Developers Hop on the Magical Mystery Tour

The success of any platform is ultimately dependent on two factors: its acceptance by end users, and its adoption by developers of software and services. Many times however, growth is hampered by the strange chicken-and-egg nature of this dependence.

Developers are generally a cautious lot, and rightly so. However, in the case of General Magic, developers seem to be willing to hop aboard hoping to catch a piece of the magic.

What follows is a short summary of a handful of the developers that recently announced support for General Magic’s technologies.

America Online will provide a customized edition of its online communications service for the Magic CAP platform. The services will be geared to the growing population of mobile professionals and will include electronic mail, stock quotations, and portfolio management.

Compsoft Services will offer Magic Connection and Magic Genie, a pair of products offering connectivity to online hosts and services. Magic Connection enables users to establish interactive sessions and transfer files with mainframe systems and online services such as CompuServe.

Magic Genie, on the other hand, is an intelligent agent that can access information on behalf of the user from CompuServe and other sources through CompuServe.

Driftwood Systems is developing a drawing program called Tangent that will take full advantage of the stylus input found in Magic CAP-based personal communicators. This will enable users to add sophisticated drawings and annotations to their text notes.

Ex Machina, Inc. announced that it is developing the PocketCall Intelligent Terminal Program for Magic CAP. PocketCall will function over both wireline and wireless connections, and includes full-featured terminal emulation with add-in modules that provide single touch access to several popular online services.

GDT Softworks, Inc., announced the development of Magic Print, enabling users to connect a Magic CAP device to virtually any PC printer. The number of printers supported exceeds 900 and includes dot matrix, inkjet, and laser printers from all the major manufacturers.

Intuit announced that it is developing Pocket Quicken for Magic CAP devices. Using a “Smart Wallet” metaphor, users can track their finances and expenditures as they occur during the day.

Mead Data Central, Inc., provider of the LEXIS/NEXIS service, will be offering a range of information products accessible through Telescript. This information will be drawn from the NEXIS service and will include more than 1000 full-text sources.

Mnemo Software announced that it is developing translation software called Magic Foreign Interpreter that will enable users of Magic CAP devices to translate words and phrases from English into five European languages.

Other developers making announcements include News Electronics Data, Inc., Official Airline Guides, Oracle, PenWare, RadioMail, SkyTel, Sony, and Streetlight.