In a recent GigaOm article, Om Malik talks about his experiences using a Netbook. “Netbook” has become the popular term for devices such as the Asus EeePC, the MSI Wind or the HP miniNote. Om tries to use a Netbook for while and has a less than satisfactory experience. He cites some problems with the weight of the device, battery life and heat.

Interestingly, he also mentions boot time:

“It runs Windows XP and no surprise, takes too long to boot up. (There is a Linux version, but I didn’t try that.)”

Recognizing that this is a nascent industry, Om lists 10 things that Netbooks should do. On the top of his list is Instant On. Clearly we agree. If you take into consideration the “use-case” for a Netbook Instant On becomes essential. Netbooks are travelers. They’re going to be turned on and off constantly. The use is not unlike a mobile phone. “I have to get online real quick to get that map” or “what’s my next appointment, again?”

Another of Om’s points really applies to Splashtop:

“7. The primary function of the computer should be cloud-based activities that can include everything from listening to live music, reading blogs and watching videos. Writing research reports or cranking out spreadsheets isn’t the primary purpose of these machines.”

Splashtop is completely geared towards cloud-based activities. Our main application is the Splashtop Browser. More often we recognize internally that getting people online to their web applications quickly and efficiently is our key value proposition. You really can’t underestimate the importance of speed and convenience.

Brad Linder from Liliputing writes a response to Om’s article. While he disagrees with Om on many points, he does give a nod to the suggestion of an Instant On environment in Netbooks. In fact, he goes on to say that he sees the importance of both an Instant On environment and a full-blown OS living side-by-side.

“Not that I wouldn’t love an instant-on machine. But Asus and other PC makers are addressing this by adding “SplashTop” and other feature that let you boot into a Linux-based OS in a matter of seconds and browse the web, use Skype, and do a few other basic tasks. When you need the full operating system, though, it’s nice to know that it’s available.”

At Splashtop, we really believe in this positioning. As I explained in this post, we see ourselves as the perfect OS companion. This is even more true for a Netbook which is ultra-portable, generally has a smaller battery and needs to be constantly turned on and off.

Thanks Om and Brad for a great discussion.

image credit: geek.com

Well, this morning we have a BIG announcement. Thanks to our growing partnership with Asus, Splashtop is going to be shipping on over a million motherboards a month.

“In response to great user feedback, our plan is to proliferate Express Gate across our entire motherboard product portfolio, starting with over one million motherboards per month,” says Joe Hsieh, General Manager, ASUS Motherboard Business Unit. “Consumers want to turn their PCs on and off like any other appliance, and Express Gate has made that possible.”
Note that Express Gate is what Asus calls Splashtop.

This is obviously a big deal to us and everyone involved in DeviceVM. An incredible amount of hard work, patience and perseverance is paying off. To think that 1 million motherboard purchasers a month are going to get our environment is thrilling. Millions of people getting to their favorite web applications seconds after hitting the power button. This is what the team has worked so hard to provide.

Congratulations, everyone! This is just the beginning.

Rafe Needleman at Webware has already covered it here.

Sal Cangeloso over at Geek.com has covered it here.

Thanks Michael Larabel at Phoronix for covering it here.

Nice! We’re on slashdot here. Thanks Timothy.

Rob over at TECHGAGE did a very complete writeup here.

Check our press section for more stories about Splashtop and developments related to this announcement.

Things were certainly busy at the Asus booth where Splashtop was given a small, but effective, enclave. We were visited by interested consumers, potential business parters and members of the press. The press were curious how Splashtop could provide access to your favorite web applications seconds after you hit the power button. Was it true? Was it really that fast? Some press even took out their stopwatches to time it.

One of the cooler press experiences was when Robert Scoble came over to do a live streaming webcast of David giving a demo of Splashtop running on an Asus F8SA Notebook. He was using a Nokia N95 camera to live stream the whole thing to the web. I stood behind Robert and watched the screen as he was filming. I was amazed that comments and questions were popping up on the screen in real time from the audience who were watching the live webcast. It’s amazing how “instant” the back and forth of Robert and the audience was. The technology that makes that happen is incredible.

Webcast below from Qik:

Here are a few other articles that featured Splashtop:

David did a good job being interviewed by Gottabemobile. Click here to watch that video.

Check us out on Techgage.

Or, read about us on Phoronix.

MIT Technology Review had some good stuff to say, click here for that.

Finally, the folks at Engadget stirred up some controversy with this article. I should probably mention that there are no definite plans of putting Splashtop on the EeePC. We just thought it would make giving demos easy and portable.

Thanks to everyone who visited us at the Asus booth! Can’t wait for CES 2009!

