It used to be the rule that a stand at a trade show would need ‘Booth Babes’ to attract the attention of the thousands of people at a conference. SXSW Interactive is not like that… what attracts the attendees in the Austin Convention Center are shiny boxes that go ping. And the MID based devices the team was toting around the floors of SXSW.

Sitting down at a table, and opening up one of the Qwerty keyboard devices caused a lot of oohs and ahhs at the size. Unlike a European conference, where the 8.9 inch screen sized keyboard machines can be seen by a significant number of delegates, they haven’t as yet made an impact – which meant that the visual shock of seeing the MID hardware running caught everyone’s eyes.

The clear winner in the form factor would have to be the M-book. It’s incredibly small, but running a flown blown Windows XP set-up. Seeing pictures of these devices, even in the hands of an actor for scale, is not enough. Personally, the M-book didn’t blow me away, until it was sitting in my hands, with an almost full sized keyboard, touch screen LCD, all in the size of a small pocket diary. Standing in line and cradling the M-Book was a challenge… not because of the small size making it difficult to use, because of everyone asking what the device is, and where can they get one?

The big challenge for any MID device makers is going to be getting the impact of these devices in the physical world into the minds of a consumer looking to purchase a new portable device. Once the hardware hits your hand, the size and usefulness starts to become clear.

Of course another part of that attractiveness is the software, but that kicks in after the f irst look of lust. How to build a solid relationship with software is a discussion for another day. Perhaps tomorrow…