General Magic Visitor’s Badge (John Jerney, 10/25/1996)

This visitor's badge was issued to John Jerney for an October 25, 1996 visit to the Sunnyvale, California headquarters of General Magic, Inc.

Four months earlier, on June 25, 1996, the company — founded in 1990 — had announced a substantial strategic shift toward Internet, intranet, and World Wide Web markets, unbundling its Magic Cap operating system and Telescript agent technology into separate product divisions and ending its sole reliance on up-front licensing fees from exclusive partners.¹ On the same day, General Magic shipped Presto!Links 1.0 and Presto!Mail 1.5, the first integrated graphical web browser and Internet email applications for the Sony Magic Link PIC-2000 and the Motorola Envoy 150 Wireless Communicator, priced at $49.95 for the combined package and identifying Netcom as the preferred Internet service provider.²

On September 19, 1996, General Magic announced that Steve Markman had been appointed president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the Board of Directors; founder Marc Porat stepped down as CEO to assume an advisor role while remaining on the Board, and president Robert Kelsch resigned. Markman joined from Novell, Inc., where he had been executive vice president and general manager of the Novell Products Group, after earlier executive positions at Hewlett-Packard, Network Equipment Technologies, AT&T Bell Labs, and First Pacific Networks.³

On October 7, 1996, eighteen days before the visit recorded on this badge, General Magic launched Magic Cap for Windows 95, a $49 communications package combining email, faxing, Internet access, an address book, and a scheduler, bundled with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and targeted at the Small Office/Home Office market.⁴ The product was the company's first retail software offering, with distribution partners for the launch including Ingram Micro, CompUSA, Computer City, Best Buy, Incredible Universe, Egghead Software, MicroAge, and Multiple Zones.⁵ One week later, on October 14, 1996, the company launched a companion website at www.sohosofar.com, described as a directory of online resources for small business, a forum for stories from small business owners, and a source of information about Magic Cap for Windows 95.⁶

Five days after the visit, on October 30, 1996, General Magic reported third-quarter results and announced that its workforce had been reduced from approximately 280 to approximately 200 regular and contract personnel, on a $12.4 million net loss against $0.8 million in revenue for the quarter, with approximately $80 million in cash on the balance sheet.⁷

At Magic Cap Workbench '96 in Santa Clara, California on December 4, 1996, General Magic unveiled the next generation of the Magic Cap operating system, code-named "Rosemary," with an integrated graphical web browser supporting HTML 1.0 and 2.0 plus GIF and JPEG graphics, a universal mail architecture, a software modem, a 32-bit MIPS R3000 RISC hardware reference platform, and a Unicode-based international software architecture released simultaneously for the U.S. and Japanese markets; Rosemary was expected to ship to device manufacturers in January 1997.⁸