Sunday, November 06, 2005
Active Clipboard by ActiveInk Software
I’ve had an opportunity to play with ActiveInk Software’s new application – Active Clipboard for the Tablet PC.
Chris De Herra at www.TabletPCTalk.com posted a good overview, so I won’t repeat it all here. I will offer a few observations and opinions, though:
1) I think that ActiveInk is on to something. The enhanced clipboard functionality is very cool, especially the custom recognizers like phone numbers, addresses, numbers, etc, and the ability to categorize the stored info.
2) I copied some ink from Journal and it converted it to text. I honestly expected it to have the ink available. I wanted to work with the copied ink as ink – not text. That is a much needed improvement – especially from a company called ActiveInk Software
3) When I installed a new version over the existing one that ActiveInk sent me, I was prompted with a message that I needed to uninstall the existing one first. ActiveInk should handle that for me through a smarter install program.
4) Offer the product with a download trial mode. Prospective customers need to use the program on a trail basis before deciding whether to purchase it. The on-line demo is cool, but people need to use it and see the value add. It is the only way ActiveInk will sell a bunch of them.
After using it for several hours, would I buy a license at $49? If they added the ability to store copied ink as ink, and then work with that ink – I might seriously consider it. I’d be more tempted if the price were around $20 – $25.
