GO Corporation

Last updated

GO Corporation
Industry
Founded1987
Founders
DefunctJuly 1994
Products EO Personal Communicator

GO Corporation was founded in 1987 to create portable computers, an operating system, and software with a pen-based user interface. It was famous not only for its pioneering work in Pen-based computing but as well as being one of the most well-funded start-up companies of its time.

Contents

Its founders were Jerry Kaplan, [1] Robert Carr, and Kevin Doren. Mr. Kaplan subsequently chronicled the history of the company in his book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure. [2] Omid Kordestani, former Senior VP of Global Business at Google, began his startup career with GO Corporation. Other notable GO alumni include CEO Bill Campbell (who later became chairman of Intuit), VP Sales Stratton Sclavos (took VeriSign public as its CEO), CFO and VP of Business Operations Randy Komisar (became CEO of LucasArts), and VP Marketing Mike Homer (was VP Marketing at time of Netscape's IPO in 1995).

History

Though the company enjoyed high levels of public awareness and generally positive attention from industry press, it ran into fierce competition, first from Microsoft (whose Pen Services for Windows were later the subject of an FTC investigation and patent violation suits by GO), and later from Apple's Newton project, and others. The company lined up software development partners but struggled to deliver hardware and software on their intended schedule. In 1991, they spun off their hardware unit under the name EO Inc., and in 1993 EO was acquired by AT&T Corporation, who hoped that its devices would showcase their AT&T Hobbit microprocessors. This sale raised much-needed cash but introduced new problems, as EO then ceased to coordinate well with GO's management, even considering adopting competing operating systems. Facing a cash crisis, GO agreed to sell itself to AT&T as well, bringing the two halves of the company back under one roof as of January 1994.

GO's PenPoint OS ran on AT&T's EO Personal Communicator and computers from IBM and others, but despite some success in vertical markets, consumers in the 1990s did not adopt tablet computing as enthusiastically as GO management had expected. (GO produced a 286-based lightweight "Go Computer" specifically for developers and evaluators; the company emphasis was that end users would run PenPoint OS on third-party hardware.) [3] In January 1994, only two weeks after acquiring GO, AT&T decided to cancel the Hobbit product line, leaving it no reason to continue to support EO or GO. They had by then ceased to develop for other chips, and sales on the other platforms were small anyway. Co-founder Jerry Kaplan says that in its lifetime, the company generated "no meaningful sales". [4] The loss of AT&T's support left GO with little chance of future revenue and, after burning through $75 million of venture funding, the company closed in July 1994.

Lawsuits

On 29 June 2005, Kaplan filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that Microsoft technicians had stolen technology from GO that had been shown to them under a non-disclosure agreement. [5] [6]

In a separate legal matter, in April 2008 certain features of the Microsoft's Windows/Tablet PC operating system and hardware were found to infringe on a patent by GO Corporation concerning user interfaces for pen computers. [7]

See also

Notes

  1. Jerry Kaplan interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network
  2. Kaplan, Jerry (1999). Startup : a Silicon Valley adventure. Bridgewater, NJ: Replica Books. ISBN   0-7351-0141-8.
  3. Bortman, Henry (March 1991). "Computing on the GO". MacUser. Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. 7 (3): 202. ISSN   0884-0997. OCLC   300003271.
  4. "Startup," Jerry Kaplan, p.294
  5. Fried, Ina (July 6, 2005). "Go files antitrust suit against Microsoft". Archived from the original on October 4, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2016.)
  6. "A New Antitrust Lawsuit - Go Corp. v. Microsoft". July 4, 2005. Retrieved May 17, 2009.
  7. Mintz, Jessica (April 4, 2008). "Microsoft to Appeal $367M Patent Ruling". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008. Retrieved September 4, 2008.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thin client</span> Non-powerful computer optimized for remote server access

In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as network computers, or in their simplest form as zero clients. The server does most of the work, which can include launching software programs, performing calculations, and storing data. This contrasts with a rich client or a conventional personal computer; the former is also intended for working in a client–server model but has significant local processing power, while the latter aims to perform its function mostly locally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Handwriting recognition</span> Ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input

Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or intelligent word recognition. Alternatively, the movements of the pen tip may be sensed "on line", for example by a pen-based computer screen surface, a generally easier task as there are more clues available. A handwriting recognition system handles formatting, performs correct segmentation into characters, and finds the most possible words.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Be Inc.</span> Former American computer company

Be Inc. was an American computer company that created and developed the BeOS and BeIA operating systems, and the BeBox personal computer. It was founded in 1990 by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée, who also served as the company's CEO, and was based in Menlo Park, California.

The PenPoint OS was a product of GO Corporation and was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants. It ran on AT&T Corporation's EO Personal Communicator as well as a number of Intel x86 powered tablet PCs including IBM's ThinkPad 700T series, NCR's 3125, 3130 and some of GRiD Systems' pen-based portables. It was never widely adopted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EO Personal Communicator</span>

The EO is an early commercial tablet computer that was created by Eo Inc. y GO Corporation(later acquired by AT&T Corporation), and released in April 1993. Eo is the hardware spin-out of GO. Officially named the AT&T EO Personal Communicator, it is similar to a large personal digital assistant with wireless communications, and competed against the Apple Newton. The unit was produced in conjunction with David Kelley Design, frog design, and the Matsushita, Olivetti and Marubeni corporations.

