Published March 24, 1998
If computers were more like Baskin Robbins, we’d enjoy 57 or more flavors, and they’d all be good.
New companies like Be Inc., and Cache Computing are adding their flavors to the menu, pursuing the potentially lucrative market of cross-platform operating system software.
An operating system controls the functioning of the computer and the process of information flow. Some familiar ones are Windows, OS/2 and Linux for Intel machines, and the MacOS.
Jean-Louis Gassée, Chairman and CEO of Be Incorporated, formerly nine years with Apple Computer, is the creator of an advanced operating system to compete in the world of both Windows and MacOS.
Newly created BeOS™ is designed primarily for media and communications applications. Real-time video and audio are coming for television-like Internet. BeOS is true multitasking, meaning the computer works on several tasks simultaneously. It handles memory much better, and we can all use more of that. Programs can be simpler and less expensive thanks to symmetric multiprocessing or, more simply, using more than one brain at once.
Be Inc. <www.be.com> has conducted business via the Internet since the company’s inception in 1990. This small but talented group of 54 is a multilingual and multicultural team, Gassée’s appeal of America as a country of immigrants.
Monsieur Gassée sees himself as “a diplomat, more interested in cordial relationships and dissipation of misunderstandings than in hardening positions that are often based on fear.” He likes to approach cultural walls with humor, “trying to throw some light on them.” He calls these barriers “photo-degradable.”
Before joining Apple, Gassée was president and general manager of the French subsidiary of Exxon Office Systems, general manager with Data General in Europe, and six years at Hewlett-Packard, having launched the company’s first desktop scientific computer. He holds a master’s of science degree from the Faculty of Sciences in Orsay, France.
Kevin Avila and his colleagues at a tiny software startup company, Cache Computing, are introducing their own Macintosh operating system, InfiniteOS. The skeptics are flabbergasted at their ambitious goal.
In just three short months, Avila and colleagues Ernesto Corvi and Zico Kolter have posted a demo of their progress on their Web site.
Patrick Woolsey, chief operating officer of BareBones Software, a Mac software development house, said that Mac hardware is very different from the Intel architecture.
The evolution of this new operating system for Macintosh will include—be prepared to nod as if this is understandable—pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory, and full graphical user interface.
Writing a modern operating system from scratch is a Herculean task even for a large company. The new OS must work with existing Mac applications and be backwards compatible with older machines if it is to match the Apple MacOS. Early signs are promising, but this may be just Vaporware, the presentment of concepts as substance.
Apple officials were less than enthusiastic when informed of the project. “If they are utilizing any of our intellectual property, we will pursue them very aggressively,” said Apple’s Russell Brady.
“Customers of the existing 62 million Macintosh machines base their businesses upon code that has been battle-tested since 1984. Multimillion-dollar businesses are looking for a robust, stable operating system that runs Macintosh applications seamlessly, and are expecting Apple to continue building operating systems for them. I don’t think they will be changing over to another OS,” said Brady.
Avila said that InfiniteOS is purely original, developed entirely on Macintosh hardware.
The beginning of the “computer for the rest of us,” started in a garage. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs sold their pocket calculator and Volkswagen bus to finance construction of the first Apple Computer in 1976. By 1980, Apple Computer was warmly received by Wall Street much like Ford Motor Co. when it went public in 1956. Apple’s original 4.5 million shares sold-out in minutes at an opening price of $22US per share; later their stock topped $70US per share. Apple joined the ranks of Fortune 500.
In 1984, Apple revolutionized home computing by introducing Macintosh, the first computer to incorporate a mouse and graphical user interface, which has since been extensively copied.
In 1985, co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak left Apple. But Jobs returned in 1996. Recently, Apple reported it’s first profit in four consecutive quarters, and the negative press has lessened. Despite it’s management failings, Apple’s product sales of $7B annually is well accepted worldwide, and their customer base remains unusually loyal.