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Technology Stocks : General Magic -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Feldstein who wrote (4555)	12/28/1998 8:46:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Respond to of 10081

I used Portico for 2 months before leaving to Australia. The team that set me up was very good. They called a few times to see that I was happy and the system worked from the get go. It's pretty straight forward and won't take much to begin using. The system has trouble with very noisy environments. I sent an e-mail to a friend from a pay phone at a Bob Dylan concert so he could hear the back ground and be very jealous. Despite the noise, I was able to send my message. As I've always said, I find computer TTS (Text to Speech) voices less than pleasing, but that is not a GMGC problem and I feel better systems will be available soon. TTS is a simple component that can be changed when better systems are available. My wife thinks Portico doesn't like her Dutch accent. She never really tried it much though, so we don't know if it was just a matter of getting use to speaking to a computer or not. My worst problem was I never actually needed Portico. I just got it to test it. If I was a power user, it would be a better test. I liked the simple way it does things. I can't imagine it not being of great use. When they integrate specialized functions using corporate data bases, it will be the killer app. I think some people may be disappointed they can't do dictation. This is a very complex program and requires the computer to know the users voice, or be speaker dependant. Dragon uses 20 megabytes setting up a user profile, so you can see this is not an option for Portico. Looking at what Portico can do well, I think they have a good product. It is only a matter of time for people to become aware of what is available. Regards, Mark

To: Michael Feldstein who wrote (4555)	12/28/1998 10:21:00 PM
From: Kurt Goebel	Respond to of 10081

I've been using Portico since September. The service has been great. The uptime super. I had it block me from my mail one time in November, but other than that flawless. I've been very pleased with the various applications. The message/mail app works great. I'm often picking up and sending messages while on the road. Think of it as the superman of message boxes. The address book application is great too. It's a great relief to be able to just ask for someone and get their numbers (work, home, mobile, ...). No way I could remember all those and my pilot all the time. The newspaper app has been useful and has worked well finding me the news I want wherever I might be, in a car, in a hotel room, in a meeting,... The stock quote app is easy to use and has been useful. It would be more useful if it had real time quotes, but I suspect that will be a feature available in the future. It has paged me twice when a stock I own went up 50% :^) The calendar app is great too. I most often use the web interface to Portico it add new meetings and events, but I most often query it by voice for the days meeting or my next meeting. I have it page me for my next meetings and have since never missed a meeting since (This alone is work the money for me). The Portico service provides an answering service of a sort as well as it will take messages for you and will even try to locate you at the phone numbers you set up for it to check. It calls you and asks if you want to take the call. All in all, I love Portico. I know many of its features can be found elsewhere with a variety of things like pagers and other services, but it is the only service I'm aware of that pulls it all together and lets me access it easily from my i1000 cell phone. All I need is my mobile phone and Portico and I'm in touch. General Magic has announced that MagicTalk is their platform for Portico and can be extended to all sorts of applications outside of the universal messaging apps Portico encompasses. Seems apps can just be added to their desktop metaphor. For example, they are working with Intuit to provide voice access to the content on the Quicken.com internet content. In fact, General Magic has stated that they have the goal of making MagicTalk the internet voice user interface (VUI). They have also mentioned that they are working on several other features such as ecommerce extensions, more personalities, conference calling and incoming call notification in addition to more applications of the MagicTalk for business and consumer applications and services.

To: Michael Feldstein who wrote (4555)	12/28/1998 11:53:00 PM
From: curious	Respond to of 10081

so you're curious? experience here has been nil, and probably always will be; am more intrigued by the possibilities than the actual experience... mary..

To: Michael Feldstein who wrote (4555)	12/29/1998 12:17:00 AM
From: Rob Anderson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10081

My experience so far with Portico has been positive. I no longer carry a pager just a Qualcom phone. I eliminated my land line for my business the pager and answering machine also my AT&T voice mail. I'm saving about $30.00-$50.00 per month in phone cost's and the response from customer's has been positive. What I'm very happy about is I'm still learning how I can apply Portico in the future. I do have customer's that want to talk to me "right now" and I know who they are. Portico contact's me and I take the call! Rob