Will DemoFall Debut the Next Tivo?

SAN DIEGO—Starting Sept. 25, venture capitalists, journalists and technologists will gather here for the DemoFall conference, where almost 70 new products and services will be launched over three days.

"For each Demo and DemoFall conference, I analyze hundreds of meetings and conversations to identify the current state of the industry," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DemoFall conference, in a statement. "This helps me to pinpoint the areas in which investment dollars are flowing and the best innovation is happening. The technology industry is always a wellspring of innovation, and DemoFall attendees will get a first look at the next big ideas igniting the tech economy."

This years DemoFall conference will focus on mobile and wireless, products that make enterprise software more accessible, security, search, and collaboration products that allow end users to generate and share content. Sixty-seven new products will debut at the conference, including VOIP (voice over IP)-enabled videoconferencing hardware, a voice-to-messaging system and social networking sites.

The conference, as in past years, will also include panel discussions with industry leaders, such as Tom Jacobs, director of research at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, and Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm.

A launch at any of the Demo conferences doesnt guarantee success, but plenty of household names got their start that way. Technologies such as Tivo, Java and the original Palm Pilot all made their debuts at Demo.

eWEEK Labs got an advanced peek at a number of products that will hit the stage during the DemoFall conference:

Pinger will introduce a service for mobile phones that will allow users to send an instant voice message to anyone via text messaging or e-mail. We started playing with Pinger when it was in alpha and have found it to be an indispensable tool for those moments when we want to leave someone a voice message but dont want to risk having that person answer the phone (like when weve missed deadline and our editor is looking for us).

MindTouch will launch the Dekibox, the first on-premises, maintenance-free wiki appliance for enterprises. Dekibox will connect knowledge workers and allow them to share information by providing an aggregated way to retrieve information from disparate applications and servers behind the firewall.

At DemoFall last year, Teneros launched its line of Application Continuity Appliances for Microsofts Exchange Server. This year, Teneros will extend its offerings to include an Application Continuity Appliance that will offer disaster recovery for applications. The appliance will target branch and department-level deployments, as well as small and medium-size businesses.

For companies moving voice off analog phone systems and onto IP networks, Be Here will introduce the TotalView appliance. TotalView is a VOIP collaboration phone that acts as both a speaker phone and videoconferencing system.

A full list of companies demonstrating at DemoFall can be found here.

Senior Writer Anne Chen can be reached at anne_chen@ziffdavis.com.

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