Jack.
Remember previous conversation about BeOS? As you probably know, Be Inc. is on the
skids and there are rumors of a takeover.
The best associated software developer is Gobe, which was started by people from
Clarisworks for theMac. Some time ago they became, for North America, the exclusive
sales agent for the BeOS while Be Inc. went all out for a derivative of the BeOS
called BeIA (internet appliance). BeIA, incidentally, has been put in Sony's
eVilla, an internet browing appliance, which recently came to market - unfortunate
timing, but Sony is said to be committed to it for the long haul.
Gobe has taken on Be Inc.'s Dave Johnson as VP of Marketing. Writes Tom Hoke of
Gobe to a BeOS discussion group:
"Trust me you guys. If Be had only done one third of the things Dave had suggested,
they might really still be in business. He was tasked to come up with plans to sell
the OS with basically no funding ... and when he actually started creating plans
that were panning out, they had to gag him further. It would have been very
embarrasing explaining to the VCs why Be might be making more and more money on an
OS that was clearly competing against Microsoft. It would like like Be was still in
the desktop OS market.
:
"If you are looking for the brain cancer at Be you'll have to look higher up the
chain. Remember Dave wasn't VP at Be. If he had been we'd all be singing a
different song. You guys should also know by now that we have our life's work,
dreams and tons of savings into Gobe. At this point we wouldn't hire anyone short
of a Batman or Superman to join the team."
In short, there is still hope for an alternative OS besides Linux.
Henry
Jack Park wrote:
> I consider this page a valuable read:
> http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/08/02/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/i
> ndex.htm#xp
>
> "News, Views and a Silicon Valley Diary
>
> Posted on Thursday, August 2, 2001
> Stop Windows XP Before It's Too Late
> Now that the U.S. appeals court has reaffirmed its unanimous decision that
> Microsoft abused its monopoly and stifled innovation, and now that it's
> abundantly clear that Microsoft has no intention of modifying its behavior,
> it's time for a difficult but necessary step.
> The Justice Department and states must quickly seek an injunction blocking
> the release of Windows XP, at least the version Microsoft is planning to ship.
> This sounds like an extreme move, and in a way it is. But it's vital.
> Otherwise we'll face even more extreme behavior from a company that keeps
> demonstrating, in word and deed, utter contempt for the law and fair
> competition."
>
> Two items from the page worth quoting:
>
> "Microsoft removed the Java environment from XP, thereby breaking thousands
> of Web sites that use Java. XP customers will face endless downloads to
> replace the functionality they'd come to expect.
>
> Microsoft will force XP users to sign up for its Passport authentication
> system if they want to use key XP features. This is a dagger aimed at all
> kinds of other businesses, and despite Microsoft's claims to the contrary
> it represents a potentially massive threat to customers' security and privacy."
>
> I suspect that folks should familiarize themselves with what MS is up to,
> and soon.
>
> While sitting at the Semantic Web workshop, chatting with Steve Newcomb,
> one of the fathers of topic maps and HiTime, Ed Feigenbaum, one of the
> fathers of expert systems stopped to admire my Sony laptop. He mentioned
> that his was an older version and he couldn't wait to upgrade just as soon
> as MS XP was released. He then walked across the courtyard to his office
> in the William Gates Building on the Stanford campus.
>
>
> Community email addresses:
> Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
> Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
> Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
> List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com
>
> Shortcut URL to this page:
> http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Small business owners...
Tell us what you think!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/vO1FAB/txzCAA/ySSFAA/IHFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Community email addresses:
Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com
Shortcut URL to this page:
http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Aug 05 2001 - 04:28:03 PDT