Biz

There's no doubt that the instant internet revolution is here. A couple weeks ago we announced that we are now working with both Acer and Sony. Add that to HP, Asus, LG and Lenovo. We're on a roll and millions of people are booting up to Splashtop every day. We get lots of feedback about Splashtop - most of it is very complimentary and often we get suggestions how to make it better. Sometimes the suggestions are very specific about peripherals and applications that our users would like to see. Other times, it's more general about the direction of our software or devices folks would like to see Splashtop running on.

Great startups listen to their users and we aim to be great. Lately, we've heard a lot of feedback about using Splashtop at work. One was from an IT manager who realizes how easy it would be to manage her fleet of devices with Splashtop. Another was from a sales representative that travels a lot and thought instant internet would make his 3G netbook way more useful when on sales calls. These are all great use-cases and ultimately we'd love to see everyone using Splashtop all the time! So, we thought we should start doing some research on how to bring Splashtop to the workplace.

The workplace can be a complex environment. In a big company, for instance, IT professionals often make very good, specific decisions on what kind of software to support. It's not enough that Splashtop can prevent lawsuits. Splashtop also has to be secure and easy to manage. So, we're beginning to do our due diligence on the subject.

Are you someone who uses Splashtop at work?

We want to hear real stories so please click this link and be as detailed as possible. Include specifics around how Splashtop has changed the work environment for you. If you'd like to submit a video, podcast or other form of your story just paste a link in the form. Well detailed submissions get a sweet Splashtop shirt! So, hit this link and let us know how you use Splashtop at work.

It's hard to keep up with all the great new devices out there by OEMs who are doing truly innovative things to make the consumer experience better and better. Every day I drool at all the shiny new devices featured on my favorite gadget blogs. It's nice to see Splashtop showing up on more and more of them. We're excited to announce a couple of new OEMs using Splashtop to bring instant internet to millions more consumers out there. This week we get to debut two! One by Acer and another by Sony.

The AspireRevo by Acer

This is a great device! This is, of course a growing category - that of the nettop. Nettop gets its name from Netbooks and is the Desktop equivalent. Thus, it's a great value in a convenient package. I've seen a bunch of reviewers stick this thing right on their TV. It features some amazing hardware, some hot design and, of course, Splashtop. On the AspireRevo Splashtop is called, "RevoBoot." Check it out more here.

Sony Vaio NW Series 

Sony makes beautiful notebooks. I remember my very first Sony Vaio - it was super small, thin, light and felt like a piece of science fiction. Sony has continued a great tradition of building awesome, consumer and business focused notebooks that often excel in design and functionality. Just as with Acer we're very proud that Sony has included Splashtop on a platform such as this. It's cool to think of consumers powering on Splashtop under the famous Vaio logo.

Yesterday Intel announced that they were buying Wind River, a big name in the embedded OS market whose software shipped on everything from cars to the Mars Rover. Trying to sort out what the acquisition means, I asked a few questions to our CEO, Mark Lee. Before starting OSA (acquired by Avocent) and DeviceVM, Mark had spent 8 years at Intel - so he would know.

Q: Mark, why did Intel buy Wind River?
A: Intel is smart to look to move up the value stack, but the purchase of Wind River is questionable. A software business is about the people, the talents. Wind River's expertise is largely around VxWorks, a proprietary OS that continues to lose ground to open source Linux. The embedded software business model is complex, since Wind River serves many different verticals. There are lots of professional services and complex licensing schemes. Intel’s business model is about scalability. The two don’t jive well together.

Q: WindRiver was also refocusing on Linux, wasn't it?
A: Yes, but there are many stronger Linux players who have no legacy baggage. Intel has been evangelizing Moblin Linux to different Linux OSVs, like Novell, Ubuntu, Xandros, Red Flag - including Wind River. Now the company in effect is competing with these partners - Intel calls them “fellow travelers”. Ironically, out of all Moblin OSVs, Wind River is the only one without any major netbook or MID OEM wins.

Q: What do you think of the ecosystem impact of the Wind River acquisition beyond Linux players?
A: The majority of Wind River’s silicon partners are non-x86: ARM, MIPS, PPC, Sparc, etc. They are Intel competitors. It is hard to see any of these companies continuing to work with Wind River. Much of Wind River non-x86 revenue and customer base will likely go away. I don’t know nor see any non-x86 device manufacturer will move to Intel Atom just because Wind River is optimized for Atom. If more devices move to Atom, it will be on the hardware merits of Atom, and because of the expanding success of Linux overall. With our Splashtop, for example, we are building a great instant-on Linux platform to make Atom more successful.

I'm very proud to announce that we are launching today on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10e. This is a major accomplishment for DeviceVM as it's our first Netbook release. As you know, Netbooks are growing in popularity as discussed in this post. We're very excited to be on the Lenovo S10e and working closely with the Lenovo team. It seems the press are also excited about it as we've gotten a lot of coverage already today. Here's a quick list of some of the great press, which I'll update as more comes in:

- Market Watch
- Intl. Business Times
- Techworld
- Engadget
- Gizmodo
- Slashgear
- Geek.com
- Ubergizmo
- The Inquirer
- Cheap Laptops.org
- Laptop Magazine
- JK on the run
- Inquisitr

Congratulations team!

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.

Great news for developers interested in Splashtop. I just got out of a very cool (albeit technical) meeting where I was told that a code release on our website is imminent. This is exciting for anyone who is interested in using the Splashtop code for any purpose. However, I was told to caution anyone downloading this code that it is an initial release. A more complete SDK will follow it soon whereby developers can really play with the Splashtop environment. This will be very exciting for Splashtop! More soon...

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.