The AT&T Hobbit is a microprocessor design that AT&T Corporation developed in the early 1990s. It was based on the company's CRISP design resembling the classic RISC pipeline, and which in turn grew out of the C Machine design by Bell Labs of the late 1980s. All were optimized for running code compiled from the C programming language. The design concentrates on fast instruction decoding, indexed array access, and procedure calls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows for Pen Computing</span> Software suite for Windows 3.1 for pen compuing

Windows for Pen Computing is a software suite for Windows 3.1x, that Microsoft designed to incorporate pen computing capabilities into the Windows operating environment. Windows for Pen Computing was the second major pen computing platform for x86 tablet PCs; GO Corporation released their operating system, PenPoint OS, shortly before Microsoft published Windows for Pen Computing 1.0 in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tablet computer</span> Mobile computer with integrated display, circuitry and battery

A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers, have similar capabilities, but lack some input/output (I/O) abilities that others have. Modern tablets largely resemble modern smartphones, the only differences being that tablets are relatively larger than smartphones, with screens 7 inches (18 cm) or larger, measured diagonally, and may not support access to a cellular network. Unlike laptops, tablets usually run mobile operating systems, alongside smartphones.

Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system; Microsoft Office, a suite of productivity software; Xbox, a line of entertainment of games, music, and video; Bing, a line of search engines; and Microsoft Azure, a cloud services platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pen computing</span> Uses a stylus and tablet/touchscreen

Pen computing refers to any computer user-interface using a pen or stylus and tablet, over input devices such as a keyboard or a mouse.

FutureWave Software, Inc was a software development company based in San Diego, California. The company was co-founded by Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay on January 22, 1993. VP of Marketing was Linda Michelle Alsip, who also came from Silicon Beach Software, then Aldus Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal computer</span> Computer intended for use by an individual person

A personal computer, often referred to as a PC, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as word processing, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people in all countries.

Ciright Systems is an information technology services company based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania United States. Its flagship product is a Platform As A Service (PaaS) based Interoperable Cloud Platform that provides office and business automation to small and medium-sized businesses. The Ciright Platform also provides immediate mobile extendability to an enterprise's legacy system.

The history of tablet computers and the associated special operating software is an example of pen computing technology, and thus the development of tablets has deep historical roots. The first patent for a system that recognized handwritten characters by analyzing the handwriting motion was granted in 1914. The first publicly demonstrated system using a tablet and handwriting recognition instead of a keyboard for working with a modern digital computer dates to 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Tablet PC</span> Microsofts former line of tablets

Microsoft Tablet PC is a term coined by Microsoft for tablet computers conforming to a set of specifications announced in 2001 by Microsoft, for a pen-enabled personal computer, conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system or a derivative thereof.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyse</span> American computing system manufacturer

Wyse Technology, often shortened to Wyse, was an independent American manufacturer of cloud computing systems. As of 2012, Wyse is a subsidiary of Dell. Wyse are best remembered for their video terminal line introduced in the 1980s, which competed with the market-leading Digital. They also had a successful line of IBM PC compatible workstations in the mid-to-late 1980s. But starting late in the decade, Wyse were outcompeted by companies such as eventual parent Dell. Current products include thin client hardware and software as well as desktop virtualization solutions. Other products include cloud software-supporting desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices. Dell Cloud Client Computing is partnered with IT vendors such as Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, and VMware.

The following outline of Apple Inc. is a topical guide to the products, history, retail stores, corporate acquisitions, and personnel under the purview of the American multinational corporation Apple Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Post-PC era</span> Market trend

The post-PC era was a market trend observed during the late 2000s and early 2010s involving a decline in the sales of personal computers (PCs) in favor of post-PC devices; which include mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers as well as other mobile computers such as wearable and ubiquitous ones. These devices emphasize portability and connectivity, including the use of cloud-based services, more focused "apps" to perform tasks, and the ability to synchronize information between multiple devices seamlessly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerry Kaplan</span> American computer scientist

Samuel Jerrold "Jerry" Kaplan is an American computer scientist, author, futurist, and entrepreneur. He is best known as a pioneer in the field of pen computing and tablet computers. He is the founder of numerous companies, including GO Corporation, whose technology was used to develop the first smartphone and tablet PC. Kaplan is the co-founder of OnSale, the first B2C online auction site launched in 1994, five months prior to eBay. He is a recipient of the 1998 Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award and author of the best-selling book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure. He has been featured in major news publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Red Herring, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Kaplan is also the author of the 2015 book Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Additional companies he has co-founded include artificial intelligence company Teknowledge, Inc. and social game website Winster.com. Kaplan was briefly a Fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celeste Baranski</span> American engineer and entrepreneur

Celeste Suzanne Baranski is an American electronic engineer, entrepreneur, and executive who helped create several pioneering electronic devices including early versions of the tablet computer. Baranski, with her colleague Alain Rossmann, won the Discover Award from Discover Magazine in 1993.

References