Last month at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, there was one company that stood out from the rest, Marketcircle. They had just unveiled a new product, Daylite Touch, which brings the popular productivity software to your iPhone or iPod touch. We interviewed CEO, Alykhan Jethan (AJ) and here’s what he had to say about his company and the future of the platform.

1. Can you introduce yourself to our ConnectReviews readers, and describe what you do on a day-to-day basis at Marketcircle?

I’m the CEO of Marketcircle – the man who runs the show. The majority of my time is spent in product development at our company, but I have my nose in pretty much everything. I began Marketcircle in 1999 and we are based in Toronto, Ontario. We develop award-winning business applications for Mac OS X, including Daylite productivity management software, Daylite Touch, Daylite Mail Integration Module (DMI), and Billings 3, which is a practical time billing and invoicing application.

2. What features make Daylite one of the best compared to the competition or similar products?

Your readers might need a bit of background information on Daylite before I answer that question. Daylite productivity management software helps Mac-based businesses win more business and deliver better on promises made to clients. Daylite provides integrated tools and processes that help manage time, tasks, projects, and contacts as well as identify and qualify opportunities. Daylite integrates with Apple Mail and works with Sync Services to bring Daylite contacts and calendar features to iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile devices and cellphones.

Daylite does not have any direct competition for its full feature set. There is no other Mac business software that offers a similar set of business productivity features – at least that we are aware of. Daylite is multi-user, connecting up to 50 users together, and provides collaborative GTD tools for work groups. Daylite also offers offline synchronization as well as “over the air” synchronization with the upcoming Daylite Touch for iPhone and iPod touch. The concept behind Daylite is to make small businesses more productive. It also has business integration options that include connectors to MYOB’s AccountEdge, FileMaker databases, MoneyWorks accounting and LightSpeed (point of sales system).

3. How have sales been for Daylite in terms of total copies sold?

Our sales for Daylite remain strong. I don’t divulge specific numbers in terms of copies sold or revenues at Marketcircle. We’re a private company with just under 25 people on staff.

4. How long after Apple made the iPhone SDK available did Marketcircle start developing a touch version? How long did it take? What about the SDK were you most impressed with?

We downloaded the iPhone SDK within an hour of it being made available to developers – that was on 6 March 2008 – and myself and our many engineers have been working on the Daylite Touch application ever since. Daylite Touch hasn’t shipped yet but will soon – so it will be a year that we’ve been developing, fine-tuning and testing Daylite Touch. It will offer new levels of business productivity to the mobile crowd with features unmatched elsewhere. To name a few… Imagine being able to view your colleagues calendar and schedule meetings while on the go – without requiring a live connection to the database.

In terms of the SDK, the whole thing is pretty impressive, but the simulator is particularly impressive.

5. What kind of reception did you get at Macworld Expo?

We had large crowds at our booth at Macworld Expo 2009 and for our demos of Daylite Touch – a great reception. Daylite Touch won Macworld Expo 2009 Best of Show. You can read our company blog at http://www.marketcircle.com/blog/ for the many details about our Best of Show and our successful list of booth events.

6. Will Marketcircle continue to exhibit at Macworld Expo every year?

I’m sitting on the fence on this one. Now that Apple has pulled out, IDG, Macworld Expo organizers, need to give me a compelling reason to attend as a vendor next year. The cost of exhibiting is very high and the ROI is questionable. I hope that IDG comes up with something good, because I will sure miss the networking aspect of it.

7. What kind of products do you want to see come from Apple that you are personally looking forward to?

Since I’m the CEO and we make productivity software, the line between personal and business desires is blurred. Especially since I run my business and personal life using Daylite.

In terms of hardware, currently my biggest wish is for an iPhone with a slightly better processor and more available RAM for third party apps (like Daylite Touch).

In terms of software – it is the ability to have background processes on the iPhone. This is low-level stuff that helps developers like us deliver better applications to users like you, but it would help me personally too. Those are my top wishes at the moment.

We came across SlideRocket, an online presentation tool after they won a Crunchie award two weeks ago in San Francisco after Macworld Expo. I thought it would be a great idea to interview Mitch Grasso, the CEO of the company, and here’s what he had to say. Read the entire interview and enter our contest to win a 12-month Individual plan.

