OnlineHost * * * Copyright 1992 * * * America Online, Inc. * * * All Rights Reserved * * * * * * Serving America Online, Promenade, * * * and PC Link * * * OnlineHost Welcome to the Rotunda, America Online's auditorium for special Computing and Software events. Online auditoriums differ from other online rooms in that they are designed to hold an unlimited number of people. OnlineHost The auditorium is divided into two areas: * The stage, where presenters and hosts are. * The chat rows, where you are. Each chat row holds a maximum of 8 people. OnlineHost You can hear what is said on stage and what is said by others in your row. Comments made by others in your row are preceded by the row number. Comments made by those on stage have no number in front of the comment. OnlineHost Please note that you can speak to others in your row, but what you say cannot be heard by those on stage. To ask a question of or make a comment to those on stage, you must use the Ask a Question function of the Apple software or the Interact function of the PC software. OnlineHost The total number of people in the auditorium is displayed at the top of your screen. If you are on a Macintosh or an Apple II, you will also see your name at the top of the screen in addition to the names of those on stage. This does not mean you are on stage. OnlineHost Every effort will be made to get to as many questions as possible within the time available. OnlineHost Good evening, folks and welcome to the GeoWorks forum! Tonight our special guest is Brian Dougherty, CEO of GeoWorks. Brian is here to share his visions of the future of GeoWorks and to answer your questions, especially about his plans for a new generation of Personal Information Processors. OnlineHost Previous forums at which Brian has spoken have been among the most popular of online events, and I'm sure tonight will be no exception. OnlineHost This week also marks a big change here in the GeoWorks Support Center as we say hello to our new forum leader, Steve Main, and say good-bye to Keva Henderson, whose guidance has made our Support Center what it is today. Best wishes, Keva, in your new endeavors! OnlineHost Many of you already know GW Steve from his work here online as GWRepSteve over the past two years. OnlineHost At the conclusion of tonight's forum, please feel free to join GWRepChris and your friends in the GeoWorks Chat Room for tea and crumpets... er, I mean... for a less formal meeting and a chance to share your thoughts about tonight's forum. AFL Bobloo And with that.... AFL Bobloo Let me welcome all of the GeoWorks folks to the Rotunda... GW Brian Hi everyone, it's a pleasure to be here (electronically). AFL Bobloo And turn this over to Brian! GW Brian I haven't really prepared any statement, I thought I would just start answering questions and ... GW KEVA Hey there folks!! ;-) GW Brian let the conversation flow ;-) AFL Bobloo Our first question comes from Stepawf... AFL Bobloo Who asks... Question when will version 2.0 of geos hit the market??? GW Brian That's the $64,000 question. Our marketing folks are getting pretty upset with me pre-anouncing.... GW Brian products. We decided for the 2.0 launch that we need to partner with some big hardware companies... GW Brian to make the product successful. That means that the launch date is no longer entirely in our control. GW Brian It shouldn't be too much later than we were predicting earlier though. AFL Bobloo ZenGEOS has a comment... and a question... Question Brian...as you know I am a BIG fan of PC/GEOS & your company. I also understand you wish Question to remain mum about other companies developing. Can you at least tell us how MANY companies are Question currently developing for PC/GEOS? GW Brian Unfortunately we will not be shipping the PC SDK beta until October. That means that you still need.. GW Brian a Sun workstation to develop software. We have about a half dozen companies developing in the Sun... GW Brian environment. However, at the Software Publishers Meeting in D.C. we will be meeting with a number of GW Brian the top software developers along with our new hardware partners to attract developers. GW Brian Once the PC SDK is out (we have 1500 development companies on the waiting list) you will see rapid... GW Brian development. AFL Bobloo HartSndz has a comment that might lead to some discussion.... Question Kinda excited