Tech Elite Descend on California

Jan. 30, 2008 — -- During the last several months, Guidewire Group has talked to hundreds of companies to arrive at the 77 market-altering products launching at the esteemed DEMO conference this week in Palm Desert, Calif.

These products are the very best of the lot, no doubt, and representative of direction and change in the technology markets. The DEMO conference is in its 18th year — almost unheard of in the conference industry — and has stayed true to its mission all those years: find great innovation wherever it occurs and expose its community to new ideas and opportunities unavailable elsewhere.

We don't want to keep all those great products to ourselves, though; here are a few of the hottest technologies debuting in the desert this week.

Voyant

Voyant @Home is a do-it-yourself financial planning solution that puts people in direct control of their financial health. A financial planner has traditionally been a luxury for the wealthy and, frankly, an adviser who needs to sell his own products. While there are multiple solutions on the market for budgeting and financial tracking, such as Quicken, few have integrated the simplicity of a self-service application into financial planning.

Voyant @Home's sophisticated software not only allows consumers to easily establish long-term financial goals such as college and retirement, but also provides recommendations, community-sharing options and real-world advice if desired. It's financial savvy for those of us without vacation homes.

blist

Blist is the world's easiest database. While there are arguably consumer database tools that are simple to use, you'd be hard pressed to find one that is simple and highly functional.

The blist drag-and-drop user interface lets individuals build complex databases by thinking about their information and how they want to use it. Nontechnical people can work with data as powerfully as if they were supported by an IT staff — without requiring that resource. Blist makes relational database creation and management as easy as using a spreadsheet.

Flypaper

Flypaper allows everyday business professionals to develop rich, interactive communications, such as presentations, multimedia Web content and e-learning courses.

Flypaper Models make creation quick and easy. Users simply drag and drop, customize and publish the high-impact results. As we have come to expect high-fidelity visual communications, a divide has opened between designers who create visuals and the storytellers who deliver the presentations. Flypaper bridges that gap with a refreshingly simple tool that allows most anyone to build rich content.

Flypaper couples design tools with an online content community to unleash the creative spark in anyone.

Fabrik's Joggle

With photos, music and videos scattered online and on multiple devices, Fabrik's Joggle finds and catalogs your stuff, no matter where it resides and presents it in a single view, eliminating the need to worry about where it is stored. Log in over the Internet or run it on your desktop and you'll have full access to your content both online and off.

Fabrik's Joggle is a must-have application for anyone juggling a library of rich content.

These products are only a thin slice of the products — for both consumers and business — that have come to market this week at DEMO. See them all at www.demo.com.