Salt Lake firm adds its magic to Disney

The exterior says "Disney" — complete with mouse-ear shapes — but a Salt Lake-based company hopes people also notice what they've added to the inside of the Disney Dream Desk PC.

The computer, unveiled Thursday in New York, contains three products from ContentWatch Inc. that are designed to ensure a safe operating environment for the children who are the target users of the Disney PC.

The ContentWatch applications loaded onto each of the new PCs are ContentProtect for Internet filtering, EmailProtect for e-mail filtering and spam-blocking, and PopupProtect for blocking pop-up windows.

"When they were looking for a solution, they were looking for not just an Internet filter or a single solution, but trying to find a full suite of Internet protection tools to provide the maximum protection on their computer," said Scott Nelson, director of marketing and product management for ContentWatch.

ContentWatch officials declined to reveal the value of its deal with Disney, but Brent L Bishop, president and chief executive officer, said it is the company's largest deal this year.

"It's definitely a significant milestone for the company," he said. Nelson described it as "kind of a first stepping-stone of many good things to come."

Simply having an association with a company with the prestige and wholesome reputation of Disney should benefit ContentWatch, which has about 35 employees, Bishop said.

"We feel that this is a third-party validation of the highest magnitude that will allow the rest of the world to gain confidence in the fact that if Disney can select ContentWatch as their family protection software that they can feel confident in doing it also," he said.

Bishop added that ContentWatch has been rated on Internet sites as the top product of its type, "but we've been pretty well under the radar screen for some time."

The Disney Dream Desk PC will have a flat-panel monitor with embedded speakers, a DVD player, a CD writer and player and an ergonomically designed kid-sized mouse. The PC is also equipped with a multimedia keyboard with digital pen.

In addition to the ContentWatch applications, each PC will have Disney applications including Disney Pix, Disney Mix and Disney Flix, which allow children to draw, edit pictures, create music and write and direct their own movies, plus some Disney games.

The machine will be available beginning Sept. 12 in CompUSA stores and through the Disney catalog and DisneyStore.com Web site starting Aug. 12.

The computer will retail for $599, and the monitor — with the mouse-ear shape — will cost $299.