Getting customers to adopt a new product is always a big challenge for any product marketing manager. Chris Delvizis, the Data Acquisition Product Manager for National Instruments' new plug and play temperature sensor was so excited about the ease of adoption and use of his new NI USB-TC01 Thermocouple Measurement Device, he had his grandmother demo the installation and use of the product!
Of course you SHOULD be able to plug a new device into your PC and have it work out of the box, but that's often not the case with data acquisition devices such as sensors of various kinds. Usually, you have to download a driver, select the Operating System, and then connect the sensing device to the application you want to use to log and analyze the data. This new temperature sensor from NI is the first to use the NI InstantDAQ Technology that contains the driver within the device, but also includes the application for logging and viewing the data. And, you can download additional free applications and/or connect instantly to NI's LabVIEW development environment and online community of developers.
The concept for the InstantDAQ technology originated from two unlikely sources, Dave Wilson, International Marketing Director and Christer Ljungdahl Director of Web and Direct Marketing when they were looking to create a product that would be easy to sell online and to use without training. Christer reported that their inspiration was the ease of use of other commercial products such as the FlipVideo camera which Cisco acquired in 2009. As head of Web Marketing for National Instruments Christer is eager to have even more NI products that people can buy directly from the Web site, plug into a USB port on their PC, and use it productively within minutes of receiving and unpacking with not for a manual So, Christer and his colleague Dave designed a prototype. Once the R&D and Product Marketing groups saw it they were bought in and immediately productized it leading to other innovations such as the InstantDAQ technology and a clever use of social media to promote the product -- which speaks volumes for the innovation-friendly culture of National Instruments. It sells for $99 and can be purchased here.
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