A couple days ago I wrote a post about Zoho, which is an excellent productivity tool. While using Splashtop yesterday, I spent some time creating an office document in Google Docs, Zoho’s formidable competitor in the online productivity space. Google’s ability to create an amazing web product is, of course, legendary. Let’s explore Google Docs…

When you first get to Google Docs, you’ll see a central document storage area. This makes sense as the launching point for your productivity experience should be your stored docs. Where Zoho has a multiplicity of productivity tools, Google has three - Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations. Your documents get to Google Docs in a few different ways. First, if you use Gmail and get an attachment, you have the ability to open it in Google Docs and then it is automatically saved in your central storage area. Next, you can upload a document into Google Docs from your traditional OS. This is the way Splashtop users will generally upload their documents as there is currently no hard drive access from Splashtop. One limitation is that you can only upload a file under 500K. This might be a difficult limitation in the Presentation application where image-heavy files are a bit larger. Finally, you can create a new document right from the Google Docs central document storage area.

Here we’ve opened a document in Google Docs and have chosen the “edit” tab. You can see that this fairly streamlined user interface has most of the tools you would want to create and/or edit a doc. I find the revisions tab particularly useful as it allows you to revert to older versions of your doc.

Spreadsheets in Google Docs are fantastic. Plenty of features here, even for the most demanding users. Sure, it does all the things you would expect it to do, but, there is one feature it has that I think is killer: you can chat while you’re collaborating on a spreadsheet. This is the perfect place for chat functionality because explaining numbers in a spreadsheet and getting everyone on the same page can be cumbersome.

So there you have it - a couple more productivity tools to add to your list of web apps that can help you make the most out of Splashtop. With tools like this, getting on the web seconds after you hit the power button can be a lot more powerful than you might think. In this case it means seconds to edit a document, spreadsheet or presentation. Isn’t that the way it should be?

This morning, still wired from our exciting week, I was checking Google Alerts on Splashtop. There were a lot of links to blog posts where authors tried to position Splashtop in different ways. There were even more comments where readers speculated how Splashtop could become an OS. After all, Splashtop is based, in part, on Linux and there are lots of programs that run in the Linux environment. Naturally, readers have been requesting programs like OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Evolution, and Pidgin.

On the other side of the coin, a lot of folks have been asking us about our web browser, which is an optimized version of Firefox for our platform. Which plugins will you support? Is this going to become a WebOS? One posting asked if you can open documents in Google Docs and chat in Meebo why would you need any other platform-based apps? All of these are great questions.

OEMs and Manufacturers have specific requirements for us depending on the implementation. In the case of our first release with Asus, it was a web browser and Skype. In future implementations it might be media playback or diagnostic tools. We definitely see ourselves as an instant-on environment and not a traditional OS. Supporting a world of applications like Linux, Windows or OSX takes years of development.

We think the real opportunity is to get people where they want to go quickly and efficiently. On or Off, with nothing in between. We’d like to allow customers to add applications to the system and plugins to their web browser. But, we don’t see ourselves becoming a traditional OS competitor. Splashtop is a great companion to a traditional OS. Need to grab a quick map? Splashtop. Want to show your buddy a funny movie on YouTube? Splashtop. Have to edit a photo with some crazy liquid effect in Photoshop? Traditional OS.

For Splashtop to succeed, we have to be nimble and work with a variety of companies. As a small startup, we need to be able to partner with those who work on and support traditional Operating Systems. The same is true for our desire to collaborate with independent developers who can add significant value to Splashtop. We are quite simply focused on bringing value to consumers.

Well, my dog, Ernie (pictured below) is whining to go for a quick goodnight walk. Have a great Sunday wherever you are.

This has been an incredibly exciting week at DeviceVM. For months we have been meeting, planning and developing. How would Splashtop be received? On Saturday a story appeared on Phoronix about Splashtop. From that moment on, the inquiries came rolling in. Hundreds of blogs picked up on Splashtop, publications began calling us and we began an impromptu roadshow to see many influential members of the press, giving them demonstrations on newly built machines with the Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi/AP motherboard.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. The benefits of being able to quickly get on the internet and access your favorite web applications struck a chord with a lot of reviewers who are tired of long boot times. My personal highlight of the week was presenting at the Engadget Reader Meetup in SF on Wednesday night. Talking to consumers gave us all a greater perspective on the opportunity we have. But, we have a long way to go.

Part of my job is to collect all of the suggestions either given in person, on this blog or in commentary on other blogs. Here are the top 5 (not all) of the most requested future features:

1. A Linux-based system for updating
2. Hard Drive access
3. Splashtop on other devices (USB Flash Drive, Notebooks)
4. Booting Windows in the background
5. The ability to develop/add additional applications (media player highly requested)

This feedback is appreciated and gives us excellent direction. If you’re reading this and feel like one of the five is more important than the other four, leave me a comment and let me know. It’s raining here in San Jose (picture below is out the office window). Hopefully it will clear up soon so I can get some outside time. Have a great weekend!