Dell Streak 7BMO Capital Markets estimates

that 15 million to 16 million

tablets were sold in 2010—

most of them iPads. The advisory

group predicts that in 2011

there will be 45 million tablet

computers sold, and, by the end

of the year, the market will be

about evenly split between

Apple and Android system

tablets. By midyear, BMO expects

there to be at least 25 to 30

tablets from about 20 manufac-

turers. At the January Consumer

Electronics Show (CES), a dozen

or so new computers in tablet

format were introduced. The Dell

Streak 7, a collaboration of Dell

and T-Mobile USA, is an

Android™ tablet designed

specifically for T-Mobile’s 4G

mobile broadband network. The

bright seven-inch WVGA touch

screen is made of Gorilla® Glass.

It runs Google’s Android 2.2

Froyo operating system with a

dual core 1GHz NVIDIA

Tegra 2 processor that

supports Flash and can

run the more than

100,000 applications,

games, and tools from

Android Market. There’s

a rear-facing 5.0

megapixel camera for stills and

video and front-facing 1.3

megapixel camera with the Qik

Video Chat application pre-

loaded for video calling over the

T-Mobile network. There’s a vir-

tual keyboard and support for

stereo Bluetooth 2.1. Internal

memory is 16GB, and an SD

Card slot will support up to an

additional 32GB. Size is 7.87" ✕

4.72" ✕ 0.49". www.dell.com

ASUS Eee TabletsAlso at CES, notebook maker

ASUS introduced four new tablet

computers ranging from a

pocket-size seven-inch Android

model to a 12.1-inch powerful

Slate running Windows

7 Home Premium

on an Intel Core i5

processor. The Eee

Pad MeMO features a

seven-inch capacitive

screen, a Qualcomm Snap-

dragon mobile processor,

and the Android 3.0 Honey-

comb operating system that

supports HD playback, mobile

gaming, and Web. The two

middle-sized tablets are the Eee

Pad Transformer and Pad Slider.

Both have 10.1" IPS touch

screens (In-Plane Switching is the

system used on iPads) and

NVIDIA Tegra 2 mobile processor,

and they will ship with Android

3.0 operating systems. Both of

these tablets have physical key-

boards. The Slider has a slide-out

QWERTY keyboard, and the

Transformer has a docking stand

with a keyboard. ASUS describes

its Slate EP121 as its most pow-

erful tablet, capable of running

almost any program and able to

connect to any device. The Slate

has either a 64GB or 32GB solid-

state memory drive, 4GB or 2GB

system memory, high-speed wire-

less N and Bluetooth 3.0, Mini

HDMI, 4-in-1 card reader, USB

2.0 port, and 2.0 megapixel

camera. The Slate comes with a

Bluetooth keyboard, a Wacom

digitizer pen and Windows 7 pen

support, and a folio case.

www.asus.com

ATXThe choice of six different ATX

Tax Packages and the account-

ing, payroll, and workflow man-

agement tools make the ATX

suite ideal for small to mid-sized

tax and accounting offices.

Advantages common to all the

packages include a simple intu-

itive interface, easy roll-overs,

audit checks and warnings, and

free training. At the top end of

the offerings, the two Total Tax

Office packages include all fed-

eral individual and business

forms, W-2, 1099, 940, 941,

9444; all state and local individ-

ual, business, and specialty

forms; and electronic filing of all

supported forms. Document

manager lets you scan and save

documents, and IntelliConnect

provides quick answers to your

individual and business tax

questions, all within the pro-

gram. Also online you have

access to tax cases and rulings,

business quick answers, and

state tax laws and regulations,

and there’s a Practical Tax Bul-

TECHNOLOGY

58 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 1

TOOLSof theTRADE

letin that arrives by e-mail

biweekly. The accounting soft-

ware included in Total Tax Office

and Accounting Office programs

includes ATX Trial Balance, Fixed

Asset Manager, and Client

Write-Up with Payroll (Tax &

Accounting Office). Additional

research includes CCH U.S.

Master Tax Guide, CCH 1040,

1041, 1065, and 1120S Express

Answers. You can try the pro-

grams out at www.atxinc.com.

Seagate GoFlexHomeThe Seagate GoFlex Home is an

NAS (network attached storage)

system that provides backup

and a centralized source for

multiple computers in your

home or small business. It’s

available in 1TB and 2TB capac-

ities, with an additional USB

port to add another external

drive for even greater capacity.

The port can also be used for a

printer that will serve all the

computers connected to the

network. The design is

modular, and the base of

the unit

detaches so

you can upgrade

by unplugging the base and

switching it to a higher-capacity

GoFlex Desk hard drive. The

GoFlex Home is compatible with

both PCs and Macs, and the

software simplifies the connec-

tions to both. Up to three PCs

or Macs can be operating at a

time with the system. The entire

system is designed to make set-

ting up a home network a sim-

ple process of plugging the

GoFlex into your wireless router

and then following the illustrat-

ed, step-by-step installation

tool. Included is a remote access

and file-sharing service on the

GoFlex Home system called Sea-

gate Share that allows others to

share photo albums, videos, or

documents. You select the files

and type in an e-mail address.

The people you select will

receive an e-mail with a direct

link to a customized Web page

where they can view the shared

files. www.seagate.com

The 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show

(CES) is a great-grandchild of the World’s Columbian

Exposition of 1893, and although we might assume that

technology has never seen the kind of accelerating

Renaissance as in today’s digital age, you can make a case

that today’s expo provided change that was incremental

while the Columbian initiatives were almost seismic by

comparison.

