PATENT OWNER
`PATENT OWNER
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`EXHIBIT 2071
`EXHIBIT 2071
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`http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2004-02-08/wireless-finds-a-welcome-in-hospitality
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`Wireless Finds a Welcome in Hospitality
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`February 08, 2004
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`It's not quite Star Trek, where food can be made to materialize just by talking into a machine.
`But restaurant guests at a new Holiday Inn in Duluth, Ga., can now place their meal orders
`electronically. The so-called Emenu -- really a tablet PC connected wirelessly to a computer in
`the hotel -- provides photos and nutritional info on menu items. Customers can tally the calories,
`carbs, and price of their meals before they order, then zap the request to the kitchen. The Emenu
`also translates that data into Spanish and into euros.
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`The fun doesn't stop there. While waiting for the food, diners can log onto the Web using the
`Emenu, play games, get the latest on hotel events, or order a taxi. Guests traveling with laptops
`can do all of the above with their own machines via the hotel's free Wi-Fi network, at the
`restaurant or from anywhere else in the hotel, including their rooms.
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`It's all part, says Keith McNally, founder and CEO of Ameranth Wireless, which created the
`Emenu, of a coming explosion in technology use in the hospitality industry. "This is kind of the
`classic American dream," McNally says. "I quit my safe job, mortgaged the house. I've put my
`whole life into this."
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`GRUNTS AND WAITERS. McNally, 49, has taken an unusual route to high-tech
`entrepreneurship. A West Point grad, he served as an artillery officer for five years. After leaving
`the Army, he spent 17 years at Litton Industries, now a part of Northrop Grumman (NOC),
`helping develop the handheld wireless devices the military now uses to guide artillery batteries
`and smart bombs.
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`"Before that, artillery units still performed the way they did in Napoleon's day, with grease
`pencils and pins on maps," McNally says. He saw an unlikely similarity between restaurant work
`and the military. Both, he notes, involve a lot of young people, working in high-stress
`environments that include a lot of movement.
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`Ameranth's first product helped automate the hostess station, which McNally calls the "command
`post of most restaurants." Now, assistant hostesses at Red Lobster, a unit of Darden Restaurants
`(DRI), and Outback Steakhouse (OSI) wander the restaurants looking for customers that are
`leaving their tables. The employees type the table location into a wireless device that sends the
`info to the hostess station. There, additional software finds the next customers in line and
`automatically pages them to let them know a table is ready.
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`"WIRELESS WENCHES." Another Ameranth product allows food servers to send orders
`wirelessly to the kitchen, sometimes allowing the drinks to arrive before the guests have finished
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`ordering. That technology is being used now at six basketball arenas, the Opryland theme park,
`the new Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship, and a couple of Medieval Times restaurants, where the
`servers have been nicknamed "Wireless Wenches."
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`McNally's sales pitch comes down to money. Some 75% of a restaurant's business is done in just
`15% of its operating hours. So turning tables quickly during the high-traffic period is critical.
`Ameranth also offers something to food servers, who through faster ordering can work six tables
`at a time instead of four. "Her income just went up 50%," he says.
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`San Diego-based Ameranth is privately held, and McNally declines to release revenues. He says
`he has raised more than $10 million in venture capital, including investments by Micosoft
`(MSFT) and Symbol Technologies (SBL), the leader in bar-code scanners. His biggest
`competition is Columbia (Md.)-based Micros Systems (MCRS), at $400 million a year, a
`comparative giant in software for the hospitality industry.
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`A FIRST STEP. To make sure he doesn't end up getting his lunch eaten, McNally has sought to
`partner with other leaders in hospitality technology. Radiant Systems (RADS), a big player in
`point-of-sale tracking systems, sells McNally's hostess software. InfoGensis, which sells its
`technology to cruise ships and sports stadiums, is a partner in the systems for food servers.
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`Mark Snyder, who runs Holiday Inns in North America for the chain's parent company
`InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), also sees the Emenu as the start of something big. "This is
`the first time technology like this is being used to increase a hotel's productivity," he says.
`"Eventually, we'll be able to integrate operations systems wirelessly -- from reservations to
`supply-chain management." That bucket of ice could be just a mouse click away By Christopher
`Palmeri in Los Angeles