Date: January 30, 2003
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Station: CNET Radio
Location: Network
Program: CNET Radio Midday Show
Mr. Desmond Crisis, host: Joining us by telephone, Steve Burman from JDI Technologies. Hello Steve.
Mr. Steve Burman (JDI Technologies): Desmond, good to be with you and your listeners.
Mr. Crisis: Great, thanks for joining us today. Now, you've got--you're the name behind the GoldX line, which I'm sure folks have seen in their little retail stores.
Mr. Burman: Hopefully more and more.
Mr. Crisis: More and more, and, basically what you guys do is, the patches, the cables, the pieces, you need to make it all work. Give us a little bit of background of the company, then I'll start talking about the product.
Mr. Burman: Desmond, we have been doing both data and power activity products for 18 years. Our focus up to three years ago was very much OEM and high-volume solutions for distribution in the telecomm industry. And with USB, we really saw an opportunity for the company to let its creative juices flow and we had a lot of passion, both for power products, but also with--approaching that with a strong belief in modularity, and so we have some patents in modular power products, and USB was really a jump-off or a launching pad for us to create both power and data solutions, as in bring them both together.
Mr. Crisis: So lets talk about the product a little bit. I've got one on my desk and I think it's super cool. The idea here is that when you get--at my home, it's a mess. I've got hubs standing on top of routers, standing on top of converters--it's just a big pile, a big mess. And the other thing is that it totally dominates my power strip trying to power all of these devices. You guys basically made the Scooby sandwich out of all of these devices. They stack on top of each other, one power supply, the general splitter--I call it the power hokey, but you probably call it a surge suppressor--with four AC lines on the back as well as a modular section that will either take cable television co-ax, Ethernet, telephone and surge suppress--all of that. It's kind of like a big disk--it's kind of a flattened out, round-ish disk with lights on the front and looks pretty cool. But on top of it is a barrel connector that's kind of recessed into the case. From that you can stack on the next disk, and so on and so forth so that you don't need to fill up the power strip for the power supplies for the rest of the devices.
Mr. Burman: Correct, and you just described it very well. Thank you for that.
Mr. Crisis: You made a huge Scooby sandwich.
Mr. Burman: Right, well, we haven't thought of that word yet, but we can talk offline about using that.
Mr. Crisis: Let's talk about what the individual ones do. I've already told everyone what the surge suppressor is like. And the other thing is, if that's the modular--this big block that falls out of the back--I should say take out of the back--of that device actually will let you surge suppress whatever you really need to do. You can change it.
Mr. Burman: Correct, the modularity is that you can customize it and configure it to really meet your application. We're calling the surge portion of the product, of the system, the power base. And as you pictured for your listeners, internally in the base, we have a 56-watt, 12-volt, DC powered transformer. That supplies power to Ethernet switches, USB and firewall hubs. We have a broadband device that's part of the solution. We actually have a very new product that we're beginning to ship this week, it's a DC hub, and I don't believe we supplied you one. The DC hub broadens the ability of the collective power devices beyond our device family, so, let's say, Desmond, you have a cell phone and you left your charger at home, you can actually power your cell phone off of a DC hub.
Mr. Crisis: And you come with more of this convertible modular system. I want to go into detail a little bit more about what each one of the modules are. I see that there's--on top of the Power Core, is about four that are available so far that I see. We're going to talk about those in just a minute. We've got Steve Burman, he is from JDI Technologies. You want to take a look at this thing for yourself. Go to www.goldxproducts.com--G-O-L-D-X-Products.com and look at we're talking about. We'll be back with Steve Burman. Stand by.
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Mr. Crisis: We're going to be talking to the folks behind Nascar To Go in just a moment. Right now we're talking to JDI Technologies. They are the folks behind the GoldX peripherals. Welcome back, Steve Burman.
Mr. Burman: Thank you.
Mr. Crisis: All right. Let's talk a little bit about these things. Now, there's a power cord at the bottom, which not only is a surge suppressor and breaks up some power so you have plugs on the desk that you can get at, but it also feeds power out through the top, so that by stacking the devices, you don't have to fill up your wall with outlets.
Mr. Burman: Exactly.
Mr. Crisis: Let's talk about what the differences of the devices are. Now I think I am looking at the USB hub on the bottom of the photo here.
Mr. Burman: OK, the devices we are currently offering in the Power Core system--and by the way, Desmond, there's no order these have to be put in.
Mr. Crisis: Right.
Mr. Burman: The device is smart, it has its own power management source. It will pull from the Power Core base what it needs. There's no order they have to be in, so what we have available for your listeners is a five-port Ethernet switch. You mentioned USB, yes, we're currently shipping a 1.1 USB hub and our high speed USB hub will be available in stores early next month.
Mr. Crisis: And you've got the USB-to-Ethernet adaptor.
Mr. Burman: Correct.
Mr. Crisis: That's pretty cool.
Mr. Burman: That's also a port replicator.
Mr. Crisis: Right, and this is one that will be real handy for someone who has a USB that wants to break out, maybe, different peripherals, or just only have a USB go down to the computer.
Mr. Burman: Right, so, we have some legacy devices--we'll handle that with the port replicator.
Mr. Crisis: And that will replicate out a PS-2 keyboard-style connector, a mouse connector, serial and parallel.
Mr. Burman: Right.
Mr. Crisis: That's pretty cool.
Mr. Burman: We also have the FireWire three port hub.
Mr. Crisis: OK.
Mr. Burman: And our newest device, which is a five port DC hub. Now I know you don't have one there, but this device has three 5-volt power taps--9-volt and a 12. We can power a host of different devices. So if you have some legacy devices and you want to get rid of the adaptors, get them all away from your desktop, we can do that for you with the DC hub.
Mr. Crisis: So, how about the patch cords to do that? You guys have patch cords that you bundle with it?
Mr. Burman: Yeah, correct. Five patch cords and a bag of different types of connectors, whether you have a cell phone or a PDA docking--dock--or a base unit. Leave that, again, at home or in your computer bag. You'll be AC adapter free.
Mr. Crisis: And you know, the other thing I was going to look at here on the Web Site that looks cool is the QuickConnect USB cable. It's a convertible cable with different ends you can snap on.
Mr. Burman: Yes, this embraces where USB is going, which is, as you probably know, On-the-Go, where you will be able to swap out your devices where a device can be both a host and a peripheral. This is a very leading edge product and will support a lot of leading edge digital cameras and cell phones that are going USB.
Mr. Crisis: Well the trick is--I don't want to take--at this point right now, there's so many different versions of the cable--A-male to A-female, B-Female to B-Male. I mean, there's so many--five different ends that you guys have for this thing, so you've got a big combination there on how you can set it up. You just keep a sack of these little connectors and one cable, and then no matter what you end up needing, you've got.
Mr. Burman: Exactly.
Mr. Crisis: Well I really like this. These are some really great ideas, Steve.
Mr. Burman: The other thing that will be part of the business, we'll have a cell phone adaptor, so with that same piece of copper, you'll be able to charge your cell phone, then an auto adapter so you can power everything in your car.
Mr. Crisis: That's very cool.
Mr. Burman: One cable, seven solutions.
Mr. Crisis: All right. Steve Burman, thanks for joining us from JDI Technologies.
Mr. Burman: Thank you so much, Desmond.
Mr. Crisis: Take a look at the stuff. Some really good ideas. I mean, when it comes to the pieces that make it all connect together and work well, these guys are on top of it. Goldxproducts.com is the place you can look and see this stuff for yourself. They've got links to contacts, buy there stuff, take a look for some drivers if you need them, and that Power Core system is really neat. I appreciate you guys spending your time with us today.
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