There were 265 exhibitors at MacWorld which was held in San Francisco from January 31 to February 2. Since Apple doesn’t attend anymore the third party apps and devices now comprise the exhibit hall.
There were there usual large number of iPad and iPhone case and skins, earbuds and screen cleaners. There was a kitchen cutting board that can hold an iPad (Chef Sleeve) and an app you can pair it with that has recipes, photos and videos (iCookbook). There was software that could take a picture of a cat and make it look like it is talking (Reallusion Animation Suite), accounting applications (Kashoo) and a field guide to North America birds (iBird).
There were devices that allow you print from your iPad or iPhone (xPrintServer) to one that turned music pages on an iPad without using your hands (AirTurn). There were large companies such as HP showcasing its printers, disk drive companies Seagate and Western Digital and Nuance with its voice recognition software.
The three companies I saw that had some of the more interesting solutions and who had a better chance of being competitive vs. other technology companies were:
- Connected Data with its Transporter storage device. It is secure storage that acts both as backup and allows remote access by users you have approved. It could be used by consumers or companies, especially organizations such as law firms or health care groups that need a higher level of security for their data. It could be disruptive to companies such as Box, Dropbox or anyone that is charging monthly storage fees.
- Flint allows mobile devices to accept credit cards without the need for a card reader or additional hardware. A person can just use their phone or tablet to take a picture of the credit card numbers to receive payment. It could be disruptive to companies such as Square, PayPal or anyone that requires a separate hardware component to be added to their mobile device.
- MacKeeper is a suite of 16 software utilities including Internet security, file recovery, data encryption and back-up. I believe the underlying anti-virus engine is from Kaspersky. While there are a number of companies that provide this range of software, MacKeeper is charging $39 for its entire suite. If it can gain traction it could be disruptive to some of the major Internet security companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.
Disclosure: My family and I own Apple shares
