10 Best Enterprise Products At CES
InformationWeek went to CES so you didn't have to. Here are the 10 best enterprise products we found lurking among the consumer gadgets and gear.
CES 2016 has brought an amazing number of devices to market, most aimed squarely at consumers. In with all the consumer gear, though, are many products and services that are either aimed at the enterprise IT buyer or applicable to the enterprise. If you want to see the latest in whiz-bang consumer gear, there are thousands of websites ready to show you their take. For enterprise products, though, keep reading.
There are some products on this list that are simply great products in their own right. Others are good, but represent a larger trend in products or services. Three trends in particular stood out for me: virtual reality content creation, virtual reality sound, and USB-C devices.
[ See Windows 10 Laptops, Hybrids Grab The Spotlight At CES 2016. ]
Many of you might ask what virtual reality has to do with the enterprise. It's a legitimate question. The answer comes in two parts. First, I'm now convinced that enterprises will soon be called upon to create virtual reality content for marketing, advertising, and training in the same way they've been creating traditional audio and video for the last few decades. Next, I believe that we're going to start seeing more and more organizations using virtual reality as a tool in visualizing big data results.
Data visualization is an important topic across the enterprise, and the 3D representations available through virtual reality would enable executives and analysts to dive into data in ways that aren't possible with other technology.
These are my takes on the best of CES. I'd love to know what you thought about CES 2016, whether you were pounding the carpet of the aisles or following along from the comfort of your own office. Ask in the comments section below, and I'll be happy to share stories about some of the other things I saw at CES -- it was an incredible (and exhausting) week.
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InFocus has created a computer that's ideal for moving a working desktop back and forth between multiple locations, whether you're talking about employees taking work home or office employees making use of a hoteling ephemeral desktop plan.
Kangaroo is a full Windows 10 computer in a package roughly the size of a deck of playing cards. InFocus has given the tiny system ports for connecting keyboard, mouse, and display, plus OSLinx software so an iPad can be used as the display and input. Overall, it's an impressive system in a small package -- and it's only $99.
Creating virtual reality content is becoming more feasible than ever with the advent of lower-cost cameras. But content producers have begun to realize that standard two-channel stereo sound can be disappointing, and even disorienting, when coupled with 360-degree video. Several companies were demonstrating immersive audio prototypes at CES, and the best I saw (and heard) was from Sennheiser.
The engineers at Sennheiser's San Francisco lab took four high-quality microphone capsules and arranged them in a pattern that delivers a realistic sound stage when coupled with a virtual reality video. The production version of this mic will be aimed at professionals rather than consumers. (Think a price tag in the range of a couple of thousand dollars.) But it will allow professionals to create an audiovisual VR experience that is much more immersive than it would be with video alone.
Members of the InformationWeek community have had many discussions (OK, arguments) about the importance of handwriting in a digital age. The Livescribe 3 renders the debate largely moot.
With the Livescribe 3, you can, when writing on paper with a grid of dots, capture handwriting that is then transferred to a mobile device. There, it can be transformed into text and transferred into applications such as Evernote and Microsoft OneNote. If a Bluetooth connection to the device is available during note taking, then the notes can be linked to an audio recording captured by the device.
Livescribe was recently acquired by Swedish company Anoto, and I saw demonstrations of handwriting capture on a number of different devices that should make it to market in the next year. If you (or your employees) still get work done using a pen and paper, the Livescribe 3 could make the transfer to digital data faster and much less error-prone.
One of the beefs enterprise users have with the Android operating system is that it's only available for mobile devices. When you sit down at a laptop or desktop, you have to change gears. Jide is trying to change that with its Remix OS for PC. For the enterprise executive, the great opportunity here is to break the hardware refresh cycle for many employees. The "lighter" Android OS can run happily on hardware that creaks and groans (or falls over and dies) under Windows 10. If you need apps, simply go to the Android App Store. This product isn't for everyone, but it will be an absolute game-changer for some enterprise IT groups. Even better: The software is a free download. If you want it on a bootable system on a stick, the price goes all the way up to $70.
3D printing is becoming a recognized tool for enterprise engineers and designers. Along with that recognition comes another: Not every business needs its own 3D printer. Service bureaus -- from the small and specialized to giants such as UPS, FedEx, and Walmart -- are answering the need for the occasional 3D prototyping print.
The proliferation of 3D printing service bureaus carries with it confusion about pricing and capabilities, and that's where 3Dprintler comes in. 3Dprintler is a service that aims to be to 3D printing what Kayak is to travel. It's an aggregation site where you can see and compare prices across many different service providers for the print you want.