about the Tandy/Casio deal...used to work for Tandy as a sales rep for 5 Question years...Tandy will make Geo WORK!!! GW Brian We are really excited about the Tandy / Casio deal also. Imagine having GEOS in the palm of your hand GW Brian with a slick pen interface all for less than $500! It will be a hot product! AFL Bobloo That really leads in beautifully AFL Bobloo To our next question Question Just what are the facts about these Personal Information Processors? GW Brian Well, the term personal information processor (PIP) really describes a family of products. GW Brian Using single chip computers (today you can put the equivalent of the PC AT in a single chip) GW Brian It is possible to create a lightweight (~1lb) device that runs on AA batteries and fits in your.... GW Brian sports coat pocket. One of the most advanced features of GEOS that it not really appreaciated is its GW Brian ability to change user interfaces without having to rewrite applications. One of the development.... GW Brian teams here is working on a pen user interface that will run geos applications on small screen hand... GW Brian held devices. This is one kind of PIP. This device might be very useful for carrying around your.... GW Brian GeoDex, or GeoPlanner, or jotting a few notes down. Another kind of PIP might be a slightly larger... GW Brian keyboard based sub-notebook with GEOS in ROM. Unlike traditional notebooks, that are like another... GW Brian piece of luggage, using the efficiency of GEOS combined with single chip computers, this device could GW Brian easily be tossed in your briefcase. The best part is the cost. We expect a number of GEOS based... GW Brian devices to emerge where the total system cost, including the software is... GW Brian under $500! AFL Bobloo Looking to the future, here is another interesting question to speculate on.... Question After the Palm computer ROMs go to market, will GeoWorks get with other Hardware companies Question to make the ROM available for LapTops and NoteBooks? GW Brian We have already done some other deals, they just aren't public yet. We are working on one deal that.. GW Brian we are getting pretty close on that will startle the industry. AFL Bobloo Thanks, Brian... AFL Bobloo We have a few other questions AFL Bobloo Coming from the audience... AFL Bobloo Here is a fascinating one AFL Bobloo From ZenGEOS Question Apple is going the RISC route & coming up with what sounds like a pretty powerful Question system...how will Tandy/Casio compete with the limits of the AT architecture? GW Brian This is one of my favorite topics :-) The performance of any system is a combination of the power... GW Brian of the hardware and the efficiency of the software. There is a theorm in computer science.... GW Brian that says anything you can do with a 64 bit computer can also be done with a 1 bit computer it just... GW Brian might take a little longer. From what I have seen of the Newton (Apple's PDA) even though they have.. GW Brian a more powerful processor, I don't think they will deliver any more functionality. Furthermore, .. GW Brian there is a substantial penalty for using that processor. Apple's machine requires rechargable ... GW Brian batteries and the target battery life is 8 hours. Casio's experience in the consumer market says you GW Brian need a 100 hours of battery life minimum to be acceptable, and you would like to be able to just pop.. GW Brian in some standard batteries. Battery life, cost, and weight are all a big part of the picture. GW Brian I'm confident the GEOS based PIP's will offer comparable functionality with much better battery life. AFL Bobloo As a network user myself, and a GeoWorks lover... I found StewartY's question interesting Question Will you be working with NOVELL [ DR DOS ] People in smoother interface with DR DOS 7.0? Question and NOVELL for smoother intergration to Novell networks software? You GeoManager is better than Question VIEWMAX any day. GW Brian The answer to both questions is yes. We have done a lot of work in the 2.0 version of the software... GW Brian to make network support more robust, particularly in regards to Novell Networks. Novell has even... GW Brian offered to let us include the netware drivers in our package to automate installation of GEOS in a... GW Brian network environment. AFL Bobloo thanks! AFL Bobloo Seems to me.. AFL Bobloo That it's about time