Ispiri Plays the Name Game

What’s in a name? According to officials at the fledgling software and digital appliance vendor Ispiri, Inc., apparently everything.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company changed its name from Ispiri to Mirra, Inc., earlier this week in an attempt to bring greater recognition to its flagship product, a personal server also named Mirra. The announcement was made in conjunction with a preview demonstration at the Silicon Valley 4.0: The Future of the Future,” forum produced by Garage Technology Ventures and The Churchill Club.

Mirra [the product] was created with supreme ease of use in mind,” said Richard Mandeberg, the company’s CEO. Our…name change places total focus on [that] promise.”

The Mirra product, released last month, received critical acclaim at the recent DEMOMobile conference in La Jolla, Calif., and was the recipient of a DEMOgods award. The product is designed to streamline many of the manual tasks people must undertake to manage their collection of digital files.

As Mandeberg explained, at a time when consumers and professionals are acquiring more digital appliances every day, the server operates like a digital file genie,” enabling users to save, send and synchronize data with others and allowing for anywhere access without complex manual requirements. Recent research from IDC stated that at the end of 2002, 17.4 million homes and small businesses were equipped with broadband, and that 12 million households were networked in one capacity or another. The same statistics showed that more than 20 percent of U.S. households also have digital cameras.

Perhaps the product’s most sophisticated feature is a two-pronged security solution that keeps digital files safe and access to the files secure. First, because the device runs on Linux, it exists separately from a user’s Windows or Macintosh operating system, meaning that any worms or viruses that attack the operating system will not corrupt Mirra as well.

Secondly, the device enables users to attach Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) identities to each file, enabling users to pick and choose who has access to which files once the device goes online.

Mirra, Inc., is expected to begin shipping its Mirra product at the end of this month; pricing will begin at $399. The company’s name change takes place immediately.