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Local innovator first with its Pocketop Keyboard


June 11, 2002
Glenn Drexhage

Wireless device fits in a shirt pocket, no hardware needed

A Vancouver company that rapidly raised its first round of venture capital is betting a mobile communications boom could lead to big prospects and future innovations.

Pocketop Computer Corp.'s product, the Pocketop Keyboard, is a wireless portable keyboard for personal digital assistants. The unit is slightly smaller than a regular keyboard. When folded in half, it fits in a user's shirt pocket, along with a personal digital assistant.

Other keyboards are available, but connect to serial ports via hardware devices. Keyboards must be tailored to suit competing handheld models with different ports.

Pocketop, which uses infrared signals, only needs to ensure that its keyboard is compatible with PDA operating systems. And it's compatible with Palm Inc. and Microsoft Corp. PDAs, according to Bill Wrixon, Pocketop's president and CEO.

Micro Innovations in New Jersey is Pocketop's retail distribution partner for the crucial U.S. market. According to Wrixon, Micro's initial order for 10,000 Pocketop keyboards was upped to 60,000 units. The product retails for US$119 and started selling in the U.S. about a month ago.

Last week, Wrixon visited Taiwan to "firm up" Asian and European distribution, and he said Internet sales should be available by mid-July. The company plans to distribute its keyboard in Canada later this summer. Onlookers have been impressed.

"I think they've got the slickest design available," said Robert Millham, a wireless analyst at Research Capital in Vancouver. Pocketop recently raised about $2.5 million from Toronto-based Tullaree Capital Inc. The deal closed in two months, a rapid turnaround given the VC industry's wary mood.

Joseph van Bastelaar, Tullaree's president and CEO, said Pocketop's progress convinced him to move quickly. "I never saw a deal where [the company] was so close to bringing the product to market," he said. The money came at a good time. Wrixon said his staff had gone seven months without a salary in the past year. He said Pocketop would pursue a follow-up round in the $10-million range perhaps by mid-2003.

Michael Katz, an architect and urban planner, founded the firm in 1997. Wrixon came on board in December 2000 after selling Clearly Contacts, a company he co-founded that sold contact lenses online.

Chicony Electronics Co. Ltd., the Taiwan-based keyboard manufacturer, began producing the Pocketop unit last October. Phil Leong, Pocketop's CFO, said the company plans to ship 200,000 units by the end of this year, and possibly 500,000 in 2003. He expects revenues to reach about $5 million this year and about $14 million for 2003, and predicted that Pocketop may be profitable by mid-2003.

Wrixon also plans to target the lucrative corporate market.

Not everyone thinks Pocketop will win corporate accounts. Executives would rather have a full-size unit, said Phil Baker, the president and co-founder of Think Outside Inc. in San Diego. That company holds the majority of the global market share for PDA keyboards (its full-size Stowaway unit retails for US$99).

Baker said Pocketop's keyboard has some software compatibility problems, and added that other computers and fluorescent lights can cause interference with infrared signals. "It's kind of a neat technology looking for a solution," he said. David Ferguson, Pocketop's vice-president of sales and marketing, acknowledged that overly intense light could cause interference, but said testing in "normal" boardroom settings has been fine.

He noted the company has addressed the size issue with its patented contour key. This provides a ridge on shortened keys, allowing for a smaller size without harming functionality.

Ferguson said that screens for Sony handhelds and devices with Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system can't be rotated when using Pocketop's keyboard. However, he said screen-rotation software for Pocket PC devices is available on the Internet, and the company is working on similar software for Sony products.

Pocketop is investigating a keyboard for mobile phones, and is working on another unit that would use the Bluetooth wireless communications standard.

Although he's not giving details, Wrixon said his company also has a concept for its own mobile device that "truly opens up the world of mobile computing."

But it better not lose sight of its current mandate.

"There's always the risk of somebody developing a better mousetrap," Millham said.



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