EO’s on the GO!

We continue our series of pen computing flashbacks as Pen-Based Computing prepares to celebrate its fifth anniversary in January. This article, taken from the October 1992 issue, describes the introduction of the grand vision of personal communicators. It’s often valuable and instructive to revisit the great predictions of yesteryear, especially when evaluating the ones we hear today.

EO, Inc. filled in the final piece of the AT&T/GO personal communicator puzzle at a press conference held earlier this month. AT&T and GO had already announced plans in July to work together to supply the Hobbit microprocessor and PenPoint as the processor/operating system platform for a new class of devices called “personal communicators.” The only thing missing at that announcement was a systems vendor. And, as expected, that missing link is indeed EO.

The much-speculated-about start-up company made no specific product announcements, referring to the press conference instead as a “technology briefing.” But the roles of the strategic partners — EO, AT&T, Matsushita, and Marubeni — were detailed, along with generalized visions of the alliance.

• AT&T will provide EO with communications technologies, including the Hobbit RISC microprocessor and digital signal processing (DSP) chips. In addition to sharing technologies, AT&T will allow EO access to world-wide messaging services.
• Matsushita, a major player in consumer electronics (including Panasonic and Quasar brands) and batteries, will handle manufacturing.
• Marubeni, a worldwide general trading company, will perform global sourcing and supplying for manufacturing, and make available a line of credit.
• EO’s role is design and coordination.

A key player at EO is Hermann Hauser, founder of the British Active Book Company (which merged with EO in formation) and previously Acorn Computer. He was responsible for the development of the ARM processor, which, along with the Hobbit, the only other low-power RISC processor now available. Hauser’s title at EO is Chief Technical officer and chairman of EO, Europe.

As mentioned earlier, the focus of the company is on the development of “personal communicators,” not computers as such. In fact, said AT&T’s Robert Kavner (also a member of the EO board of directors), “customers [won’t] even know that it is a computer.” He added that personal communication devices will have “an interface as comfortable as the telephone today.”

EO chairman Bernard Lacroute, a former key executive at Sun Microsystems, said that personal communicators will take us into the “fourth generation of computers” after mainframes, minis, and personal computers. He went on to say that these devices will be “communication centric” and products will be “coming very soon.”

EO and company are trying to distance themselves from the competition by emphasizing the concept of “anywhere, anytime communication capabilities.” EO classifies Apple’s proposed Newton personal digital assistant (PDA) as a “pen-based pocket organizer” that does not offer the “anywhere, anytime” communications capabilities of the proposed EO devices.

According to Kavner, personal communication devices must be able to handle both real time and non-real time communication. He noted that five percent of electronic communication is non-real time messaging — but that segment is growing.

EO president Alain Rossmann, a veteran of Radius, C-Cube, and Apple, built on this theme, stating that while the personal computer industry slowed down dramatically in 1991, the personal communication industry continued its upward spiral. He claimed that as of 1991, 21 million pagers were sold, 28 million fax machines, 21 million e-mail subscribers, and 8 million cellular phones.

He furthered claimed that $25 billion will be spent in 1992 to send faxes. By the year 2000, EO optimistically estimates that more than 100 million personal communicators will be sold, representing $20 billion in annual device sales.

Rossmann described the personal communicator of the year 1999 as a handheld device with a color LCD, miniature CD for text and video, a voice and stylus-based user interface, and a selling price of $150-$250. Such a device, he said, will be dictated by a new computing paradigm, one defined by the convergence of the telecommunication, data communication, computer, and consumer electronic markets.

While speculation abounds on what the EO device might look like, we do know that it will be quite small and light in weight. It will be based on the Hobbit RISC processor and incorporate AT&T DSP16 digital signal processors. It will use GO’s PenPoint operating system, not just for its pen support, but more importantly because the OS is scalable and object-oriented. It will be relatively inexpensive. And it will focus on communication.

Some Speculation

The EO device may also make use of Hitachi’s new 3.3-Volt DRAM technology, Sharp’s low-voltage reflective LCD panels, and AT&T’s low-voltage LCD/CRT controller chip with high resolution and built-in power management. These features, coupled with the low-power Hobbit, will extend battery life. It will likely sport a PCMCIA interface, a powerful modem chip set, and AT&T-developed Ethernet and wireless networking controllers for the device.

Matsushita recently demonstrated its own low-voltage, miniature computers — a Panasonic notebook computer — that uses proprietary power-saving circuitry providing up to 11 hours of battery life, longer than the battery life of any currently available portable computer. The notebook unit uses AMD’s Am386SXL 3.3-V CPU and two nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

EO says it will make specific product announcements by the end of 1992.

EO’s has a total of about ninety employees in Mountain View, CA, and in Cambridge, England. The company has received investment funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byer, AT&T, Matsushita, and Marubeni.

According to its press literature, EO recognizes that a large market for its products will not “materialize overnight. It will take time to develop, and EO is therefore gearing its strategy and finances for long-term growth and leadership.”