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July 8, 2005
aARDvark
Ok, a break in the code, I've got a backlog of posts...Since we've started using FogBugz to track issues at Karelia, I keep Joel on Software tucked over in a corner of NetNewsWire just to see if there's anything going on at Fog Creek I want to keep an eye on. (What? Too many links in one sentence? What's the rule?)
So, sometime during the spring Joel announced that they were hiring a few select interns for the summer to work on a new, super secret product, code-named Project Aardvark. The premise sounded pretty interesting: take a few smart interns and throw them at a new project that's supposed to ship at the end of the summer.
It sounds new and fun and cool and sexy and not that dissimilar to how Dan and I are spending the summer, to ship something new and fun and cool and sexy for Karelia, except of course that they're in New York and we're in California and they're working on a Windows product and we're working on a Mac product and they're interns and, well, we're, um, clearly not.
Anyway, last week they announced that Project Aardvark is to become Fog Creek Copilot, a Windows app that puts up a VNC window of your friend's computer so you can take over the screen and the mouse and the keyboard and fix whatever horrible thing has gone awry with their Windows box.
A couple of interesting observations here: the core of Copilot is based on an open source version of VNC (as is pretty much everybody's, though how often do you see open source leveraged in a Windows product?), it apparently has a strange e-commerce use model that I don't yet really understand, and it should be incredibly useful for people who need to keep up with their friends and family PC support obligations.
I was really surprised that this is what Aardvark turned out to be. I guess I thought these things existed already. I've been doing this for Lisa's parents and mine using Apple Remote Desktop for a couple of years. It really is the only way to fly. And then it hit me. Aardvark. aARDvark. The clue was there the whole time...
Posted by ttalbot at July 8, 2005 2:45 PM
Comments
A while back, I suggested to Apple (via their website) that they should come up with a cut-down version of Apple Remote Desktop, that would effectively be "Grandma's Remote Desktop".
It would be intended to let people support their parents' and grandparents' Macs.
They could probably market it that way, too.
Posted by: Jon H at July 8, 2005 6:32 PM
Yep, agreed. $299 is a little steep for these purposes. A two-client version, or some sort of "family pack", that basically just did the VNC stuff and sold for $49 would be a perfect Grandma's Remote Desktop, as you say.
Posted by: Terrence Talbot at July 8, 2005 7:41 PM