July 22, 1990

ALTHOUGH it held great promise at the outset, Wednesday was one of those too typical, frustrating days for a technology news hound. That was the morning Go Corp. sponsored a joint press conference with IBM Corp., a mini-industry event that was attended pretty much by the entire high-tech press and market research corps.

Go, you may have read or heard, is the Foster City start-up that’s in the process of building the newest buzzword in the business, a pen-based computer hardware and software system that doesn’t require a keyboard because it recognizes handwriting.

Founded by Lotus Development’s former principal technologist Jerry Kaplan, it’s already gotten way too much ink for a company with no announced product. That’s because it sports a Major League executive lineup: Robert Carr, former chief scientist at Ashton-Tate, is VP of development. Paul Hammel, former VP of product management at Grid Systems, is VP of operations. Dan’l Lewin, lately of Next Inc., is VP of marketing. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins’ high-visibility venture capitalist, is chair of the board. Not to mention that Go is already coming to what’s known as a “rolling close” on its third round of venture financing, and already has access to some $25 million in capital.

The smell of cash and the all-star lineup, combined with the fact that almost every computer company on the planet is planning pen-based systems (already shipping are Canon, Sony and Grid), has industry cognoscenti drooling over the new genre, saying it’s going to “revolutionize blah blah blah” and”change the way we blah blah blah.”

All of which may be true. But the dog-and-pony show on Wednesday, to formally announce that IBM is the first licensee of Go’s operating environment software, was a disappointment to those of us who were expecting to hear or see something tangible from Go. Like a confirmation or denial of the prolific rumors about its product, — one of which is that perhaps as soon as this fall (but don’t hold your breath), Go will ship a 4.5-pound, 1-inch-thick machine using an Intel 80286 chip that can handle up to 8 megabytes of memory, sports high-quality video display and use an unattached stylus for handwriting input. (Rumors get pretty specific sometimes.)

But nooooo. Instead, the company would only discuss its intention to license its pen-based operating environment — really the trickiest part of the system — to all comers, much the way Microsoft has done by licensing MS-DOS to computer vendors such as IBM and Compaq, and making the code readily available to applications developers.

Now I’ll grant you, if Go’s system turns out to be a good one that people want to buy, which no one really knows yet because only a handful of third-party developers are writing applications based on it right now, it’s a great idea. For most of the people in Wednesday’s audience, however, that goal is a major leap of faith.

That’s why the press wanted some specifics when they finally got to ask questions, after 30 minutes or so of Kaplan talking about Go’s operating environment and IBM’s vice president of personal systems, Michael Quinlan, talking about pen-based systems as (let’s hope not) “an explosive opportunity.”
What kind of market numbers was Go looking at? “I think we can look to laptops as a reasonable model . . . maybe as big as the PC industry in the long run,” said Kaplan.

How would the Go license affect IBM’s relationship with Microsoft, known to be developing its own pen-based operating system? “I don’t know what they’re working on,” said Quinlan. “That’s not what we’re talking about today.”

When will we see it? “As quickly as possible,” said Kaplan.

How would IBM differentiate itself from other hardware companies licensing the Go operating system? “We have no specific comment on the range of opportunities in equipment,” said Quinlan.

Will we see the software before the hardware? “I won’t speculate on that,” said Kaplan.

Will IBM’s overlapping handwriting recognition technology, which IBM is trying to move out of the labs and into a product, be part of Go’s environment, or offered separately? “It’s much too early to say if we’ll make it available,” said Quinlan. “That’s not the point,” added Kaplan.

Aaarrrgh! High-tech reporters are getting so used to this kind of press conference that we almost rate the best obfuscatory answer to a question, via the “rueful laughter meter.” So far, everyone runs a distant second to Steve Jobs in this contest, but no one stops trying. I wish they would. Getting a straight answer in this business is getting harder every day.