Handtops, UMPC - New/Old FlipStart Product Manager -

Hello,

My name is Keith Amodt and I'm the Product Manager for FlipStart. I joined the group recently but I've worked on many similar projects in the past. I was in engineering for 15 years prior to spending 10 years in product management at Microsoft (ok, no booing please). The last 3.5 years there I was a PM on the Windows CE team. I was responsible for the Jupiter-class devices coming about but I also helped ship H/PC, PPC, APC, etc. From there I went on to help companies ship devices based on WCE in education, ebooks, and wireless PDAs.

My role here is to help bring FlipStart to market, with as many cool new features as possible, as soon as possible. With that said, I can't discuss much about what those features are or when we will be ready to release it. You all know that the device has been announced, written about, and even discussed extensively on this and other blogs. The truth is that based on what we've heard from the market, we have to pause and make some modifications. What they are and how long it takes is TBD. We think we have a great concept but putting so much functionality into a small package is hard. Other companies have tried, with varying degrees of success, and we've learned from them as well.

The purpose of my being here is to interact, as much as I can, with all of you. You represent the early adopters of this technology and we learn a great deal from you. Even the lurkers out there play a part. I hope to be able to answer a few questions and share a bit about how we look at this re-emerging market. I've used this type of device since the old Sinclair days which was actually pretty painful.

I hope you'll all bear with me as we start this process and I hope that my being here can be of some benefit. I can't promise to answer every question but I'll do what I can.

Keith