The CEO of Xircom Inc, Dirk Gates, is planning to reposition the Rex personal organizer product – which his company bought from Franklin Electronic Products for $13.25m yesterday – as a wearable information accessory for corporate users. Gates laid out an aggressive roadmap for the credit card sized device, which will see security features implemented on the device in two to three months, a web clipping system for the organizer two to three months after that and wireless capabilities within a year. The mistake that its previous owners made with Rex, Gates said, was positioning it as a device in competition with Palm handhelds, rather than an unconscious carry.
Gates sees adding security features to Rex as the first step to gaining corporate acceptance. RSA authentication software will be added to the PCMCIA card allowing corporate users to do away with current useless authentication cards and instead carry a Rex, which also holds contact and calendar details. After that a simple web clipping program that allows users to log into a corporate intranet or the internet and synchronize with information they want updates on daily or weekly. Gates said that the web clipping application would be very simple and reside mostly on the desktop side, saving precious memory on the small footprint device. Xircom is also planning to add speedier USB sync facilities to the device.
The final step in Xircom’s plan is to develop a wireless Rex. Gates said that this would be done in two stages, first, allowing the device to synchronize with host devices via a cell phone and then adding Bluetooth functions. Gates expects that sometime next year Bluetooth chipsets will be small and cheap enough to use in the Rex. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) software will also be incorporated in the device as the wireless roadmap moves forward.
Separately, Gates described said that Xircom’s acquisition of Entegra Technologies Inc would give the company a 50% share of – and a retail presence in the North American USB market. The Entegra products will be positioned as Xircom’s consumer USB hub range with the Portstation line becoming Xircom’s corporate product line. รก
