EO Incorporated – The World of Messaging: An Introduction to Personal Communication

The World of Messaging: An Introduction to Personal Communications is an introductory guide that EO Incorporated produced to acquaint owners of the EO Personal Communicator with the device's electronic-messaging capabilities, published by EO Incorporated of Mountain View, California as part of the printed documentation set that shipped with the communicator.¹ EO Inc. was founded in 1991 to design, build, and market personal communicators, a new class of portable device that combined the power of cellular phones, fax machines, modems, and pen-based computers.² On October 1, 1992, EO announced a partnership with AT&T, Matsushita, and Marubeni to design, build, and market the first generation of these products.²

On November 4, 1992, EO unveiled the EO Personal Communicator 440 and the EO Personal Communicator 880, devices that put fax, electronic mail, cellular phone, and personal computing capabilities into a single portable unit.³ The 440 weighed 2.2 pounds and the 880 weighed 4 pounds, and both came with built-in messaging capabilities for exchanging electronic mail and faxes.³ The communicators ran the PenPoint operating system from GO Corp. on AT&T Microelectronics' Hobbit processor, with nine applications — including programs for faxing and electronic mail — resident in ROM.³ Every EO user received a free subscription to an AT&T EasyLink Services AT&T Mail electronic mailbox, accessible through an 800 number, for sending and receiving electronic mail and faxes from any remote location.³

On November 16, 1992, AT&T announced that it would market the device — branded the AT&T Personal Communicator 440 — through AT&T Phone Centers beginning in early 1993, with bundled GO Mail and GO Fax software giving users access to electronic mail and facsimile.⁴ On February 8, 1993, EO announced an agreement with General Magic to implement Telescript, a programming language for intelligent messaging that enabled personalized information retrieval, rich messages containing graphics and sound, and the transparent exchange of those messages between devices over AT&T's Telescript-based network.⁵

EO began shipping the EO Personal Communicator 440 in volume in April 1993, manufacturing the devices at Matsushita's plant in Franklin Park, Illinois, and selling them directly through a toll-free number.⁶ On June 1, 1993, AT&T and EO announced that EO would become AT&T's personal communicator company, an agreement that let EO carry the AT&T brand and made AT&T the majority shareholder.⁷ On June 30, 1993, the AT&T EO 440 went on sale in 52 select AT&T Phone Centers, with prices starting at $1,999.⁸

On August 5, 1993, EO announced HeadsUp, a personal interactive newspaper delivered online directly into AT&T EO Personal Communicators through the device's built-in fax and electronic-mail capabilities, beginning September 1, 1993.⁹ Subscribers built a personalized edition by choosing from more than 700 topic categories, with news briefs drawn from more than 200 news and information sources.⁹

EO Inc. ceased operations on July 29, 1994, after the company — by then 52 percent owned by AT&T — was unable to secure the additional financing needed to bring its next-generation personal communicator to market.¹⁰

AI generated using primary sources referenced in the footnotes