Mario Armstrong: Hey! Its Mario Armstrong hanging out at the HP booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2009, I'm your small business tech guru and we’re going to go and see the new touch technology is all the rave here. Being able to touch devices seems to be the new trend for technology and for small business owners and HP has a small business solution. So we’re gong to talk to our friend here, Dipankar from HP. Dipankar, good to meet you.
Dipankar Bhargava: Hi! How are you doing?
Mario Armstrong: Good to see you here. Now this is a brand new touch mark for small business, for business.
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct. What you're seeing here is the new DX9000 TouchSmart PC for businesses. It’s the first touch enabled PC design for business.
Mario Armstrong: Now, I have seen this one for consumer applications. People were putting it in their living rooms. They were putting it in their kitchens and things to that nature but now you’ve taken that success and have created–I guess the demand really from what I was hearing, small businesses were buying several of these at a time and they were putting them in their offices. So you guys designs are–owning small business aspect for them.
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct. So the touch–there is an entire potential for touch in businesses and what you're going to see today are a few applications designed specifically for business for all sizes in different work like hospitality or healthcare education and even read there.
Mario Armstrong: Alright. Well, let’s see some of the applications. Now the software that’s running this is Windows Vista Business.
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct.
Mario Armstrong: Okay.
Dipankar Bhargava: That’s the–one difference that you will see between the consumer model and the business model.
Mario Armstrong: Right now we’re going to be ready to look at a couple of applications so that you can understand how your small business could actually utilize touch screen technology to enhance your sales, to educate your costumers and to drive more business for you. The first application you're going to show us is one that’s created for the Detroit Pistons, right?
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct. So one of our software partners, -- has you know, created this application. What they're doing is, they're taking the TouchSmart PC putting in it into these VIP suites of different sports arenas. In this case, you know, guests in the comfort of their suites can walk up to the TouchSmart PC and with one touch easy access, pulls up many of food and beverages.
Mario Armstrong: So you just simply touch the screen, holds up the menu but if you wanted to buy merchandise, we could touch merchandise and it brings up the merchandise.
Dipankar Bhargava: Yes, and you can order that.
Mario Armstrong: Now, we’re seeing obviously in a sports industry application here but that’s relevant for a regular retail. If I was to walk into a retail store, a small business or even a café and they wanted to have their full menu available to me but maybe they don’t have the space inside of their office or you know up on the wall, I could order inventory, I could order a product and I can learn more about their offerings.
Dipankar Bhargava: Yes. Absolutely, you and walk up and you know, browse products, compare prices, look up information. Also, you could actually talk to a virtual sales assistant.
Mario Armstrong: This is cool. Let’s show that really quick. The virtual sales assistant is a really cool application. Imagine this, you're in your office, you have this TouchSmart computer in your location, maybe your busy, maybe you're understaffed or under resource, you can utilize this type of technology to get your point across, to sale services or prep your costumers while they're waiting.
Dipankar Bhargava: Absolutely and also another scenario is if you're in a grocery store and you need, you know, you walk up to this -- you know, browsing product, you need some more information, you could get that in a very realistic, very immersive manner.
Mario Armstrong: So, I'm going to pull that up one more time because I think this is really fantastic for a lot of small businesses who need to be able to do more with less. This allows you to multiply yourself.
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct.
Mario Armstrong: So she is us a pitch about Mac products and what the line of Mac products are. And so at any time, we could touch it and say we want to learn more about the list of that line of products, correct?
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct.
Mario Armstrong: As you see in there, it comes up right there.
Dipankar Bhargava: And it comes up and you know, the virtual sales associate can provide you with detailed information about the product or services.
Mario Armstrong: So one real case scenario, here's an example for you small business owners out there, there's apparently a bakery that’s in Southern California that can’t always show all of its inventory of baked goods. So it can’t cook everything. It can’t bake everything that it can make available. So what they do is that they use the HP TouchSmart as a solution to showcase all their menu offerings so that you at least get a full understanding as to what that business actually offers and they're having a lot of success with that. And I think we’re going to see more of that in retail, tourism and hospitality.
Dipankar Bhargava: Absolutely and the TouchSmart PC allows our businesses to interact with costumers in a way that they’ve never done before.
Mario Armstrong: That’s true. Touch screen is interesting. I appreciate the time for you to give us this touch technology with the TouchSmart, HP TouchSmart for business as what's it’s called. It’s going to be about 1399.
Dipankar Bhargava: That is correct.
Mario Armstrong: And its available when?
Dipankar Bhargava: Early February.
Mario Armstrong: Early February 2009. I’m Mario Armstrong of sbtv.com, your tech guru now go touch something and make some business happen. We’ll be back.
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