Coming 'Round Again!

INSPIRATION – really loving it…

"Are you as inspired today as you were under the best of Ken and the Mini-Computer wave?"

A growing tribe of ex-DECies describe the experience of At-Hand Apps, LLC as such a re-creation of that inspiration.

"There is another amazing wave of digital life-enhancing technology coming." enthuses founder Robert Gray. "The tsunami will make search, and the whole centralized Internet, seem oh so primitive and old-school."

Former DEC badge holders Gray, Jim Burrows, Mark Granoff, Todd Trimble, Janet Egan, Karl Puder and others have organized publisher, developer and marketer At-Hand Apps for a "marathon run" into this territory. "The rest of the planet is making sprints." says Gray, " They are mostly rushing small cute apps to market. Many are making a quick buck, but their apps generally do not demonstrate what is possible or the real transformation coming. We believe we have the big picture and have resources to do more."

The group sees another industry convergence and tipping point coming: massive content in the Internet, pervasive connectivity, low-cost, powerful portable personal devices, free open-source software tools, low and variable-cost cloud resources, cheap marketing and communications channels, and an available massive and skilled work force.

Over the past 24 months dozens of books and hundreds of articles have been published about the avalanche of data and its out-of-control intrusions into life. There will eventually be the emergence of a universal mediation-layer between the Internet and the individual that will make things good again. The earlier industry analogy is the CPU OS which virtualized the hardware, provided simplified resource access and separated the applications from the hardware. The area is sometimes called altered presence, or ambient-intelligence. The At-Hand Apps team is actively following and collaborating with others on this journey of invention.

At-Hand Apps pilot product, a travel app, New England Day Trips At-Hand serves to build a team and infrastructure. It provides travelers today with location-aware, personalized, essential activity search capabilities, and serves as a foundation for more brilliant capability in the future. Available in the iTunes store, it is 5-star rated.

OPENING FOR OTHERS – join the fun

The wave of opportunity is the opposite of the mini-computer era where continuing and massive amounts of financial capital were required. In this wave it is massive and continuing amounts of human resources to be applied. The shift is upending and disrupting the traditional angel investing and VC communities. This wave is about experience, skills and collaboration, and less about naïve, youthful enthusiasm to be exploited.

For this unique vision and opportunity, At-Hand Apps is organized in a highly unusual form. It has no outside investors, no outside managers, no employees and no jobs. It is a rarity as an Intellectual-property-based business to be a democratically owned and managed workers co-op. Every member is a worker-owner. Managers are members elected by and from membership and are responsible to the members for executing on policy chosen by membership.

This allows them to choose and invest for the long term and to be true to their mission and visions. They are investing to create and own all their own content. There are no capricious money-men or suits or Wall Streeters calling the shots.

The team intends to expand their premier app New England Day Trips At-Hand in form, features, functions and content in forthcoming releases. Other parts of the nation will come next. Android, iPad and possibly other platforms are in the pipe-line. The retail channel through iTunes will be expanded with private-label, custom versions and eventually the custom content will be licensed to others.

The opportunities in content creation, and marketing – online and conventional, data base and smart phone software need inspired contributors.

At-Hand Apps members invite former DEC colleagues to learn more about possibilities for themselves. If your monthly financial needs are handled but you would like to again be engaged in inspiring work with others who inspire you, contact Robert Gray at 617-416-0390 GrayRobert@AtHandApps.com.

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