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This week many of us are heading to Las Vegas for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. CES has been great to us in the past, bringing us many interesting connections and awards, like the PC World "25 Most Innovative Products" and the "Best of CES" from Laptop Magazine. This year, the event is promising to be all about tablets. There are many new Android based tablets launching from the likes of Samsung and Vizio, and Windows-based tablets are supposed to be not far behind. We will be making our own announcement related to tablets at CES – can't share that with you quite yet. For the latest CES updates, or to connect with us at the show, follow us on Twitter: @splashtop.

For years now, we’ve been shipping Splashtop, the widely recognized leading instant-on computing platform, via an impressive array of PC OEMs, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, and Sony. And we’ve often heard from people - many would-be users - in our support and feedback forum that they wished Splashtop was available for download so they could take it for a spin without buying a brand new system with Splashtop pre-installed.

Well today, we’re taking the first step toward making all of that possible, and just in time for the holidays. We’ve just posted the first ever beta release of Splashtop OS (yes, our own branded offering), available free for download from here. For this introductory beta period, it is available for a limited number of computer models, with plans to add more as we work toward general availability in early 2011.

So what’s Splashtop OS all about?  In a word: the browser. It’s about getting you connected to whatever you want online, right away. No frills, no clutter, just instant-on, streamlined computing designed to get you to whatever you care about - fast. It boots into a search-centric splash page featuring Bing, our new default search provider thanks to a partnership with Microsoft (also announced today).

Within seconds of powering on, you’ll be typing a search query into the Bing-powered box or clicking a thumbnail from a recent browsing history. You’ll then be seamlessly transported to a familiar browser environment based on Chromium.  For this long time supporter of the Mozilla project, the move to Chromium is new too - and we think you’ll like it.

From here its up to you - Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Hulu, YouTube, your sister’s blog - whatever you want, right away.  The Flash plug-in is pre-installed so there’s nothing to configure or set-up. Splashtop OS imports key settings from Windows at the time of install. Language, date and time - check. Wifi settings - check. Bookmarks - check.

You can read more in the press release, or watch a short video first. But try it out and tell us what you think via our discussion board or Twitter.

So here is one of the iPad App Store, with our favorite remote desktop app at the top of the business category :) Hey there Oprah and National Geographic - good to see you too!

Wishing a happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating it!

We're hearing more and more from business users using Instant On. Whether it's quick access to a web-based CRM tool, read hosted email, or access a favorite website (www.Splashtop.com anybody?), there's no denying the benefits.

So we’re excited to announce new systems from Acer using Splashtop to bring instant office productivity to millions of new business users out there.

Acer’s latest ultraportable business class notebooks now include InstantView, a technology designed and customized by Acer based on the award winning Splashtop OS instant-on platform. InstantView gives business users instant access to their TravvelMate Gateway business laptops within seconds of pressing the power button. In addition, previously exported office documents, emails, tasks and calendar items can be read offline when no internet connection is available.

InstantView is included with TravelMate TimelineX 8172T/ 8372T (11.6”/13.3”) and Gateway NS10/30 (11.6"/13.3”).

InstantView includes the following features:

·    Starts within seconds of pressing the power button.
·    Display Microsoft Outlook mail, contact, task and schedules in addition to being able to view, edit, then synchronize changes (excluding mail) back to Windows using the Personal Information Manager (PIM) desktop.
·    Internet browser supports Adobe Flash content.
·    View Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint as well as Adobe Acrobat documents.
·    View up to 200 browser and screen shots using ScreenGrab and WebGrab features.
·    View previously exported Outlook information, Microsoft Office, PDF documents and screen shots off-line.

Welcome to InstantView!

As of today, we announced that we're changing the name of the company from DeviceVM Inc to Splashtop Inc. “Isn't Splashtop already the name of the product?” you might be thinking.

Well, yes. And that's kind of the point.  The decision to change the name of the company was not simply a whimsical idea,  but rather one very notable outcome of a broad-reaching strategic branding process led by company advisor and friend, David Riemer, the former VP of Marketing at Yahoo! and current executive-in-residence at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Now we collectively envision a single “master” brand that reflects both the company mission as well as an expanding family of products.

How did we get here?

This past summer the co-founders began thinking a lot about a brand strategy with respect to several new products on the horizon. Unlike our flagship Splashtop product--the instant-on platform that is often re-branded our many PC OEM customers--many of the new products (or product line extensions) would be coming available directly to consumers. Take Splashtop Remote, for example, a product launched near the end of August that has seen tremendous success recently in climbing the charts of the App Store.

So our executive team gathered for several intensive, introspective sessions with David over the course of 8 weeks and concluded we had a valuable brand asset in the "Splashtop" name that was well worth elevating and investing in. We found examples of other successful, innovative companies -- including Motorola, Oracle and Xerox -- all of which shed their original company name in favor of a more recognizable and growing brand.

So in many ways, dropping "DeviceVM" in favor of Splashtop is an evolution of sorts, a nod to the fact that there are people out there -- be they strategic partners or consumer end-users --for whom Splashtop has meaning. It is a foundation from which to build -- both more useful, innovative products and a more approachable, recognizable brand for the company. Launching Splashtop Remote was the first visible step toward executing this strategy; now changing the name of the company follows suit.