to give away a prize! AFL Bobloo What you got hanging around there, Steve? GW Steve We've got a whole package of GeoWorks goodies... pens, mug, mouse pad... AFL Bobloo Ohhhhhh AFL Bobloo Now THAT sounds MARVELOUS... AFL Bobloo What every well dressed desk should have :) AFL Bobloo And.. Hostie.. who is our winner?? OnlineHost Kingsnake is the one this time around!! GW KEVA Wow, GeoWorks office fashions. AFL Bobloo Hey... Congrats, King!! GW Steve Congrats, Kingsnake! AFL Bobloo Hang on AFL Bobloo Do we have another prize, too???? AFL Bobloo Is that what I understand?? GW Steve We sure do, Bobloo... we have a choice of GeoWorks Font packs AFL Bobloo Neat! AFL Bobloo And who is the winner of this package??? OnlineHost YumaLamb1 gets the fonts!! AFL Bobloo Congrats, Yuma... GW Steve Yay... way to go, YumaLamb! GW KEVA Whacha gonna write with those Fonts, YumaLamb, a GeoLetter? :-D AFL Bobloo Our congrats to all of our winners.. AFL Bobloo And a note to let you know AFL Bobloo That we still have ONE more prize to go... AFL Bobloo But we will hand that out in just a few more minutes AFL Bobloo RomasN has a quesstion I'm sure you will want to address... Question Does this mean Geoworks is walking away from the desk top market? GW Brian Not at all!!! Unfortunately, there has been a lot of press around our PIP deal with Tandy.. GW Brian but we have big things planned for the 2.0 desktop launch, its just that our partners for that... GW Brian market are more secretive ;-) GW Brian Long term I believe that new, low cost devices based on single chip computers are going to be more... GW Brian popular than the current PC market. Every decade in the computer industry we see a massive market GW Brian expansion due to new computers that combine higher levels of semi-conductor integration with efficient GW Brian software to deliver more cost effective solutions. We have evolved from computers that cost millions GW Brian of dollars in the 60's (mainframes) to hundreds of thousands in the 70's (minicomputers) GW Brian to thousands in the 80's (PC's). I believe this decaded is going to be about computers that cost... GW Brian hundreds of dollars. Some will be desktops, but others you will wear, or will be built into TV's GW Brian or be in your car. As the cost goes down, more people will have computers, and many people will have GW Brian multiple computers. This was the vision that drove the original GEOS design. GW Brian We don't view that we will leave the desktop market, but we will put a lot of effort into expanding GW Brian the market to devices beyond the desktop, and to bringing computers to people who can't afford the... GW Brian current desktop alternatives. AFL Bobloo ThompsonD has a fascinating question... AFL Bobloo Futuristic, as well.. Question Will Geos ever stand alone without an underlying OS? GW Brian Funny you should ask that, one of our recent new offering to OEM's (these are the people who build AFL Bobloo We have another question GW Brian computers) is our own underlying file system. GEOS really is its own operating system, all we use DOS GW Brian for is file access. GEOS uses an installable file system architecture, that means it is easy to... GW Brian change the underlying file system. For some of the new low cost computers we are working on.. GW Brian these devices will be GEOS specific machines with no need to run old DOS apps. In those devices we GW Brian will license our own file system as well. AFL Bobloo Thanks, Brian.. AFL Bobloo StewartY has another "futuristic" look... Question GW Brian What about Dual or multi CPU system with M-Buss or Local Buss configuration. Question Will we see a 32 Bit OS or PC/GEOS GUI ? GW Brian Not in the near future. Our belief is that with an efficiently designed client operating system, ... GW Brian there is no need for multiple CPU's on the client machines. This is important for servers, but we are GW Brian not interested in going after the server operating system business. In regards to a 32 version...