Innovative New Applications Announced for PenPoint

Oct. 21, 1991 — GO Corp., in partnership with software developers, Monday announced a variety of exciting new applications for PenPoint to be demonstrated for the first time at Comdex.

These innovative products are among the first wave of ”pencentric” applications that will create a broad, horizontal market for mobile pen computers. These new applications will begin to complement vertical applications under development for industry specific use.

PenPoint’s modern, object-oriented architecture provides a high-leverage, productivity environment for developers. Applications are easier to write, more consistent, and smaller than those on other systems.

”By taking advantage of PenPoint’s Application Framework, we have been able to develop products in less than half the time of other environments including the Macintosh,” stated Matt Kursh, president of Ink Development Corp.

These technical advantages for developers translate into real advantages for users. There will be more applications to choose from and the new applications will not only be more consistent but easier to learn as well. Pen computers wil require less memory, reducing cost, weight and size.

PenPoint applications will span both horizontal and vertical markets. A recent NCR survey of applications for PenPoint determined that about half are targeted for general purpose use, and half are focused on a specific job category.

PenPoint is the environment of choice for new categories of software focused on the emerging mobile pen computing market, often called ”pencentric” applications. These treat ”ink” as a new data format in its own right, as opposed to a method for entering ASCII text. Following are some new horizontal and vertical categories and examples of pencentric applications.

Notetakers

Rather than capture information in formal, ”typewritten” form, notetaking applications enable the user to make free-form notes, as they would on paper, but with the advantages of computing power.  These notes can be edited, indexed, stored, transmitted and retrieved in their original, handwritten form.

At Comdex, Pensee Corp. is demonstrating Penguin, an ink-oriented notepad and outliner. Ink Development Corp., in cooperation with Logitech, is showing a product that allows the user to integrate handwritten notes and drawings with images from FotoMan, Logitech’s digital camera.

Personal Organizers

This category of software, of limited utility on keyboard-oriented machines, will play a greatly expanded role on mobile pen computers.  PenSoft, a pioneer in pen computer personal information managers, is demonstrating its innovative component-based approach to personal organizers.

Intelligent Forms

Forms of all sorts are a naturarmation which is pertinent to a specific task. Rapid entry of information in numerical, text or graphic format is aided by adjusting a form dynamically in response to the information which is entered.

PenApps from Slate Corp. is a development system which accelerates the construction of both prototypes and full-fledged forms solutions.  This powerful tool is being used extensively by the VAR community and in-house developers to provide job-specific solutions to customers.  GO’s PenPoint resource directory presently lists over 75 providers of PenApps and vertical industry expertise and applications.

Electronic Books

Mobile pen computer users can take the full text of manuals, reference materials and other textual sources wherever they go by loading the information directly into their computer.

The first example of this category of product is PenBook from Slate Corp. PenBook combines the familiar feel of paper books with the power of computers. Users are able to search and sort within the electronic book to find important information as well as mark critical passages and add their own personal notes.

Connectivity

Connectivity is especially important for mobile, pen computer users as they go about their work. A number of connectivity options are available for PenPoint. Wireless communications are available in both wide area format (Ardis/Motorola) and local area infrared format (Photonics).

NetWare client/server communication is planned for development, and peer-to-peer connectivity is available from Sitka, with the ”PenTops” product. New products which take fresh approaches to traditional categories are also being announced for PenPoint.

Word Processing

Document creation, the focus of traditional word processing applications, is enhanced with new capabilities to enable rapid editing, text manipulation and compound document creation using PenPoint’s Embedded Document Architecture.

EDA allows any document to be embedded live within another.  PenPerfect from WordPerfect Corp. takes the familiar features of their desktop product and increases the user’s productivity through natural pen functionality.

Spreadsheets

Pens add a new set of capabilities to the familiar spreadsheet format. Among the products demonstrated at Comdex is PenCalc from Notable Technologies Inc. This fast, easy-to-use spreadsheet package presents the user with an innovative forms view interface; which appears as a plain sheet of paper.

PenCalc allows the user to grab cells from a typical-looking spreadsheet and lay them onto a sheet of paper where text and graphics can be added and arranged as if working with a notepad.

GO Corp., a privately held company headquartered in Foster City, Calif., develops, markets, and supports a pen operating system and applications designed for mobile users worldwide.

CONTACT:
GO Corp., Foster City
Marcia Mason, 415/358-2000
– or –
Regis McKenna, Palo Alto, Calif.
Mari Mineta Clapp, 415/354-4449