Network World's DEMO always is a great event to check out cool new technologies for both consumers and businesses, but enterprise IT executives may want to pay particularly close attention when DEMO 08 hits Palm Desert, Calif. on Jan. 28.

DEMO Executive Producer Chris Shipley believes innovation in the enterprise is picking up, particularly in the area of collaborative tools.

“This is indicative of the Web 2.0 frenzy moving more toward business applications,” Shipley says.

About 80 new technologies will be unveiled at the event. Here are a few that might have an impact in the enterprise:
SpeakLike solves a problem faced in a business world increasingly reliant upon global collaboration. The company is launching an instant-messaging service that translates text in real time, allowing communication between people who speak different languages.

“There’s a lot more cross-border work with more global teams and outsourcing,” Shipley notes. “Having a resource that can help bridge the language barriers is valuable.”

SpeakLike is launching an invitation-only beta trial, with the service currently available in English, Spanish and Chinese. In the future, SpeakLike plans human-assisted translation chat (for a fee) and support for legal and medical translation specialties

Huddle.net is launching a virtual team workspace application for use in the popular social-networking site Facebook. Users of the Huddle network will be able to collaborate with teams inside and outside of Facebook, and use the site to send alerts, reminders and approvals for documents and projects.

While Facebook is a great social platform, Shipley says until now she had been waiting for real business applications to take advantage of it.

“I think it’s going to be very interesting as Facebook moves forward, you’ll see it move into the enterprise as a collaboration platform,” Shipley says.

Rove Mobile and Legitime Technologies are separately releasing applications designed to give smartphone users a richer experience that mimics the functionality of a PC. Rove Mobile is launching PCMobilizr, which gives smartphone users remote access to their personal computers. The tool goes beyond syncing and file-moving applications and lets users see their computer screens and have control over the keyboard and mouse.