1. What influenced you to start SlideRocket and create a web-based presentation application?
Mike Lingle, my co-founder, had a previous company called Tonic Studios which made a desktop presentation application written in Macromedia Director that provided way better support for multimedia than PowerPoint and he had some success selling that to media companies so a big part of making presentation software for us was creating software that would give you a set of really professional tools and let you build stunning presentations the way that Adobe Photoshop lets you do pretty much anything you want to do with images. The other influence was Adobe Flex which had just come out and really enabled the kind of web application development that would make a professional web based product possible, without the usual less is more kind of compromises that seem to be inherent in a lot of web applications. I guess that’s where the “rich” in RIA really comes from. For us it means that SlideRocket is tactile, very responsive, looks beautiful and performs superbly, as good as, if not better than a desktop app.

2. How long did it take to develop?
We released the private beta in March of 2008 and I’d been working on it for about 14 months at that point. Our public beta came out in September 2008, we launched our GA release to the public in November 2008 and we’re getting some great buzz, got nominated for a Best Design award and have paid users signing up every day.

3. How many users of the service are there today? How many are signing up daily?
As a private company we don’t disclose total users but we have an average of 300+ signups a day from all over the world. The nice thing about a web application is that you’re instantly global and it’s amazing how fast word of mouth can carry a good product experience / reputation.

4. Some customers may be worried about using web-based presentation applications in an offline environment, what makes SlideRocket different?
Most people we talk to seem to be very happy to have the option of accessing their SlideRocket presentation from any browser on Windows, Mac or Linux or from the SlideRocket Player on their desktop. We really want to let you access your presentations and assets in the way that’s most convenient for you.

5. How can you assure potential customers that their slideshows are safe and securely hosted?
Presentation security has historically been a very serious problem and it seems like every other week we hear about a company’s top secret PowerPoint deck being leaked to the public. The unfortunate reality is most people keep their presentations on their laptops which are stolen at an alarming rate (10,278 / week according to PC World), and suffer from hard drive failure or corruption more than manufacturers would have you believe (as much as 13% of all hard drives according to a Carnegie Mellon University study). Viruses attack regularly and without warning and employees leave or get headhunted away to competitors with your intellectual property on a thumb drive in their pocket or personal email account. User error (31% of all data loss according to IDC) and natural disasters also play a part.

SlideRocket solves for these issues. Your presentation files and assets are stored and backed up in the cloud. We let you control who has access to assets in your SlideRocket library as an individual or as a group and you can remove access at any time or disable a user account altogether. You can set a presentation password and decide who can fwd, print or even view your presentation in full screen mode. At the application level we require an authenticated username and password and at the file and database level we work with partners like Amazon Web Services and ThePlanet respectively to ensure your private data is kept private. All of these combine to ensure best of breed security for your presentations.

6. Where do you see SlideRocket in a year? In what ways can your product improve?
This time next year we’ll have launched some pretty big new features. An offline editor that will let you create and edit presentations in disconnected mode then sync back to the cloud when you’re next online. We’ll have done some integrations with other SaaS applications for example a Salesforce.com app that will let you use SlideRocket as a custom lead generation / maturation and measurement tool. We’ll have opened up our API and plug-in architecture to let the community develop functionality like new effects and transitions. We’ll also have a much more robust marketplace of content and services where you can browse, buy and rapidly integrate elements like cartoons, fonts, audio files etc. as well as services from graphic designers or copy writers or speech coaches, really anything you need to help you make a great presentation. There are a few other things too but we’re not talking about them publicly just yet. If you love SlideRocket today you’re going to be blown away as we roll out some of our ideas in 2009.

7. What kind of limitations are there with web-based applications? Do you think these will be eliminated over time?
Web applications today are limited by bandwidth and reputation, the former because not everyone has a high speed Internet connection which is preferable and the latter because many early web applications created very basic versions of their desktop counterparts which made people feel like they were making a sacrifice. SlideRocket will have an offline version in 2009 that will let you work without any bandwidth at all and we have a very detailed product that gives you the best of both desktop performance and internet integration to provide real innovation in presentation software.

8. Are there any features in SlideRocket that set it apart from similar products like 280 Slides from 280 North?
You know we’d love Gartner to do a magic quadrant of online presentation providers because we think we’d be far to the top right of their curve and well beyond the offerings of our compteitors. SlideRocket takes a very holistic and integrated approach to presentations and enables you to quickly create amazing looking slides with professional authoring tools, manage them along with images, video, flash animations and audio in a library of shared assets, collaborate with your peers, conduct HD quality web meetings, share your presentations securely and measure usage statistics. We also have a marketplace of content and services that let you browse and buy a variety of different services to help you make great presentations. It’s already integrated and available to you in the web browser of your choice and because we’re new we have introductory pricing. Of course the best thing to do is just sign up for a free 30-day trial and see for yourself at SlideRocket.com.