But wait, there's more -- coming soon. And you can bet it will be connected to Splashtop.

Splashtop Remote has been selling in the Apple App Store since late August, and has reached some good milestones - like becoming the #1 paid iPad app in Japan across all categories. We've been doing a lot of tweaking during this time: changing application categories, adjusting prices and running promotions, reaching out to the press and then watching the impact of their reviews. So, we thought we'd share our lessons learned with you.

With the Apple campus just down the street from our office, it was natural to assume that the US, or English speaking countries, would represent most of the market. Not so. At this point, the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK are responsible for 30-40% of Splashtop Remote sales. That's right: less than a half. Users in Germany, Japan, Italy, China (after the recent iPad launch there) and a bunch of other countries have been very good to us, and willing to forgive lack of localization in the product.

We can mostly trace our footprint back to reviews that covered us in various countries. However, the reviews were just a starting point. The App Store is very "non-linear" - it tends to amplify trends, and depress your numbers after a couple of weeks without activity (one great source of insights into these dynamics is Noel's "Games from Within" blog). We did take advantage of temporary uplift from reviews, especially the New York Times review of Splashtop Remote in mid September, and amplified it using price reductions and other promotions. These generated massive 5 to 10x increases in daily sales, compared to, say, a 2x increase that you can get from a good review by itself.

The higher your app's position in the App Store, the more exposure - and sales - you get. The App Store standings are determined separately in each country, so countries do not move in tandem. It turns out that a top position in a smaller market is much better than a mediocre position in a larger market. For example, the latest sale we are running brought Splashtop Remote to the #1 overall paid iPad app position in a few places, including Japan, while in the US we are around top 40 overall (about a half of top 40 are games). As a result, we are getting an order of magnitude higher sales in Japan now than in the US.

Similar dynamics appear to apply within each App Store category. We are still experimenting with this, and recently switched from the Productivity (everyone and their mother is there) to the Business (only select cool apps like ours :) ) category. There have been online discussions of whether you lose your rankings if you switch categories. We are happy to report that no problems happened during the transition. Apparently, apps in each category are sorted based on their global rankings, not affected by category changes.

We are still learning, and the iPad market remains in its infancy, likely to grow by some 5 times in the next year. In particular, although we've already learned a lot about price elasticity of demand, the picture is likely to change as iPad userbase transitions from early adopters to regular mainstream users. We'll leave that important topic for a future blog post - stay tuned!

Our team has put together the first ever demonstration of the MeeGo Touch Framework and handset UI running on the TI OMAP™ 4 processor, the newest in the line of processors that are widely used for mobile phones:

Following up from the announcement of the new 6 series of laptops from Dell back in April, below are snippets from the official Computershopper review with a focus on Latitude ON FLASH: ‘Editors' Take: The Latitude E6410 delivers performance, features, and a bit of style to the mainstream-business-notebook crowd. An enterprise won’t go wrong standardizing on this flexible platform for years to come.’ Pros: Strong performance; good battery life; modular bay; excellent backlit keyboard; preboot environment for access to e-mail and contacts; loads of options ‘Business users will appreciate the Dell Latitude ON preboot environment. After setting up a user account, all you need to do is press the small button adjacent to the main power button to quickly access the Latitude ON interface, without booting to Windows. Icons along the bottom of the interface give you quick access to your e-mail, the Skype VoIP utility, a Web browser, and an instant-message chat program. (The last two are both open-source versions from DeviceVM.) And for users who have a remote desktop setup, where a virtual machine runs on a server that can be accessed via the Web, Dell Latitude ON lets them access that remote desktop. The included browser has most of the features of a modern browser, including tabs, bookmarks, a “most visited” list, and more. You can also find and connect to available Wi-Fi networks, change the speaker and mic volume settings, launch Windows, or power down’. You can read the full review here (http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/dell-latitude-e6410) More information on Latitude ON FLASH can be found at www.latitude-on-flash.com/ Dell Power Solutions article - Productivity at the touch of a button: Dell Latitude ON | FLASH

Cooliris is one of the coolest applications that I thought would be terrific with touch even before their iPad version came out. Now with an iPad running Splashtop Remote, I tried the Windows version of Cooliris over a remote connection:

On our Wifi network it works as well as the native app, and is very easy to control with normal iPad gestures. Awesome! Of course, the point here is not to replace the native iPad Cooliris app. It is that even a highly interactive Windows application like Cooliris works well remotely with Splashtop Remote.

This just in, Splashtop Remote has become one of the top productivity apps in the App Store for Japan - #6 last time we checked. We are thrilled! Having just launched last week, we have not yet had a chance to localize our app for any other language beyond English. The unique benefits of Splashtop Remote, however - the ability to get remote video, audio, and full interactivity - apply across borders. For our Japanese readers, here is a review of Splashtop Remote in Japanese:
http://journal.mycom.co.jp/news/2010/08/31/031/index.html