Friday
February 16, 10:01 am Eastern Time
Forbes.com
Ten O'Clock Tech: Palm-Sized Powerpoint
By Arik Hesseldahl
Everyone in business can tell you that Microsoft's Powerpoint
software has become the de facto standard for giving presentations to groups
both large and small.
In fact, using PCs to give presentations that once required
slides and professionally printed graphics is common enough that many slide
projectors and overhead projectors for transparencies are being replaced. In
their places are PC-friendly projectors that display what's being shown on the
PC monitor onto a wall or large screen. Often speakers travel with their laptop
computers on which their valuable presentations are stored.
But laptop computers
are one of the most-stolen items in airports. What happens if the only copy
of the slides for an important presentation to Wall Street analysts ends up
in a laptop chop shop?
If you happen to own a Visor, the Handspring-made (Nasdaq:
HAND - news) handheld computer which runs the Palm operating system, you can
now keep a backup copy of the presentation in your coat pocket. And if your
laptop does go missing, you can even deliver the presentation from the handheld.
Or you can just leave the laptop at home, where it's safer.
The device that
makes this possible is a clever little expansion unit for the Visor called the
Presenter-To-Go from a Fremont, Calif.-based company called MARGI Systems. The
cartridge fits into the Springboard expansion slot on the back of the Visor
unit. It connects to digital projectors or other VGA displays, and can display
Powerpoint presentations, or other Windows documents, and always in color whether
your Visor is a color model or not. It also comes with a remote control, so
that you can walk around the room while giving a presentation.
Plug-in software
that comes with it can transfer the Windows document into a format that works
with the cartridge. The software also lets you work with the slides or documents
on the Visor screen. You can hide slides, change the order in which they're
presented, and choose whether you want to change slides manually, automatically
or loop the slides so they repeat over and over.
For power, the Presenter-To-Go
cartridge can run using the enclosed AC power cord, a battery pack, the Handspring
power cable or, if it's the color Visor Prism, it can draw power from the cradle.
The cartridge works with all models of the Handspring Visor, and it has 2 megabytes
of flash memory built in, which is, the company says, enough to hold a 100-slide
presentation. It will sell for about $300 and will initially be available from
MARGI's Web site and, later this quarter, from Palmgear.com.
Related Item: Microsoft's
New President
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