Man on a mission to make computers 'run like fridges'

Nov 12 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

The rules of computing have been rewritten for the masses by a North East technology firm. Andrew Mernin meets the man charged with selling the new system to the IT-illiterate world.

INFURIATED by the way computers have evolved, they have razed the established IT order to the ground and started over in the name of simplicity.

Save for the odd tirade of profanities at the monitor, most computer users begrudgingly accept the many irritations and complications of using a PC.

But a group of technology enthusiasts on Tyneside have declared enough is enough and rebuilt a system with the interests of Joe Public – and not a Microsoft wizard – in mind.

The new software, called Alex, was officially launched this month and could play a major role in helping the Government achieve its goals of getting more people online.

According to independent research, 25% (12.2 million) of the UK’s adult population don’t own a home computer, while 18.7 million adults are either without a home computer or have one but admit to being confused by them.

The Government’s Digital Britain report warns: “We are at a tipping point in relation to the online world. It is moving from conferring advantage on those who are in it to conferring active disadvantage on those who are without.”

To reinforce this point a second company, simplicITy, launched their own easy-to-sue PC and software yesterday.

Supported by Valerie Singleton, the former Blue Peter presenter, it is being marketed to help vulnerable people who have been excluded from the digital revolution.

However, as the team at Newcastle’s Broadband Computer Company (BBC) are keen to point out, non-computer users are limiting their quality of life by avoiding the web at all costs.

BCC’s new operating system is designed to be far easier to use than those on the market, allowing more over-55s to uncover the benefits of the internet.

The firm has targeted the 9.9m UK adults in the ‘digitally-excluded’ bracket who have no home PC, and are excluded from using computers currently on the market by income and education levels.

“Have you ever found the Help function on Windows helpful?” asks BCC’s American-born director Harry Drnec.

“No! I haven’t met anyone who has.”

Mr Drnec, who spent 12 years as the managing director of energy drink giant Red Bull UK, admits he was himself a late starter in the IT world.

And the 62-year-old, alongside his fellow BCC colleagues, is aiming to clear the way for IT virgins to throw themselves on to the internet.

BCC also aims to re-write the logic of the way computers work – for example, on Alex, there is no save button as everything saves automatically.

“Why would we set up to do something to deliberately lose it? So the system just saves as you go along.

“We want to make the computer into a refrigerator – when we use a fridge we don’t think about the process or the science behind it, it just works.

“In our trials, it took people who had never used a computer before, just 20 minutes to send an email.”

Initially Alex is available to buy as part of a package in a bundle with a specially-configured lap-top and a broadband connection.

In the longer term, the company is expecting to have it available as a piece of software to buy off the shelves in major retail stores.

And then, as the Alex empire grows, the firm will look to follow Microsoft and Apple’s example by building the product through applications.

They will lay down a set of rules for the world’s developers to follow and wait as creatives all over the globe supply them with new applications suitable for Alex users.

Mr Drnec says: “This has massive, monstrous potential. I believe this is what computing will be in the future.

“People just want to use these things and explore them. We use less than 10% of what’s available on standard computers.This is for everyone.”

Most non-Mac computers come loaded with Microsoft stuff and you have to pay just to remove it.

“I can see at some point in time, you could have a computer with both Alex and Microsoft and switch between the two.”

In Mr Drnec, BCC certainly has a heavyweight marketing man among its ranks.

He was the man who sold Red Bull to a skeptical UK market, and previously worked as marketing director at Anheuser Busch Europe – the company behind Budweiser. It may be popular today, but Red Bull hasn’t always given its customers wings -– not in the UK market anyway.

Over a decade ago, the energy drink company was leaking millions of pounds on these shores as it failed to make an impact on 1990s Britain.

In selling Alex in an industry completely dominated by Microsoft and Apple, he intends to use the same strategy he used at Red Bull.

“When I started at Red Bull they talked about their customers being 18 to 34 year olds, which was rubbish.

“I identified five groups – students, clubbers, drivers, athletes and executives. You could see exactly where they were and what they do. It’s really simple to understand where they are. That’s exactly what we are doing here, identifying the consumer.”

“You have to touch your customers and thrill them. When I was at Red Bull, everyone asked how an energy drink would possibly work?

“But then they realised that it actually did something to you, and that’s what will happen with this product.”

It remains to be seen whether Alex will prove a harder sell than Red Bull, but there’s no doubt that Mr Drnec believes in the product.

In the meantime, he, and his eclectic team of colleagues, will set about righting the many wrongs of over -complicated computers which have deprived millions of people of the wonders of the web.

Click here to go to the Alex website