Finding a great niche

There's a great big buzz about tablets computers, fanned in particular by the announcement of Apple's iPad today. The idea of a tablet computer is that it does not have a keyboard, or any other peripherals. You simply touch the screen with your finger to point, click, gesture and type. Think of an iPhone, but with a much bigger screen.

I absolutely love them, by the way ... but that is not the point of this post. Oh, and they are great for some kinds of computing, like web browsing and casual note taking and, ... anyway, not the point of the post. What is the relevant is that they have been around for a while and there are several major PC makers already selling them, like Lenovo and HP. They are turning up in places like hospitals for use by professionals there.

Last week I met with executives at one of these bit PC makers to talk about PrivateEye. They are looking at integrating the product right into the platform, which would be great. That's when I found out about the perfect niche for us: You can't put a 3M privacy filter on a tablet. The plastic interferes with the touch screen.

So I am now an even bigger fan of tablets. And touchscreens in general. We learned something really useful in that meeting: There is a whole segment of new systems out there where we can go and the competition can not. Our next task is to start making connections and finding ways to tell buyers that they can still have privacy with that shiny new gizmo.

And maybe I'll need one myself... for testing purposes.

Bill