SlideRocket Giveaway

We want you to experience the service for yourself for an entire year, so we’re giving away a 12-month Individual Plan for SlideRocket. The process of entering the giveaway is simple, leave a comment below and we’ll pick one of you at random on Friday, January 23rd at 4:00p Pacific Time. The best way to figure out if you’ve won is to subscribe to our RSS feed in your favorite feed reader.

Ahead of our review of Adobe‘s latest version of Acrobat, version 9, we did an interview with Rick Brown at Adobe. He tells us about the Acrobat user base, how the PDF got it’s start, and the roadmap of Acrobat.

1. Starting off, can you tell the ConnectReviews readers about yourself and your position at Adobe?

As the senior director for Adobe Acrobat product management, I am responsible for managing the overall Acrobat product family definition. This basically means my team is constantly working with customers to better understand their needs and use cases and then translate that into products and product features that are developed by our engineering team. We are looking at what customers need right now and also looking forward to emerging opportunities. We then help our development team turn that into products and services that allow people to work and communicate better with Acrobat and PDF.

2. How many users are currently using Acrobat products in their daily workflow? Do you see this number growing in the future?

We have shipped over 30 million cumulative, new unit licenses of Acrobat and, in the last couple years alone, distributed over 500 million copies of the free Adobe Reader. That number is growing every day. In business, the creation and exchange of documents is frequently the way people get their everyday work done. Projects and specifications are defined in documents, transactions are recorded in documents, people are informed and trained through documents, products are marketed and sold through documents, information and data are collected through documents. There is a huge opportunity going forward to make these interactions more expressive, more collaborative and more efficient, which in turn makes documents more effective while taking time and cost out of the equation.

3. Many people are now accustomed to PDF and the ease of creating PDF files for transmitting documents via e-mail. How did PDF get its start in the business?

PDF was the brainchild of Adobe founder, John Warnock, who anticipated the need for a platform independent and graphically rich portable document format. Acrobat 1.0, which was originally codenamed “Carousel,” shipped in 1993. PDF’s emergence as a standard really began a few years later in 1994 when two things happened: 1) Adobe decided to give away the Adobe Reader for free and 2) Internet usage began to explode. Suddenly, there was a widely available medium that created huge demand for portable electronic documents and related applications. Adobe was there with the right solution at the right time and the freely available Adobe Reader insured zero barrier to adoption.

The new version of Acrobat supports embedded video.

4. How do you think the Acrobat application has evolved over time, have there been any milestone releases?

Nearly every release has been a major milestone. Acrobat 2.0 was the release where we made the Adobe Reader free; Acrobat 3.0 was the release to feature integration with the browser; Acrobat 4.0 introduced key features for the expansion of PDF in electronic document applications, including forms and digital signatures. I could go on! I think Acrobat 9, which is the most recent release, is incredibly significant because it is the first release where we were able to bring some of the incredible technology assets that came via Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia. A key development has been the integration of Flash with PDF in Acrobat 9, which has completely transformed what we can do in electronic documents.

5. It’s clear that Acrobat and the PDF document format is the gold standard for transmitting documents over the internet, what kind of new features in Acrobat 9 make this release even better?

As I mentioned above, the integration of Flash has been a huge leap forward in Acrobat 9. The integration of Flash with PDF’s capabilities as a packaging format enabled us to create PDF Portfolios, which make it very easy for customers to create customized user experiences around sets of related content. Not only does Flash enable customers to create custom user experiences on top of their content, it also means content can be anything supported by PDF or Flash, including native MP3 files, H.264 video, Flash animations, 3D models, interactive forms, etc. The range of content that can be represented in a single, integrated format is really incredible.

6. Can you share with us a little about the future and the vision of the Acrobat brand and the PDF format?

We have only scratched the surface of what is possible in terms of Flash and PDF integration. We believe customers will increasingly want to leverage the range of rich media that is available to them as part of their everyday communications. General business workers want to differentiate their communication and take advantage of rich media as much as graphic designers and web developers. Our goal will be to make it easy and effective. You should also look for us to leverage the growing range of hosted services we are providing through Acrobat.com. These services make it incredibly easy for general business users to create collaborative business processes around documents without any IT investment or technical expertise.

