AT&T Stars at Comdex

Although some competitors might disagree, the main event for the pen computing industry at this year’s Fall Comdex was AT&T’s announcement that it would sell the EO Personal Communicator under its own label through AT&T Phone Centers. In what was for AT&T an unusually flashy announcement at Bally’s Hotel and Casino, AT&T lent some sorely needed credibility to the fledgling pen computing industry by solidly endorsing EO’s new machines as well as GO’s PenPoint operating system and several PenPoint applications such as Slate’s Daytimer Pen Scheduler, Inkware’s Notetaker, and PenSoft’s Perspective, which will be bundled with EO/AT&T Personal Communicators.

In addition, AT&T’s EasyLink Services provide the backbone for the electronic mail services bundled with PenPoint (see the News and Events section in this issue). AT&T clearly hopes to make its Hobbit processor (which is the CPU in the EO machines) the premier platform for PenPoint-based pen systems.

The EO/AT&T Personal Communicators won’t be available until at least the Spring of 1993, but prototype units shown at Comdex were fully functional and demonstrated the basic soundness of the EO design. As discussed in a separate and more detailed article on these machines in this issue, the EO Personal Communicator (PC) addresses many of the weaknesses and shortcomings of the first round of pen computers that came out last year; in particular, weight and readability. Coupled with the high performance of the Hobbit microprocessor, PenPoint really shines on the EO machine.

Nevertheless, there may still be some obstacles to immediate commercial success of these machines. The battery life is 4 hours of continuous use unless you buy an additional battery pack (only available on the lighter weight and lower powered EO 440), which extends the life to 7 hours. The basic system starts at about $2000 with 4 MB of RAM (in our experience, barely enough to run PenPoint) and no modem. In other words, most customers will probably purchase 8 meg systems with the modem, which boosts the price to $2800.

One of the biggest selling points of the personal communicator is its seamless integration with cellular telephone communications. The EO cellular phone module costs another $799, not to mention monthly cellular phone rates. To make a long story short, it will initially be very expensive to utilize the full capabilities of the EO Personal Communicator. On the other hand, some professionals will find the EO system well worth the investment. But the general public is not likely to plunk down about three thousand bucks in an AT&T Phone Center.

In spite of these obstacles, the EO PC represents a milestone in pen computing and AT&T’s endorsement makes the milestone even more significant. It seems reminiscent of when IBM entered the personal computer market in 1981. Although very expensive and with initially limited capabilities, the IBM PC eventually set the standard for personal computing. Although by no means a sure thing with formidable competitors such as Apple and Microsoft, AT&T’s Hobbit processor running PenPoint could set the standard for pen computing.