PARK CITY — The buzzwords in today's tech world are "wireless" this and "WiFi" that, but a small Park City company is striking a chord with its striking cords.
Device Development Corp.'s Skullcandy Link system is a headphone — both backphone and ear bud versions are available — that connects to both a cell phone and a portable music player. It allows the user to handle calls hands-free while simultaneously listening to music, without touching either device.
Rick Alden, developer of the Skullcandy Link system, actually was developing a GPS-based tracking device last year when he saw a manufacturer of both stereo headphones and hands-free cell devices at a consumer electronics trade show.
"On a whim, I walked up and said, 'I have a product I've been wanting to develop for a long time. Do you think you could do it for me?' " Alden said.
Now it's on the market, with prime target customers being mass-transit commuters and outdoor enthusiasts such as snowboarders and skiers. An office version of the Link system connects a music player with a desk phone in one headset.
All are part of several headphone systems DDC will be offering under the Skullcandy brand.
And while the Link products have just become available — $29.95 at www.skullcandy.com — the technology already has received industry plaudits. It recently earned a Consumer Electronics Association 2003 Innovations Award in the personal electronics category.
Using the portable Link headphones is simple. When a call is received via cell phones set on auto answer, the call is picked up through the headphones. Pushing a button on the inline control also can answer calls. The user can either eliminate the music entirely or simply reduce the music volume with the inline control. Calls can be placed from certain cell phones using a touch of the console button.
The convenience is obvious: eliminating the need to fish around inside coats, bags or clothing to get to ringing cell phones while kicking back to some tunes.
Alden didn't have the Link-based products in mind but noticed the need for them a few years ago. While traveling to London, he noticed subway users listening to music via headphones but scrambling to get their cell phones out whenever a ring could be heard above the din.
"Quickly, they'd rip off the headphones, get into the pocket or bag and pull out their cell phone and try to get it to their ear before missing the call," Alden said. "And they'd talk on the phone a minute, put it away in their pocket and put their headphones back on. It was jut an interesting people-watching exercise. There were so many people on the train with music on, realizing they couldn't hear their phone ringing well, realizing that might be theirs and they'd pull the headphones off and try to go to the phone."
On the same trip, he saw identical activities on a train in Osaka, Japan.
"It really struck me that people on opposite sides of the planet were doing the exact same dance," he said.
The impetus for developing a product came in 1998 while on a Park City chair lift, before Alden was even living in Utah. While he was listening to music, his cell phone began ringing and his hands frantically scrambled in and out of pockets.
"I realized, I'm doing the same dance here on the chair lift that those guys were doing in London and Osaka, and at that moment, I thought, 'I've got to build one of these. It's dumb that there's not a pair of headphones that links your cell phone with your music player.' That's where the concept came from," he said.
DDC's booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas was a big hit. It attracted interest through an unusual booth — complete with jagged-edge metal table, dancers, bean-bag type chairs, large music speakers and the distinctive Skullcandy name and orange-and-white logo.
"You've gotta hook 'em in somewhere, and then you show them what you've got," Alden said. "We had a lot of people asking questions. It was very successful. Very successful. There was never a minute that the booth was not jumping."
Ditto for a more-recent ski and snowboard show.
Alden and brand manager Cris Williams are hoping to leverage that interest into sales. DDC is signing contracts with distributors, and products are expected to be in stores soon.
Also available now or soon are straight-corded (read: "regular") headphones and three types of specialty headphones. One is a noise-canceling set costing $49.99 that tones down droning sounds like train or airplane engines so the music can be heard. Another is a surround-sound device, allowing the user to get six-point sound through headphones while watching a DVD on a laptop. The third boosts bass through vibration.
The vibrating headphones, costing less than $100, should be popular with skiers and snowboarders, he said. "When you put a pair of headphones on top of a knit cap, it kills the bass between the headphones and your ear, and you get kind of a hollow sound. So you want headphones that really push the bass," Alden said. "This will drive the bass through any knit cap you can put on your head."
A snowboard man himself, Alden believes the Link-technology products will be popular with folks hitting the halfpipes and slopes, as will the unique Skullcandy brand. The Skullcandy name derived from a friend's suggestion, and, frankly, because it was the best-sounding name not already registered as a URL.
Alden said he was originally apologetic about the name but now realizes its potential.
"It goes back to the old adage that conservative (people) will buy edgy, but edgy will not buy conservative," he said. "The guys in the city will not buy a product branded conservatively. They don't want an IBM, white-shirt, blue-suit kind of product. They get enough of that at work. But guys hanging out at stock brokerage houses or IBM will definitely go and buy a hard-core product."
Alden's snowboard experience began with competing on weekends while in college in Colorado. Eventually, he and a partner produced competitions and learn-to-snowboard events. In 1994, he developed a step-in snowboard binding, and after a few years of making bindings and boots, he sold that company. Later he developed rods and reels for a fly-fishing products company. He left that company and its Vermont operations to move to Park City and invent "things."
"There is something about things. Guys love gear. Everybody wants gear, and there's nothing cooler than making gear yourself," he said.
Alden is an idea guy with a long list of product ideas. He wants only to manage the technology and not handle engineering, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution or sales.
"My whole focus on my professional career is two things: Never to have a job and never to have an employee." He admits he's breaking the latter. "Being able to sit here and produce product, that is my idea of how to do that, to develop products and sell them into industry or, on rare occasion, bring them to market myself."
Many companies would like to have one successful product, but Alden believes the portable Link will sell well this year. The office product likely will top the portable-Link sales in subsequent years because of the larger market.
And while he won't yet reveal any details, the idea man has plans for higher-end, higher-priced headphones in the future, after the technology and Skullcandy brand name have been out for a while.
"This," he said, "is only the beginning."
E-MAIL: bwallace@desnews.com