In the broadest of overviews, last year’s CES (2010)

was seen as the harbinger of the Year of the e-Book, and,

this year, pundits are crediting the show with ushering in

the Year of the Tablet. In the Columbian Expo, 117 years

ago, visitors were treated to Edison and Tesla knocking

heads over the most cost-effective and technically sound

way to deliver electricity to homes, factories, and public

buildings that currently were lit by gas pipes protruding

through the walls.

TECH THEATER IN THE ROUND

Both expositions were designed as showcases of tech-

nology, manufacturing, and the arts. The Columbian

Expo was held in Chicago, and there were many more

agriculture-related exhibits, as you might expect—it was

1893. CES 2011, a 44-year-old event that was first staged

in New York in 1967, opened this year on January 6 in

Las Vegas, where it has been held on an annual basis since

1998. The Columbian Expo was also called the Chicago

World’s Fair—the CES boasts the “World’s Largest

Consumer Technology Tradeshow.”

The lists of innovations debuted at both shows offer

some interesting contrasts. Of the more notable first

bows at CES is some memorable hardware. The video-

cassette recorder (VCR) was introduced in 1970 and was

followed in 1981 by the compact disc player, DVDs in

1996, and the DVR (digital video recorder) in 1999. The

Two Tech Expos: CES 2011 and

Columbian Expo 1893By Michael Castelluccio, Editor

continued on next page

TECH FORUM

Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 1 I S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E 59

year’s latest comput-

ers, such as the Com-

modore 64 in 1982,

have frequently first

seen the display lights

of the open market in

Las Vegas, and this year was no exception with more than a

dozen new tablets joining the race to catch Apple’s iPad.

This year’s debuts include Motorola’s Xoom, three ASUS Eee

models, Panasonic’s Viera, the Dell Streak 7, the Cydle M7

Multipad, and the Open Peak and Coby tablets.

But long before CES took America from Pong (1975) to

X-box (2001), the Columbian show had its own diverse list

of launches. Among the firsts for the 19th Century show

were the original Ferris Wheel—designed by a bridge

builder and capable of carrying more than 2,000 passen-

gers; neon lights and phosphorescent lamps; and several

classic American culinary staples including Shredded

Wheat, Cream of Wheat, Quaker Oats, and Juicy Fruit gum.

Of course the products weren’t nearly as sophisticated as

the chip-based offerings of today, but it might be worth

noting that the Atari consoles that let you remotely paddle

a white ball across your television have mostly been

relegated to garages and dumps while the wheat and oat

inventions of 1893 are still stocked on grocery shelves

across the country.

In terms of pure technology, the most fascinating

exhibits at the Columbian Expo were in the building called

The Great Hall of Electricity. There the Tesla polyphase sys-

tem of alternating current power generation and transmis-

sion was on display. Having underbid Edison’s/General

Electric’s offer to light the entire exhibition, Tesla/Westing-

house created what was to be a Waterloo for Edison’s plan

for national direct current municipal power supplies. When

President Grover Cleveland pushed the button that lit

100,000 incandescent lamps throughout the grounds and in

the buildings, a significant engineering corner had been

turned. The power was provided by 12 Westinghouse gen-

erators that provided safe, cost-effective alternating, not

direct, current.

“The War of the Currents” between Edison and Tesla

began with an established advantage for Edison’s direct cur-

rent systems. When his ex-employee, Nikola Tesla, threat-

ened the Edison hegemony with a very practical alternative,

the Edison camp resorted to creating unfounded concerns

over the safety of Tesla’s AC systems. Public demonstrations

for the press and others that involved electrocutions of dogs

and cats—even livestock—with AC power sources were

intended to frighten anyone considering importing this

menace into their homes. Edison claimed his DC supply

required lower, safer voltage levels. But as the competitive

threat from AC grew, the countermoves reached bizarre

levels. At one demonstration, the DC advocates electrocuted

an elephant, and the far limit was reached when Professor

Harold Brown, actually an employee of Edison, rigged a

Westinghouse AC generator to the first electric chair. The

execution of its first victim, a condemned axe murderer,

went horribly wrong, but not so badly that it prevented the

Edison camp from unofficially designating this kind of exe-

cution as “Westinghousing.”

Yet despite the head start with installed infrastructure

and the legendary inventor’s name recognition, the spectac-

ular success of the Columbian Exposition put a World’s Fair

seal of approval on the alternating current system for Tesla

and Westinghouse. The event provided such a reversal that a

reported 80% of electrical devices ordered after the

Columbian Expo were for Westinghouse and Tesla’s alter-

nating current.

SUCCESSES

In a late press release, the 2011 CES announced the success

of its international expo with preliminary attendance that

exceeded 140,000 industry professionals. The show was open

for four days, but the exhibits weren’t open to the public.

By contrast, the Columbian Expo, which was open to the

public and open for more than six months, had a visitor

count that reached 27 million. Quite an accomplishment

given that the most recent census (June 1890) listed

62,622,250 citizens in the whole country. SF

60 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 1

TECHNOLOGY

(Left) Commemorative stamp issued from the

1893 Columbian Exposition.

(Below) Dell tablet premiered at CES 2011—also

does e-mail.

TECH FORUM