Slate Exhausts Itself

In further proof that the mobile computing industry is indeed maturing, an early industry pioneer has fallen victim to the slower than expected growth of pen computing. Slate Corporation, the once high-flying company, was producer of perhaps the broadest range of products using stylus input.

These products included the Day-Timer Pen Scheduler, the Slate PenBook Electronic Book, and the Looseleaf Notetaker. In addition, Slate featured the first true cross-platform development environment with the PenApps Application Builder for both PenPoint and Windows for Pen Computing. Recently, Slate had also begun shipping their first products for the Newton PDA.

“We made a big bet that went wrong” said Dottie Hall, Vice President of Marketing at Slate. “We think that it will take two or three more years before the industry is ripe, and it’s not realistic to expect our venture capital partners to extend financing for that long.”

There’s no question that Slate pursued an extremely, almost surprisingly, aggressive strategy this early in the industry cycle. While many developers are beginning to settle in for what appears to be a marathon, Slate was out in front sprinting towards a goal few others could see. Hall described this strategy as one that was important to attract the kind of capital they felt necessary: “We could have treated it like a marathon, however, we would have attracted capital on that scale as well.”

With most of the people already gone from the company, the big question is who will acquire Slate’s well-developed product suite. Hall confirmed that an undisclosed company outside of the mainstream pen industry is negotiating to purchase Slate’s products and technology, and felt that the negotiations should be complete by the end of January.

“While many developers are beginning to settle in for what appears to be a marathon, Slate was out in front sprinting towards a goal few others could see.”

In the meantime, people will be retained in the company’s California office to field customer and technical support calls.

It is unfortunate to see a leading developer stumble and fall, however the odds are long in any early industry, pens not excluded. It’ll be interesting to see when the principals inevitably reappear to assume new prominent roles in what even Hall describes as a very promising industry.