You may imagine successful technology entrepreneurs helping build
innovative platforms, selling the company and then sipping a drink on a
sunny beach somewhere. Not Fred Allegrezza. After selling
AnySource Media--the video software firm he and his partners sold to
Divx in
2008--Allegrezza returns with
Telikin, the Linux-based PC platform he
created to battle the big guns at Apple and Microsoft and make personal computing easier for users 55 and older.
Telikin combines today's most popular features--email, internet access,
games, photo sharing, social media--and combines them into a more
intuitive, touch-screen design. On November 26, the Telikin hit
stores, showing up in eight Philadelphia
Clear Wireless locations just
in time for Black Friday.
"Telikin is right in this mix between people who are frustrated with
Windows computers and all the problems and Apple might be a solution but
it is still a lot more expensive" says Allegrezza. "We are not the
computer you use if you want to design a house or manage your accounting
systems. But it does come with preloaded applications, they all work
and they all play nice together."
Telikin was born three years ago, when Allegrezza's mother entered an
assisted-living facility. He created a modified Mac computer that would
auto-answer Skype calls and manage pictures more easily so that
she could stay in touch with her family. The name Telikin comes from the
combination of telecommunications and kin, or family. But what started
as a device for seniors has become something Allegrezza believes can
really challenge America's PC giants.
"What we found, as we were working with customers looking for their
senior parents, many were saying 'I want one of these for myself,' says Allegrezza. "It had a broader appeal than we had anticipated so we added
in word processing and printing to make it a full-blown computer that
even power users can enjoy."
Source: Fred Allegrezza, Telikin
Writer: John Steele