GRiD Establishes New Business Unit to Develop and Market PenRight! Software Environment
FREMONT, Calif. — November 13, 1992 — GRiD Systems Corp. Friday announced that it has created a new business unit to develop, market, sell and support its industry-leading PenRight! pen computer software environment.
PenRight! with an installed base of 40,000 users, is GRiD's DOS-based, pencentric graphical application environment that allows rapid development of custom applications for virtually all major pen hardware systems on the market. More than 80 percent of all applications running today on pen computers have been developed for PenRight!.
Bobbi Burns, who has been appointed director of PenRight! sales and marketing, said, ''We have established this new organization for several reasons. A growing number of hardware manufacturers have concluded that PenRight! is a proven solution and have asked to sell PenRight! on an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) basis.
''PenRight! has become such a success story that there is a need to separate it from GRiD's growing pen hardware business. With the creation of the PenRight! business unit, we will be able to focus more on GRiD's software business and intensify our development, marketing and support efforts for the benefit of our OEM and end-user customers.''
GRiD President, D. Bruce Walter, said, ''GRiD is committed to maintaining its leadership in the pen industry. By establishing the PenRight! group as its own business unit, we are making clear our intention to be as strong and dominant on the software side of the pen industry as we are in the hardware area. PenRight! is clearly the best solution if you want to develop custom vertical applications for a variety of hardware platforms.''
Burns has been with GRiD for eight years and has worked in the pen computer market for the last three years. At GRiD, she was formerly director of international sales and a regional VAR manager where she focused on developing the pen market for GRiD.
While GRiD's corporate operations are in the process of relocating to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the PenRight! business unit will continue to be based in Fremont.
Contrary to popular belief, PenRight! is not a proprietary operating system as it sits on top of MS-DOS. Already, OEM agreements for PenRight! have been entered into with NCR, Fujitsu, MicroSlate, Samsung, Norand and Superscript. During the next six months, Burns expects to announce similar agreements with additional pen computer manufacturers who want to offer PenRight! with their systems.
To establish PenRight! as an industry standard, GRiD tests and certifies that pen computers from various manufacturers are compatible with PenRight! 3.1, the latest version of the software.
More than 350 developers have developed over 400 pen applications under PenRight!. Dozens of major corporations and government organizations are running applications developed under PenRight! including Chrysler Corp., the Gillette Co., Kellogg, CSX, Marion Merrell Dow, Detroit Edison, the U.S. Army and the City of Phoenix.
''PenRight! has been a solid success for several reasons,'' explained Burns. ''First, there are three software development toolkits (SDK) available for various levels of developer expertise.'' (PenRight! Pro, for C programmers, is offered by GRiD, Power Pen Pal, for non-C programmers, by Pen Pal Associates Inc., Los Altos, Calif., and padBase for dBase and Clipper programmers, by R2Z, Fremont, Calif.)
Secondly, noted Burns, pen products targeted at vertical markets are well positioned for success. A recent market research report published by Forrester Research concluded that ''pen will be confined to vertical applications for the next 24-36 months.''
PenRight! has become the industry standard DOS-compatible pencentric operating environment for custom applications. It has minimal operating requirements and, unlike other pen operating environments, PenRight! is able to run today on any Intel 8086, 286, 386 or 486 based computer.
PenRight! consists of two components: the SDK (PenRight! Pro, priced at $795) and the runtime (PenRight! Runtime, priced at $145).
GRiD designs, manufactures, markets and services laptop, notebook, pen and multimedia computers, and pen-based software development tools. GRiD is located at 47211 Lakeview Boulevard, Fremont, Calif. GRiD products are marketed worldwide by GRiD, Tandy GRiD Europe and by authorized GRiD distributors and resellers.
GRiD Systems Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tandy Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, a leading manufacturer and distributor of consumer electronics and computers.
Note to Editors: PenRight! and PenRight Pro are registered trademarks of GRiD Systems Corp. Power Pen Pal is a registered trademark of Pen Pal Associated Inc. padBase is a registered trademark of R2Z.
CONTACT:
GRiD Systems Corp., Fremont
Bobbi Burns, 510/226-5342