Product Central

A few weeks ago I met with Craig Malloy, co-founder and CEO of high-definition videoconferencing specialist LifeSize Communications, as the company was introducing its Skype-compatible Passport product. Naturally the conversation touched on Cisco's recent purchase of Tandberg. I asked Craig, somewhat flippantly, 'What if someone came waving $3 billion at you?', to which he replied, 'I guess we'd be acquired'. As it turns out, $405 million did the job, as this is the sum that Logitech is paying, in cash, for the company.

LifeSize and Logitech clearly fit well together: Logitech is a $2.2 billion peripherals company with 8,000 employees and a sales footprint in over 100 countries; LifeSize is a $90 million HD videoconferencing specialist with about 300 employees and a customer base that takes in enterprises, SMEs, healthcare, education and government. We've reviewed LifeSize kit and been impressed with its value for money compared to traditional 'telepresence' offerings. With Logitech's muscle behind it, LifeSize — which will retain its name and operate as a separate division under Malloy — looks well placed to improve its position in the business videoconferencing market.

Following Cisco/Tandberg and now Logitech/LifeSize, some observers are asking whether the remaining independent videoconferencing specialist, Polycom, will be the next to be snapped up. With 2008 revenues of $1.1 billion, it'll be a lot more expensive than LifeSize, that's for sure.

In a statement, Steve Leyland, Polycom's general manager EMEA, said: "Today’s news is further evidence that visual communications is on the cusp of going mainstream. Polycom is the market-share leader in the industry with the most comprehensive solution for video-enabling businesses of all sizes, and remains focused on delivering the best open, standards-based solutions to our customers. Polycom is well positioned to lead this market from a technology, financial and execution standpoint. We see this as creating additional opportunities for Polycom and our partners as the only independent video solution provider of scale".

Windows 7 launches officially next week (22 October), and to mark the upcoming event, three bulky packages arrive from publisher Wiley. Yes, Windows 7's assault on the world's forests is underway.



First out of the heavy-duty jiffy bag is Windows 7 Secrets (£29.99) by Paul Thurrott (he of the SuperSite for Windows) and Rafael Rivera (who is behind the techie WithinWindows blog). Weighing in at 1.58kg and 1,080 pages, there's more here than most users could possibly want — and it's definitely user-focused: the chapter entitled 'IT Pro: Windows 7 at Work' starts on page 984. But do you really want to thumb through a weighty tome such as this rather than explore the authors' web sites? We do appreciate the writing style, though. Here's Thurrott and Rivera on IE: 'To say that Internet Explorer has an ignoble history is perhaps an understatement'. Can't argue with that.

And so to the second tome, Windows 7 Bible (£26.99) by Jim Boyce. This pips Windows 7 Secrets by clocking up 1,248 pages and tipping the scales at 1.6kg. That's pretty much a small tree (a sapling anyway) all on its own. Another user-focused book, 'Bible' is drier in tone than 'Secrets' (as befits a Bible) and there's not even a nod towards the IT pro, but otherwise it's equally comprehensive.

Wiley has no fewer than 20 books on its site with 'Windows 7' in the title. It even segments the 'silver surfer' market, with Computing with Windows 7 For the Older and Wiser and Windows 7 For Seniors For Dummies. You'll certainly be a lot older if you plough through this list. Wiser? We can't possibly comment.

Amazon UK currently lists about 90 Windows 7-related books. Let's make some (tenuous) calculations. The two tomes mentioned above run to about 1,200 pages and weigh 1.6kg, which gives us 1.33g of paper per page of Windows 7 wisdom. If we assume an average of 500 pages per Windows 7 book, that gives us 60kg of paper for one complete 90-book Windows 7 library. Print runs? No idea, but let's be conservative and say 1,000 copies of each book. That gives us a grand total of 60 metric tons of paper devoted to Microsoft's upcoming OS.

Now Wikipedia tells us (I said these calculations were tenuous) that it takes about 24 trees to produce a ton of paper using chemical pulping or 12 if mechanical pulping is used. Let's assume a mixture of methods and go for 18 trees per ton of paper. Still with me? So it looks like the entire English-language Windows 7 oeuvre will cost the planet around 60x18=1,080 trees.