\ GW Brian of GEOS, you will first see a protect mode 386 version (GEOS 3.0) and eventually a portable version... GW Brian several years out. We think that with good software, client computers won't need more processing... GW Brian power than a 386/486 before the end of the decade. AFL Bobloo Here is an interesting "speculation" kind of question from a general standpoint Question GWBrian does this mean you Looking into a TRON interface? and or X-10 home control system ? GW Brian That is certainly a possibility. As I mentioned earlier, one of the most advanced features of GEOS... GW Brian that we worked the hardest to implement but is currently invisible to most users... GW Brian is our generic to specific user interface technology. We can completely change the look and feel of.. GW Brian the system without having to rewrite any of the applications. This will first become apparent when GW Brian the pen based Tandy / Casio unit ships. It will have a very different pen orient user interface, but GW Brian you could pull an application card out of the pen unit, plug it into a subnote book (that also had a GW Brian PC/MCIA card slot) and the same binary application would come up with the Motif look and feel of the GW Brian current GEOS system. We created this user interface flexibility because we realized that the GW Brian interface to a TV needs to be different than the interface to a computer, or a phone, or a pen GW Brian personal information processor. But you might like to have your GeoDex on all of those devices... GW Brian without having to buy another copy of the software, (or without our having to reprogram it). AFL Bobloo Sounds like you guys are up to some pretty fascinating things! AFL Bobloo One question that comes quickly to mind on this topic, then... AFL Bobloo Is that you will have the ability to transfer information easily AFL Bobloo From one device to another? GW Brian yes, this is very important. We have a number of projects in this area. One of the things... GW Brian built into the 2.0 software is a standard import / export library (Impex)... GW Brian the purpose of Impex is to make it easy for GEOS application developers to import data from and write GW Brian data to other popular desktop environments like Mac, Windows, OS/2 etc. GW Brian That is one part of the solution, users can work in whatever data file format they want. If their... GW Brian office is standardized on Wordperfect, then they can set GeoWrite to read and write Wordperfect data GW Brian files. The other aspect is data communications between your portable GEOS device and other computers. GW Brian This is an area that we are working with Traveling Software and some new technology they have in this GW Brian area. AFL Bobloo Hmmm.. this is getting more and more fascinating all the time, Brian. Sorry to say that time has run AFL Bobloo out of time... I sure hope you will be willing AFL Bobloo To come back and see us again sometime soon to expand on some of this some more!! GW Brian It has been a pleasure being here. I am only sorry that I am not a faster typist! AFL Bobloo LOL!!! GW Brian I would have liked to answer a few more questions than I was able to get too. AFL Bobloo That's fine...believe me.. what you have to say more than makes up for that... AFL Bobloo Great... But we are not done with our business for the evening.. We still have one more prize to give AFL Bobloo Away... and for that... AFL Bobloo I'm going to turn the mike over to Keva... :). GW KEVA Hey Folks. This is my last forum event here on AOL. GW KEVA And I'd love to give away one more GeoWorks product to......... GW KEVA !!!LarkinT!!! AFL Bobloo Congrats, LarkinT GW KEVA LarkinT, you are the proud owner of GeoWorks Escape. GW Steve Way to go, Larkin! AFL Bobloo Ohhh.. I'm jealous... hehe AFL Bobloo That sounds like a great prize...:) AFL Bobloo Keva.. on behalf of the staff and members here at AOL, let me say thanks for the great job AFL Bobloo you have done AFL Bobloo In setting up the GeoWorks area here online... AFL Bobloo Along with your staff... AFL Bobloo And we wish you the best of luck in the future! GW KEVA Thank you Bob, kinda got a big lump in my right now, but it really has been fun. GW KEVA Thanks to all the GeoReps and online cummunity who make the GeoWorks AFL Bobloo Keva... a note from JIMS 1992... Comment Keep in touch, or I WILL find you !! GOOD LUCK Jim Shaw GW KEVA Support Center really unique! AFL Bobloo And I could't agree more... :) AFL Bobloo And with that.. it's time to say goodnight, folks... so.. Good Night... :) GW KEVA See yah Jim. Since you're in the bay area every once in a while you'll GW KEVA have to come see me in Castro Valley. GW KEVA Night, night everone. 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