Continuing our ConnectInterviews series on new and innovative products, we talked with Kyle Thornton, Category Manager, Ultra-Light at HP. We asked him about the future of “netbooks”, the HP Mini-Note 2133 and what makes their product better over others on the market today such as offerings from Asus and Acer.

1. Can you introduce to the ConnectReviews readers your position at HP and a little bit about yourself?

Kyle Thornton – I’m the Category Manager, Ultra-Light within the Business Notebook group. My category includes business notebooks, tablet PCs, and Mini-Notes that are 12” or smaller.

2. This category of small notebook computers called “netbooks” has become increasingly popular, who do you think this form factor applies to?

The HP Mini is ideal for those that have craved an ultra-portable (less than 12”) full-functioning notebook at an affordable price point. Until now, this was not achievable. Our entry into this market was primarily focused in serving the requirements of the Education market segment…not the consumer market. We’ve collaborated with our Education Advisory Council for years in bringing a product like this to market for some time. The Education segment has wanted an ultra-portable for some time now, but the high costs were not allowed by their shrinking budgets. Because of this, they had been drawn towards cheaper, but bigger notebooks…that were also a generation or two behind in technology. It is ideal for students that need a fully functional notebook PC that won’t weigh down their backpacks or take up too much space on their desktops.

Having done all this work for the Education Segment, we were somewhat surprised from the interest that we received from our SMB and Enterprise customers. Traveling professionals find the HP Mini to be a convenient “grab-and-go” secondary PC. Now that the price has come down dramatically, it is no longer just “executive jewelry”.

3. Why didn’t HP decide to go with the Intel-based Atom processor and go with the VIA processor instead?

Once we committed to this market, it was important that we meet this year’s Education Harvest Season. This is a period (usually Feb-Jun) when the Education public sector purchases their computer hardware…and they use the summer to prep and deploy the computers before their new school year starts. Intel’s Atom was not announced until July 2008, so, we would have missed this year’s Harvest Season. Based on some notable successes, it was the right decision. As for refreshing technologies, HP selects the appropriate choice based on multiple factors…such as time-to-market, technology trends, costs, and the right fit for the platform.

4. I noticed the 2133 Mini-Note does not have the option for a solid state disk drive (SSD). However, where do you see this technology going? Do you have any plans to include such a drive in a future netbook product from HP?

Actually, in the very near future, an 80GB SSD option will be available for those that require the additional durability and can afford the high price tag. We expect this option to be around $900. As for lower capacity SSD’s in the 8-16GB range, we are currently evaluating them. One thing to consider is that hard drives still provide the most capacity for the dollar…and many customers still value the higher capacity.

5. What makes the HP 2133 Mini-Note better than other netbooks available on the market today?

The HP Mini offers many HP Professional Innovations that are normally reserved for our higher-end business notebooks. Features such as anodized all-aluminum casing, scratch-resistant acrylic panel over the LCD, HP DuraKeys (UV coating that protects the keys and helps them look newer for longer), HP 3D DriveGuard (accelerometers on the hard drive to protect the data from sudden jolts and drops), spill-resistant keyboard, metal alloy hinges, HP Panel Protection System, HP Recovery Manager (quickly recover the system and data in the event of a hard drive crash), HP FastCharge (charges battery to 90% in 90 minutes), HP Smart A/C Adapter, and HP Total Test Process (multi-tiered product validation process which includes more than 95,000 hours of testing per platform. I challenge anyone to find such a comprehensive list on other Netbooks or Mini-notes.)

6. Looking ahead, can you tell us about the future for similar products from HP?

HP is playing to stay in this emerging category. As far as talking in specifics, we don’t discuss unannounced products.

Thanks for your time.

1. First of all, how did you get your start in the gaming PC business?

Shortly after graduating from high school in 1991, I enrolled at Mount Royal College in Calgary, and in three months I realized that the computer science courses were lacking in substance. For me, learning WordPerfect for DOS as a prerequisite was not inspiring.

I remember it like it was yesterday: I was quite bored after high school, and sometimes I would roll out of bed at 11 a.m. with no desire to go to class. Luckily, my fiancé inspired me to take a major risk—I started Voodoo with $1,500 on a credit card and an $85 ad in the newspaper. After selling eight computers in my first week, I simply stopped showing up to classes. I didn’t even bother to drop out.