So think carefully before you turn over a new leaf, branch out from XP or Vista, and go rooting around for printed info on the latest Windows.

To 30, St Mary Axe, a.k.a The Gherkin, to meet Craig Malloy, CEO of High-Definition (HD) videoconferencing specialists LifeSize in their swanky new UK office. Before getting down to the journalistic business, I (like most visitors) just had to go up to the 40th floor and gawp at the view — which was splendid in today's perfect weather:



LifeSize, which was co-founded by Malloy back in 2003, is currently talking up its new Passport product, which aims to put 'telepresence in the palm of your hand' and will ship in November. Aimed at primarily at small businesses, remote offices and teleworkers, the 450g Passport codec is certainly smaller and lighter than the last bit of LifeSize kit we looked at, the 1.29kg Express. You could certainly envisage packing the £1,829 Passport model with the Focus camera/microphone combo in a travel bag if necessary.


LifeSize Passport with the Focus camera/microphone costs £1,829

If you need more functionality from the camera — perhaps for surveillance purposes — there's a more upmarket £2,559 model with a Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera and separate MicPod microphone.


LifeSize Passport with the Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera and MicPod microphone costs £2,559 (monitor not included)

The demo in LifeSize's office showed off a new feature introduced in Passport — Skype integration. All of the usual video and audio standards are supported, but Skype support (currently audio only, with HD video due 'fairly soon' according to Malloy) will make it easier for users to deal with firewall issues when setting up their communications links.

The telepresence (HD videoconferencing) market is in a state of flux right now, following Cisco's $3 billion purchase of Tandberg. The SME market looks to be a key battleground for the new Cisco/Tandberg group, LifeSize and the other key player in this market, PolyCom.

Although the price of LifeSize Passport hardly makes it an impulse buy, it looks competitive compared to rival offerings. We're hoping to get hold of a review unit soon, so look out for a full evaluation in due course.

When we saw the press release announcing Kingston's 256GB Data Traveler 300 USB Flash drive, we had to get one — if only to verify that this thing really does deliver a quarter of a terabyte of solid-state storage in a (chunky) USB stick format.



Well, after a courier-related hiccup, the Data Traveler 300 duly arrived, and it does indeed deliver pretty much the full 0.25TB (there's some Data Traveler security software and a manual onboard). Here's the 'unboxing':



And here's what Windows Vista sees:



We'll do some speed testing in due course. But if you're lusting after one of these, perhaps for beefing up your netbook's storage capacity (or even your server's!), stop for a second and consider the list price: £565.67 excluding VAT. You can get it online for about £30 less, but this is still one stick you're definitely not going to be throwing for the dog to chase.

It's not big and it's not clever, but we couldn't help snickering over the web site from Korean manufacturer Mintpass, whose Mintpad mobile internet device plus associated accessories and services the company promises will "provide every customer with amazements and relentless fun". And so it proves.

One of Mintpass's accessories is the Mint Hard (do you begin to see where this is going?). Apparently an ice cream bar is called a 'Hard' in Korea, as is a hard disk drive — indeed, according to Mintpass, "Koreans would ask each other, 'how big is your hard?' when asking for the PC's HDD capacity". Any visiting Koreans employing such terminology over here may not always receive an answer in gigabytes...

So, what could be more natural than to combine the two meanings, and produce a hard disk drive that looks like an ice cream bar? Enter the Mint Hard — below we see the Mint Hard Chocolate model:




It's actually quite neat: a 1.8in. hard drive in the 'ice cream' portion and a USB flash drive for the 'stick' portion. The Chocolate model has a 120GB HDD and an 8GB USB stick, while the Strawberry ("Wow, how fruity!") is 80GB/4GB and the Vanilla ("Wow, how creamy!") is 60GB/2GB.

Mintpass reassures users who may be taken in by the product's verisimilitude that "Mint Hard has been engineered with a high-density plastic with high gloss coating so that even if a user mistakenly takes a bite, a user need not worry about leaving a teeth mark".

Well, you wouldn't want to leave teeth marks in your Mint Hard, would you?

I'd better stop now, but not before drawing attention to another Mintpass product — the Mint Horn. Check it out.