audience. The conference also offers ample time for presenters and attendees to network and share ideas and information.”

Those panelists and industry experts that are described above are a formidable group. They include folks like Kara Swisher from the Wall Street Journal, Brad Stone from the New York Times, Aaron Ricadela from Business Week, Ellen McGirt from FastCompany, Robert Scoble from Scobelizer and Rafe Needleman of WebWare.

Well, now we have to get prepared! Mark Lee, our CEO, is going to do the demonstration which means that we have a month and a half to make sure that we have something special to show and that the demo machine is all charged up and ready. Congratulations team and supporters on another great honor and thanks DealMaker Media for choosing Splashtop!