IBM To Ship ThinkPad; Will Support PenDOS

IBM is offering discounts of up to 50% to pen application developers

IBM’s new division, the IBM Personal Computer Company, introduced a series of mobile computer systems that are part of the ThinkPad product line. In addition to the ThinkPad pen tablet (called the ThinkPad 700T), IBM introduced monochrome and active matrix color notebook keyboard-based systems called the ThinkPad 700 and 700C, respectively. While IBM started out just targeting the pen market with the ThinkPad moniker, the company has to decided to broaden its target to the mobile computing market in general.

Big Discounts for Developers

The biggest news is the substantial discounts on the price of the ThinkPad 700T that IBM is offering to corporate customers working on in-house development and to commercial application developers. To encourage the development of pen applications for the ThinkPad, IBM is offering the PenAssist program, in which independent developers can purchase an 8 megabyte Thinkpad 700T for 50% off the list price of $5395. Corporate customers can purchase the 700T for 30% off. Developers can only purchase the systems at this price directly from IBM through the PenAssist program.

We haven’t seen the shipping version of the ThinkPad 700T yet (it’s due to ship in November), but its specifications are very much like the beta versions we saw earlier this year. The machine comes with a 20 MHz 80386SX processor, 8 megabytes of RAM (a 4-meg version is also available), two 10-megabyte solid state storage devices (SunDisk), and a “transflective” backlit display. The display is “ruggedized” for pen input and offers an “excellent pen-to-screen feel,” according to the product literature. The ThinkPad also includes an integrated fax modem.

The ThinkPad comes with the PenPoint operating system and will support CIC’s PenDOS in the near future as discussed below.

CIC Inks PenDOS Deal With IBM

Continuing with its strategy of signing up with larger partners, Communication Intelligence Corporation (CIC) recently announced a marketing and technological agreement with IBM. This follows previous — although certainly different — agreements with companies like Intel and Apple.

Under the terms of the IBM agreement, CIC grants IBM rights to exclusively resell and sublicense CIC’s PenDOS and PenDOS-compatible Handwriter Recognition Systems worldwide, both to end-users and OEMs.

CIC’s PenDOS pen operating environment is designed to adapt existing mouse-aware DOS applications into pen-aware applications, without modification, and to develop new pencentric applications.

PenDOS can be implemented on all hardware that supports a DOS operating environment, including IBM PCs.

In a prepared statement, Lee Reiswig, assistant general manager of Personal Systems Programming at IBM, said “PenDOS is an exciting addition to our pen computing product offerings. The ability of PenDOS to shorten the development time for creating pen-aware applications by using existing software is attractive to many of our customers interested in pen computing.”

IBM Is Committed

IBM’s commitment to the mobile computing market in general, and pen computing in particular, is an encouraging sign for the pen computing industry. The formation of the new “IBM Personal Computer Company” is aimed at streamlining IBM’s responsiveness to the fast moving PC market. If anything, the mobile computing market will move at an even faster pace once it gets going. IBM plans to be competitive in all aspects of the mobile market. While the ThinkPad suffers from some of the same shortcomings that other pen tablets do (too heavy, short battery life), it promises to attract a lot of developers with the big discounts. We can also expect major improvements in next year’s ThinkPad products.

IBM
800-426-9397 or 512-823-2851.
CIC
275 Shoreline Dr.
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
415-802-7888