The Office 2.0 Conference is only two days long, and in that time there are dozens of announcements big and small from a wide array of productivity and business companies. Amidst the bevy of panels, and discussions lies the launchpad event, a small 45-minute time slot carved out for product announcements. It's basically everyone's chance to show off their stuff, or as much as they can in the brief three minute allotments. Here's a rundown:
- Zoho, mentioned itsits Zoho Business platform, which they launched this morning. We've got a full story on it here.
- Veodia, the live broadcasting folks are launching a new portal for the iPhone and iPod touch. The team has been live broadcasting conference coverage all day.
- TimeBridge is launching the public beta of its personal scheduling manager. It's a little bit like CircleUp (coverage) meets Outlook, to lets you sync up your scheduling decision with your Outlook or Google Calendar. Previous Timebridge coverage can be found here.
- Pano Logic has a really neat piece of hardware that does "zero client computing." This means with a server setup, you can get little portable computers that run off of these little metal cubes. This is great for small businesses who want to save some cash on desktop hardware, or who want to fool their employees into thinking they're in the future.
- OpenSAM discussed creating an open set of standards for sharing online file types and information. ShareOffice is adding calendars from Jotlet, and conferencing from Persony. They've also built an iPhone app for accessing documents on ShareMethods.
- Nozbe announced its business service, which features project collaboration for small and medium sized businesses. The team has also put together an iPhone-friendly version of the site for users to access projects on the go.
- gOffice has a really nifty service that lets you type a Microsoft Office document on your iPhone. You can type to your heart's content, add a custom signature, and even get gOffice to print it out and send it (via snail mail) to wherever you want for a small fee.
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GrandCentral, the cell phone enhancement service we covered last year, is adding really handy customizable instant call widgets to their service next week. The new widgets work a little bit like Jaxtr's widget we checked out in December. You can create customized voicemail widgets with personalized greetings for your callers. There are three different styles of widgets to choose from, and they can be placed on social networking profiles, blogs, or Web sites.
GrandCentral is also adding a way to share your voicemail with other people by letting you embed it like you would with their call widgets. There's arguably an issue of privacy here, but on more than one occasion I've received a voicemail that I've wanted to forward to friends and family without having to deal with the cumbersome voice interface from my mobile provider.
During the demo last night at O'Reilly's ETel Launchpad event, GrandCentral's CEO Craig Walker showed the use of the new widgets in an eBay auction, which actually looked like a neat way for potential buyers to ask you questions without having to disclose your personal number. Whether answering buyer's queries over the phone compared to e-mail is a good use of your time is questionable, but the interface is very slick.
GrandCentral still hasn't sorted out some of our original qualms by employing a mobile interface or a plug-in for calendar apps like Outlook and iCal to help manage call rules. Regardless, it's a compelling service for people looking to manage their phones for personal and business use.
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