Can a new digital appliance solve home delivery dilemmas?
It was the kind of logistical nightmare that busy professionals dread. One night last spring, tech-support staffers were still fiddling with Jeff Stonerock’s laptop computer when the Washington, D.C., lawyer had to rush to a dinner meeting. Stonerock needed his laptop for a business trip the next day, so his office hired a courier to take it to his Vienna (Va.) home after the work was finished. Trouble was, neither Stonerock nor his wife would be there to receive it. And leaving a $2,000 laptop containing sensitive client files on his doorstep was unthinkable. Luckily for Stonerock, he had a Brivo Systems Inc. Internet-linked lockbox next to his garage. With the proper entry code, the courier could leave the laptop in the secure box. Sure enough, in the middle of dinner, Stonerock’s pager buzzed with a message from Brivo saying his laptop had made it. ”It was a real relief,” he says. Stonerock is one of 100 consumers testing Brivo’s Smartbox, a steel-and-plastic container about the s