3Dprintler is a startup, but it's already providing solid comparisons. The need for its service is a sign of the market's maturity.
One of the limitations for the virtual reality market has been the expense of creating content. Hi-def rigs for 360-degree image capture can easily hit the tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, image capture doesn't get much cheaper or easier than this Kodak Pixpro.
For $299 (or less), you can start creating functional virtual reality content. At this price, you can give Pixpro to many of your employees, send them to a customer site or event, and bring back enough VR content to keep viewers happy for weeks.
The Pixpro SP360 isn't going to give you the quality that you can get from some of the ultra-expensive rigs, but for groups looking to get into the VR game, it's the lowest (and best) price of entry I've found.
Remember "sitting is the new smoking"? It turns out that's not entirely true. The thing that can hurt your employees is staying in one position too long. Humanscale, a manufacturer of ergonomic furniture, has teamed with software developer Tome to create OfficeIQ, a system of sensors and software that lets you and your employees know how much time they're spending in one place.
Sensors in chair casters can give information on sitting time and (in conference rooms) whether chairs are occupied at all. To cut down on the "creepy" factor, management can only see department-level stats, but employees can see their own details and gain insight into how they should adjust their routines for optimal health benefits.
In a CES filled with health and fitness products, this is one that matters to the enterprise -- one that could become an important part of an overall corporate wellness program.
When Apple introduced the latest MacBook with a USB-C port replacing USB-A and charging ports, many people scratched their heads over the strategy. I'll admit that I was skeptical. Sitting down with the MyCharge USB-C series of chargers (and with storage devices from LaCie) has convinced me. USB-C makes perfect sense.
With a high mAH external battery and USB-C, you can charge your phone, tablet, and laptop from the same battery while in the field, giving you lots of extra time to conduct business on the go. For mobile professionals, that's going to be a game-changer.The MyCharge units are more than USB-C, though. They're high quality (no danger of them catching fire in your briefcase), well-priced for the energy they deliver, and small enough to make them reasonable accessories for your ultra-light electronic fleet. If you have executives or mobile professionals who need all-day (and all-night) power, these chargers are the ones you want to recommend.
Here's the thing: Larger and more critical files are important to employees. They're so important, in fact, that you might not want them wandering around in laptops. With a desktop NAS box, you can let your employees store large files locally (for performance and security) while still allowing your enterprise backup routines to keep secure copies in long-term storage.
The DiskStation DS416j is marketed as a home-entertainment storage system, but the qualities that make it good for keeping the entire run of "Game of Thrones" also make it perfect for analysts, content creators, and other data professionals who need a high-performance, high-quality local storage solution. There are a lot of NAS boxes on the market. This is one you should consider if you need performance on desktops around the company.
Wireless networking is replacing cables in more and more business applications. The economics are compelling. When you don't have to pull cables to every desk you can save a ton of money. The problem is throughput in critical applications -- radio frequency isn't as fast as copper lines. Until now.
The wireless 802.11ad spec can provide for up to 4.5 Gbps throughput using a new slice of radio spectrum at 60 GHz. The good news is that 60 GHz is relatively untouched by other devices, so you won't have RF interference issues. The bad news is that it won't go through walls nearly as well as lower-frequency radio, so you can't plan on installing one of these for an entire office.
If you have a workgroup of folks who need high bandwidth and don't need separate offices, though, this could solve a lot of problems. You'll need to buy client-side transceivers for the computers, but compared to pulling lots of cable those come cheap.
So, that's our enterprise top 10 from CES. See anything that's going on your "must-have" list? Or did you see something in another article that you think I should have considered? Let me know in the comments section below. I'll be happy to sit and talk about CES while my feet recover.
Wireless networking is replacing cables in more and more business applications. The economics are compelling. When you don't have to pull cables to every desk you can save a ton of money. The problem is throughput in critical applications -- radio frequency isn't as fast as copper lines. Until now.
The wireless 802.11ad spec can provide for up to 4.5 Gbps throughput using a new slice of radio spectrum at 60 GHz. The good news is that 60 GHz is relatively untouched by other devices, so you won't have RF interference issues. The bad news is that it won't go through walls nearly as well as lower-frequency radio, so you can't plan on installing one of these for an entire office.
If you have a workgroup of folks who need high bandwidth and don't need separate offices, though, this could solve a lot of problems. You'll need to buy client-side transceivers for the computers, but compared to pulling lots of cable those come cheap.
So, that's our enterprise top 10 from CES. See anything that's going on your "must-have" list? Or did you see something in another article that you think I should have considered? Let me know in the comments section below. I'll be happy to sit and talk about CES while my feet recover.
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