My "Best of PC Expo 2001" list is at http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/ctrmj/bestofpcexpo2001.htm

PC Expo 2001 has come and gone. I guess the main thing about this PC Expo was that there was less of "PC" and more of mobile computing devices (a lot more), peripherals, software and other technology related products. The following products are the ones that caught my eye and for the most part will be very beneficial to your small business. Note: There were two side events I went to, happening in conjunction with PC Expo (off the main Javit’s Center show floor) and I’ve included the companies I met at these events in this round up.

Ramon Ray, Editor, Smallbiztechnology.com

Systemax, http://www.systemaxpc.com/ was showcasing their iMass Network Server Appliance. The iMass enables a small business (up to 100 users) to have turnkey file, print, email, www, ftp and more services from one box.

In fact Systemax sponsored ZDNet Extremetech’s http://www.extremetech.com/ Americas Fastest Geek competition, of which I was a participant. Contestants were required to put a PC together – modem, network card, video card, CDROM, floppy drive, and hard drive. In addition all the screws had to be put in the right place, or points would be deducted. The winner, Nelson Abrieu put his PC together in 6 minutes and 19 seconds.

Plus Corporation of America http://www.plus-america.com/ announced the availability of PoinTech a whiteboard that allows you to combine your spoken and written presentations in one integrated file. Another option for this white board is writing recognition software that converts printed or cursive English handwriting captured from the PoinTech board to editable text.

Techtracker.com is a pretty interesting tool that integrates the software database at Versiontracker.com with the software on your desktop PC. You’ll be notified of the most current software versions and patches from your software vendor.

Wizcom Technologies http://www.wizcomtech.com/ , as usual, had their QuickLink Pen on display. The QuickLink Pen is not only a hand held scanner, but also has various language translation, dictionary, and bar code reading options. If you do a lot of research and often need to take notes of snippets of text – the QuickLink Pen is something you just might want to consider.

If you’re a Windows Pocket PC user, then Socket Communications http://www.socketcom.com/ , is a company you should check out. They’ve got a line of products for bar code scanning, Ethernet cards, serial ports, and a card to connect your PPC to your digital phone.

There’s associations for just about every type of product, service and industry group on the planet. The Managed Service Provider Association (MSP) http://www.mspassoication.org/ had a small booth at PC Expo and is an industry consortium for companies that are delivering technology infrastructure management to multiple customers over a network on a subscription basis.

Connected can sell you these products for you to manage and deploy on your own, or they can sell you this as a monthly subscription service that they can manage for you.

DriveWorks – a solution for partitioning, copying, imaging and backing up hard drives; PC Upgrade Commander – makes it easy to upgrade to a new PC or laptop and have all the data from your old PC moved to the new PC; CD Anywhere – makes compressed images of your program CD’s, music CD’s and DVD-Roms and saves them to your hard drive for easy access. Check out their other tools too!

Everyone talks about e-business, but ACCPAC’s solution is sure proof of it for small businesses!

I was excited to see ASP Always On http://www.alwayson.com/ showing their line of hosted applications including Microsoft Outlook 2000, Office XP.
Always On also provides accounting, project management and other software served via the Internet.

M Systems’ Disk on Key http://www.m-sys.com/ is one of the coolest products at PC Expo. It’s a hard drive about the size of a key chain that connects to your computer via it’s USB port. DiskOnKey comes in 8, 16 and 32MB sizes.

U.S. Robotics http://www.usr.com/ continues to develop very much needed hardware products such as routers, modems, wireless PC cards and access points, and more. If you need networking connectivity peripherals check out U.S. Robotics.

Roxio’s GoBack software http://www.roxio.com/ is a system recovery tool that lets PC users "go back" in time to recover their data from system crashes.

Iomega is another of those companies that keep on going, like the Energizer Bunny. Check out its mobile storage solutions at http://www.iomega.com/

Shinei International http://www.i-vox.com/ has a line of "life style" accessories for PDA’s - MP3 player, 56k modem, digital voice recorder, FM radio, all in one synchronizer/charger and a MIDI player. Unfortunately all devices are not for all PDA’s, so visit their web site for the accessory specifically for your device.

Corex Technologies Corporation’s CardScan http://www.cardscan.com/ is one of those tools that EVERY small business executive needs. Like me, I’m sure you’ve got stacks of business cards – why not put them into a database and start using that information. Well it’s going to take you several hours to type it all in. So you don’t. Check out CardScan and save yourself a lot of time inputting your business card collection into your computer.

Mobility Electronics http://www.mobilityelectronics.com/ and KeySpan http://www.keyspan.com/ are like the Radio Shack of mobile computing, offering a line of connectivity and power products for portable computers.

Blackberry’s wireless email services http://www.blackberry.com/ and the increasingly famous Research In Motion (RIM) 2 way pager were also at the exposition.

Blackberry’s solutions is more than just email but also contains PDA functionality with included calendar, address book and task list. I personally like RIM’s pager much better than Motorola’s competing offering.

For some people a printer, is a printer, is a printer. Amongst basic laser and ink jet printers there’s really no difference – I feel the same way. However, Lexmark http://www.lexmark.com/ was at the expo showing off the beautiful printing capabilities of their latest line of printers. Lexmark has excellent customer support.

Qubit http://www.qubit.net/ showed me their line of thin clients – Orbit (a wireless Web tablet for Internet access), Atom (a tethered device for Internet access), Home Gateway Interface (interaction with various home control and security systems)

zTrace Technologies http://www.ztrace.com/ is the tool you’ll wish you installed if you lose your notebook computer or it gets stolen. Imagine "_______" for PC’s. When the need arises, call zTrace and the next time your PC is connected to the Internet zTrace will alert authorities to your computer’s location and hopefully be able to get it back and nab a thief!

Content Management and Web site development tools are a dime a dozen, but check out Imanage’s WorkSite suite of applications http://www.imanage.com/ . The suite includes an enterprise class WorkSite server, WorkDocs (for document management); Work Team (collaborative application), WorkPortal (aggregation of data, documents, web content, etc), WorkRoute (routing business information and establishing processing and approval cycles)

There’s a battle being waged for home networking and the choices are wireless networking, traditional Ethernet networking, phone line networking and power line networking. Each of these networking standards is supported by an industry consortium. The Home Powerline Alliance was at the Expo getting the word out about the benefits of power line networking.

You can’t escape the warnings about hackers getting into your computer systems and Zone Labs http://www.zonelabs.com/ was at PC Expo to make sure we knew their product is on the market. You might have read about Zone Labs in much of the media – their free product offering is often the first security solution many users first download. Check out Zone Labs not just for security products but also for information on securing your computer.

Logitech http://www.logitech.com/ had their booth jam packed with mice of all shapes and sizes! They’ve got cordless mice, mice designed for notebook users, and so much more.

INTEL http://www.intel.com/ has a complete line of networking products for small businesses, and of course chips! IF you’re a small business on the look out for wireless technology (or regular Ethernet for that matter), check out INTEL’s solutions.

Executive Software http://www.execsoft.com/ brought along their Diskeeper 6.0 software http://www.diskeeper.com/ which is an automatic disk defragmenter for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000 . Regular defragmentation of your disk drive will keep it running faster and increase your chances of data stability.