After a year or so, we landed a successful workstation contract with a large marketing company. I then acquired a heritage home more than a century old in downtown Calgary with a small shed in the back. We renovated the site and restored the old character of the building. We ripped the old kitchen out and built a new manufacturing space which we coined the “Quote Kitchen.” Even though we had to cram way too many people into our old 900 square-foot house, it was an incredibly cool place to work.

Eventually we realized that our passion was around gaming. At the end of each night we would lock up and hang around playing games like Wing Commander, when we first started, and eventually led to competitions playing games like Command & Conquer. We even had a trophy that we’d pass around to whoever was the C&C champion of the week. Over the years we built some lifelong friendships, and Voodoo has always been an inspiring place to work.

2. Where do you see computers in general in 10 years?

Computers are becoming a seamless part of our everyday lives. The word “computer” will be somewhat obsolete as we will eventually no longer go to a specific device to perform the tasks we need to perform. Our lives will be filled with devices that have some sort of processor inside, and rather than worrying about what they do, they will simply make our lives easier.

3. Do you believe that PCs still have a stronghold in the gaming industry with the introduction of products such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360?

Any time you get new consoles and new content coming to consoles, people always talk about the death of PC gaming and they do that prematurely. I don’t believe for one bit that PC gaming is in trouble. I think that it’s just changing. It’s not dying, it’s just changing. If you drill down the numbers PC gaming is actually growing. The genres and distribution model of the games is changing.

The other thing about PC gaming that’s changing is the need to create platforms that are stable and that just work. Lately it’s been to the point where companies have been launching new GPUs and new initiatives like multiple GPUs in a system without really factoring in the overall stability of the machine. That was a big blow to PC gaming, the lack of stability, especially after Vista, but now we’re starting to see a change for the better. Companies are starting to push back to ensure that new technologies being launched are stable and running up to our standards.

4. When and how did the collaboration between HP & Voodoo start?

In late 2004 we realized that there was a ceiling to our growth. More competitors started to jump into the space, and even though we felt we offered some advantages, we couldn’t ignore them. We reached a point where it became a challenge to innovate based on our volumes. Even though we were first to market with certain technologies, vendors would eventually make them available to everyone in order to facilitate volume. We could either follow our competition by going downstream and increasing our volume, or we needed to come up with another strategy to innovate. Thus it made sense for us to partner with a larger company.

Prior to partnering with HP, Voodoo had discussions with other companies, as well. But because HP is the only PC company with a true heritage of innovation, and because innovation has always been important to us at Voodoo, HP was our No. 1 choice. There’s no doubt that HP has embraced the Voodoo brand. It has given us the freedom to express ourselves and stay true to our roots.

We know that as time goes on the one thing that will bring value to shareholders of HP is innovation. I believe we play a significant role in the innovation at HP.

5. Is there anything that makes HP or Voodoo gaming products different from the rest on the market?

Since the beginning of the HP Voodoo acquisition, we have been crystal clear about our strategy: to bring together Voodoo’s first to market innovations and design with HP’s R&D to create the most exciting PCs ever. Even though the HP Blackbird 002 was launched in September of 2007, it is still a product beyond compare. This speaks volumes to the level of engineering and innovation that we put into the Blackbird, and HP’s commitment to excellence. What we offer is the perfect combination of performance, quality, and innovation.

6. Do you have any final thoughts on HP’s direction with VoodooDNA and future products?

Over the past few years we have experienced a few really big moments: joining the HP family, creating a start-up business within HP, launching Blackbird, and more recently introducing the Omen and Envy 133. Now, Voodoo products are no longer going to be stand-alone entities, but rather they have been welcomed into the greater HP catalog.

Ultimately, this means that Voodoo and Voodoo-influenced products will be easier to buy, faster to get, they will feature local service, and they will have the full power of HP’s marketing and sales channel behind them. The bottom line is we have ignited the brand and sparked big excitement; so we are now integrating our organizations to fuel our growth. We’re lucky to be part of an organization that appreciates everything we have built and accomplished so far.

The big challenge now is, how do we take the cool stuff we do, the innovation and engineering at HP, and combine it with the larger scale execution engines at HP to grow the Voodoo products globally, methodically, and meaningfully? Stay tuned for more.