PenMagic LetterExpress 1.1 (Product Fact Sheet)

This printed product fact sheet was issued by PenMagic Software Inc. of North Vancouver, British Columbia in June 1993, summarizing release 1.1 of the company's LetterExpress writing assistant — a single-sheet, two-sided marketing piece describing target users, features, and benefits of the software for Intel- and Hobbit-based pen tablets running GO Corporation's PenPoint operating system.

PenMagic was founded in September 1990 by a team of personal computer industry veterans, and made its public debut on April 16, 1992 at the launch of PenPoint, where it announced Numero — a financial work processor for the new operating system — as one of the first applications designed specifically for pen computers.¹ The company simultaneously launched the PenMagic Solution Design program, an $800 training and support track for consultants, systems integrators, and value-added resellers who wanted to deploy PenMagic applications for clients.² PenMagic was one of three initial participants — alongside Pensoft Corp. and Slate Corp. — in GO Corp.'s Custom Solutions Program announced the same day, a joint marketing alliance to grow the number of custom solutions built on PenPoint.³

Four days later, PenMagic president Norm Francis issued a public statement arguing that the desktop PC paradigm was inappropriate for the millions of mobile workers still untouched by personal computing, and that pen computers — designed around familiarity, intelligent assistance, and a paper-like interface — were the only way to deliver on the PC industry's original promise of "personal" computing.⁴ On September 30, 1992, PenMagic closed a $2.0 million first round of venture funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Integral Capital Partners — the first Canadian investment for either firm — and Kleiner Perkins partner Doug Mackenzie joined the PenMagic board alongside Francis and R&D vice president Keith Wales.⁵

LetterExpress entered the public record on November 16, 1992, when AT&T Microelectronics announced industry support for its Hobbit microprocessor and listed PenMagic among fourteen software companies committed to the Hobbit/PenPoint platform; PenMagic's contribution was named as its "Numero financial application and its LetterExpress writing assistant" for Hobbit-based personal communicators.⁶ By the time this fact sheet was distributed in June 1993, AT&T was selling EO Inc.'s Hobbit-based personal communicators through its Phone Center stores under the AT&T label,⁶ and Intel-based PenPoint tablets from IBM, NCR, GRiD, and NEC had been positioned to ship within ninety days of the April 1992 PenPoint launch³ — the two CPU families this fact sheet's 1.1 release targets.

Less than two months after this fact sheet, on July 30, 1993, PenMagic announced at MacWorld Expo that it had entered a product licensing agreement with Apple Computer Inc. to deliver two financial applications — Money Magazine Business Forms and Money Magazine Financial Assistant — for the Newton MessagePad, then about to begin shipping.⁷ On October 12, 1993, EO Inc. and PenMagic joined Notable Technologies, Pensoft, Deskin and aha! on a six-city nationwide roadshow for AT&T/EO Personal Communicators, where LetterExpress was billed as PenMagic's word-processing software and Numero as its numeric work processor.⁸

AI generated using primary sources referenced in the footnotes