GeoWorks Enters Pen Computing Market; Announces Pen/GEOS; Targets Sub-$500 Mass Market Devices
BERKELEY, Calif. — February 19, 1992 — GeoWorks today announced Pen/GEOS(tm), a new pen-based, graphical operating environment targeted at low-cost handheld computers. Pen/GEOS consists of a new pen-oriented User Interface, plus GEOS (Graphical Environment Object System), the company's award winning, graphical windowing environment for Intel architecture machines. Pen/GEOS will be available initially to OEM's, in both ROM and magnetic versions, for shipment fourth quarter 1992. The announcement was made on the first day of the Technologic Partners Pen Computing 92 Conference.
Brian Dougherty, CEO of GeoWorks, views pen capability as a natural extension of the company's software technology and its market focus. "The object oriented design of GEOS, coupled with the flexibility of our patent-pending User Interface technology, enabled us to integrate the core pen capabilities — application interaction, handwriting recognition, gestures, and ink capture — in a very clean manner. Any existing PC/GEOS-based application will be able automatically to take advantage of these new Pen UI and system capabilities, and powerful new pen-centric (pen only) and pen compatible (pen or keyboard) applications can be quickly generated. Pen/GEOS marks the next phase in GeoWorks' strategy of providing a comprehensive software solution for mass market computing."
Dick Shaffer, principal of Technologic Partners said: "With the introduction of single chip PCs, GeoWorks is uniquely positioned to make its graphical GEOS system software the de facto standard in the emerging sub-$500 device market, for both pen and keyboard. Code size, performance, and power management are critical for this market, and GeoWorks is unmatched in these areas."
Portia Isaacson, president of DreamIT, a market tracking service specializing in pen computing, said, "GEOS provides the missing software technology for under $1,000 purse-sized pen computers. With GEOS' appealing graphical interface and suite of personal productivity applications, this tiny but robust, object-oriented operating system will be a strong contender in the minitablet arena. If you think you've seen the last operating system, better look again. This is software to get excited about!"
Commenting on the Pen/GEOS announcement, Gordon Campbell, president and CEO of Chips and Technologies said, "The key technologies for the mass markets of the 1990s, and especially the mobile computing market, have reached a critical threshold. GeoWorks' announcement of a high performance, low overhead software platform for both keyboard and pen devices perfectly complements high performance, low power single chip solutions such as the PC/CHIP(tm) Together they will enable vendors to create whole new classes of devices, and to rapidly address the enormous pent-up demand for sub-$500 products that still offer state of the art ease of use and functionality."
Other vendors of pen-based products see Pen/GEOS fitting well with their product plans. Bruce Walter, president of GRiD Systems, says "Pen/GEOS is a great idea. We see a continued demand from our customers for low-cost GRiDPADs. Although some customers have a need for high-end machines, most of our accounts demand long battery life, low cost, and efficient software. Our PenRight!(tm) development environment serves these customers well for their custom applications. With Pen/GEOS, we will be able to combine vertical applications written under PenRight! with general purpose applications written under Pen/GEOS. We will offer PenPoint and Windows(tm) for Pen Computing on our high-end machines but Pen/GEOS is better suited for our existing product line."
Geoff Bristow, COO for Poqet Computer said, "Our recently introduced PoquetPad(tm) is designed specifically for vertical market, field automation applications. Since many of the "walking workers" in our target markets will also want to use general purpose applications, Pen/GEOS will be a very effective operating environment complement to the pen-interface that ships with PoquetPad."
Although a Software Developer's Kit (SDK) for Pen/GEOS has yet to be formally released, at least one software company is already writing applications for Pen/GEOS.
Palm Computing, a recently formed software company headed by ex-GRiD executive Jeff Hawkins, has committed to developing applications under Pen/GEOS. According to Hawkins, "Palm is dedicated to becoming a leading ISV for consumer palmtops. Although it is not yet widely recognized, GEOS is architecturally the most advanced system software running on any level PC,yet it runs well on a system with an 8086 processor and 512K of memory. GEOS' combination of system capability, UI flexibility, and raw performance on low cost, low power devices was critical to us as an ISV in selecting Pen/GEOS as our first pen-based environment."
GeoWorks demonstrated Pen/GEOS using handwriting recognition software from Palm Computing, which is also used by GRiD Systems in their PenRight! product. Dougherty explained, "Pen/GEOS supports installation of multiple handwriting recognizers, and we will add others over time, but the recognizer from Palm is mature, fast, accurate, and importantly for the mass market, much smaller than anything else out there."
GeoWorks has shipped over 400,000 units of its GEOS-based GeoWorks Ensemble and GeoWorks Pro application suite in the 13 months since the products' introduction, making GEOS the fastest-ramping new graphical environment in the history of the PC industry. GeoWorks Pro is available in seven languages: French, German, English, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and Finnish.
GeoWorks, located in Berkeley, Calif., is the developer and publisher of the acclaimed GEOS graphical operating system and of GeoWorks Pro and GeoWorks Personal Office Series applications software. The company provides sophisticated and highly efficient systems and applications software solutions for business, home and school computer users. GeoWorks products are available worldwide through OEM and dealer channels.
More information available from the following:
Lee Llevano
GeoWorks
510-644-0883
Chips & Technologies
3050 Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95134
408-434-0601
DreamIT
30 Lancaster Rd.
Cambridge MA 02140
617-354-2160
GRiD Systems Corporation
47211 Lakeview Blvd.
Fremont, CA 94537
510-656-4700
Palm Computing
2480 Sand Hill Road
Suite 200
Menlo Park, CA 94025
415-854-8600
Poqet Computer Corporation
5200 Patrick Henry Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054
408-982-9500
Technologic Partners
419 Park Ave South
New York NY 10016
212-696-9330
CONTACT:
Lee Llevano of GeoWorks, 510-644-0883