"Good afternoon. Welcome to Portico," a sexy female voice intones. "You've reached the number for Jon Kaufthal. I'm handling all his calls for the moment - may I ask who's calling? Would you like me to try to find him for you, or should I take a message?"
Thus begins the unsuspecting caller's introduction to Portico, a service aptly described by its creator as a "virtual assistant." And while Portico won't type or fetch coffee, it does a surprisingly adequate job of filling in for an assistant of the nonvirtual variety.
Tell Portico where you are and she'll forward your calls, much like rival services Wildfire (www.wildfire.com/) and Webley (www.webley.com/). But Portico one-ups the competition by smoothly integrating other areas of your life. For starters, a version of Motorola's TrueSync will sync Portico with, among others, Outlook and your PalmPilot, allowing it to understand phrases like "Call Steve Andrews at work" and "Get me Drew Anton's email address."
She'll manage your schedule, too - just ask, "Do I have any appointments today?" And when Portico reminds you about your lunch, tell her to switch it to Wednesday. Next time you sync, the change will be reflected in your records. The service takes advantage of a secure, password-protected Web site that mirrors her telephone counterpart, even delivering voicemail via RealPlayer.
Portico's also got other tricks up her sleeve, like getting stock quotes and newswire stories. When a piece on Microsoft comes up, say "Fax that to Janet Reno."
So what's the catch? Not much. Portico is priced lower than her inferior competitors. Wildfire has got Portico beat with its ability to set up conference calls and whisper the name of one caller when you're on the phone with another, but Portico's overall feature set puts the others to shame. More than just a cool toy, Portico makes technology do something useful: simplify your life.
Portico: $19.95-149 per month. General Magic: +1 (408) 774 4000, www.genmagic.com/.
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