the Pipeline

Casting a wide net

If your wireless routers can't reach far enough to suit you, a new Utah-based company can help. Called Bountiful WiFi, the company's first product is the Bountiful Router, a wireless Internet router that uses amplification technology to cover anywhere from two to four times as much area as most routers do.

It's as powerful a router as the Federal Communications Commission will allow, said David Egbert, company founder and chief executive officer. Even if competitors such as Cisco Systems or 3Com improve their products to compete, the best they'll be able to do is equal Bountiful, he said.

The router is based on a reference design from Atheros Communications, with Bountiful's filtering and amplification technology added on, Egbert said. He said he decided to target the 802.11b and 802.11g standards markets because competitors are looking further down the road at more advanced technologies, leaving the 802.11 niche less addressed.

Egbert said he plans to approach commercial and government customers through resellers, systems integrators and original equipment manufacturer deals. He's not planning to sell the router to consumers, he said.

The company has technology patents pending for various technologies and could ultimately hold 20, he added.

Package deal

Corda Technologies has combined its data visualization tools into a single offering called Corda CenterView.

Billed as an "informational dashboard," the software allows users to extract data from databases, convert it into visual form such as charts or maps, and view it all on one screen.

CenterView can pull from multiple databases or even combine data from multiple sources into a single graphic element. It then export the charts immediately into PDF pages or Microsoft PowerPoint slides, or extracts the data into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

It also can display the data on wireless handheld devices and Web-enabled mobile phones.

The product officially launched Aug. 1, said David Vandagriff, Corda's vice president for business development.

"It's helping [organizational leaders] make decisions accurately" and in a timely fashion, said Mark Christensen, Corda's vice president for product development. "It's not just about presenting the data anymore. It's about bringing all that information into one view, being able to make accurate decisions."

Vandagriff said CenterView will have a home in many agencies. "This is a very horizontal application," he said. "It can cut across everything from workforce management to logistics to public information applications."

The people who will be most interested, he said, "are the people who have to understand a lot of information and for whom it is very important that they not get behind, that they can identify a trend or exception in time to act on it."