AllPen Software, Inc.

AllPen Software, Inc. was a custom handheld and PDA software development firm based in Los Gatos, California, co-founded by Wayne Yurtin.¹ In January 1995, the Dracon Division of Harris Corporation licensed AllPen's software for its pen-based SuperTech 2000 Craft Digital Assistant, a Newton-based field tool that let telephone technicians download trouble tickets, forms, and graphical cable maps over a wireless connection, and AllPen demonstrated the technology at the MacWorld Exhibition in San Francisco that month.¹

In September 1996, AllPen announced support for Microsoft's Windows CE handheld platform, then recently known by the codename Pegasus, planning applications for mobile forms data collection and intranet use.² By that point the company had written custom vertical applications for clients including Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Baxter Healthcare, Monsanto, the Department of Defense, Abbott Laboratories, American Airlines, and Ford Motor Company.² The following month it announced NetHopper 3.0, a full-featured graphical World Wide Web browser for Newton devices that used Apple's Newton Internet Enabler and was tuned for the MessagePad 2000 and eMate 300.³

At COMDEX in November 1996, AllPen introduced its AllPen Mobile Forms Database for Windows CE handheld PCs, a forms-based data collection tool that let users build custom forms directly on the device without a desktop application.⁴ At the same show it announced a partnership with the Philips Mobile Computing Group to bundle the Mobile Forms Database with the Philips Velo 1 handheld PC.⁵

In January 1997, at MacWorld in San Francisco, AllPen demonstrated an embedded Mobile Web Server technology designed to let small consumer devices publish and share data through standard web browsers, shown running on a Digital Ocean SeaHorse wireless PDA.⁶ In March, Apple began bundling NetHopper 3.0 on its newly released eMate 300 and MessagePad 2000, which were shown at the CeBIT 97 fair in Germany.⁷ AllPen extended the browser to the server side in April 1997 with the NetHopper Enterprise Server, a Java-based proxy server for mobile and wireless clients, demonstrated at the JavaOne show.⁸

In August 1997, AllPen introduced its EmbeddedWeb Server, a version of the technology ported to Windows CE and aimed at applications such as remote automobile diagnostics, set-top boxes, and remote monitoring of vending machines and appliances; the company said it had demonstrated the first handheld wireless browser in 1993 and the first handheld wireless web server in 1996.⁹ AllPen was working with Daimler-Benz on the technology, and Mercedes tested the EmbeddedWeb Server as a way to spot vehicle service problems remotely.¹⁰ In October 1997, the company released AllPen Mobile Forms Database v2.0 for Windows CE 2.0.¹¹

On November 17, 1997, Spyglass Inc. announced it had acquired AllPen, issuing 640,000 shares of common stock and converting AllPen's outstanding options into 360,000 Spyglass options in a transaction accounted for as a pooling of interests.¹² Spyglass, which described its mission as making non-PC devices work with the web, cited AllPen's experience in Java, Windows CE, and mobile technologies and its customer relationships with companies including Apple, Daimler-Benz, 3Com's Palm Division, and Hewlett-Packard.¹²

AI generated using primary sources referenced in the footnotes