PenSoft Corp. Reveals Development of Pen-Based Applications for GO Corp.’s Operating Environment

July 18, 1990 — PenSoft Corp., a San Mateo software startup, Wednesday announced it is developing software application products for GO Corp.’s general-purpose pen-based operating environment.

The company also announced its first round of venture funding and its management team. PenSoft, which received its venture funding earlier this year from Mohr Davidow Ventures of Menlo Park, was founded in March.

Michael Baum, president and co-founder of PenSoft, said PenSoft is engaged in a pilot program with GO working with customers to develop applications and gain early and ongoing feedback about its pen-based products.

Baum said its products will leverage newly announced pen-based technology being developed by GO, a Foster City company. IBM on Wednesday said it is the first licensee of the new pen-based operating environment.

”The promise and challenge of pen-based computing is to produce completely new applications which target this mobile customer base — not simply pen-driven interfaces on existing applications,” said Baum.

”Traditional applications such as spreadsheets and word processors aren’t the primary focus for today’s mobile professional. They need ‘dynamic applications’ tailored to their work styles — applications which fit into their hectic schedules and let them track, update and program information which is contantly changing.

”Because of the pen-based environment, these kinds of workplace applications are now possible.”

Peter Roshko, a Mohr Davidow partner, said PenSoft’s management and development team combines category-leading product development with sales and field force automation experience. ”They have a proven track record of building successful companies in the computer industry.,” he added.

”We were extremely impressed with the PenSoft team and ongoing product development work in what we believe will be the next major market opportunity for personal computers,” Roshko said.

PenSoft was formed by a group of computer software industry professionals previously with IBM, GO, Odesta, Reality Technologies and Symantec. The group is led by Baum, who worked on the development of the original IBM PC/AT product and later co-founded Reality Technologies, which developed and marketed a family of business and financial simulation software products before it was sold to SEI Corp.  in 1989.

Recently, he was with H&Q Technology Partners, an affiliate of Hambrecht & Quist.

He is joined by Michael Schaffer, also a co-founder of Reality Technologies and former consultant to Citibank. Schaffer is manager of applications development at PenSoft.

The PenSoft management team also includes Jim Allison, co-creator of Double Helix, the first database to use visual interfaces. Allison is principal software designer at PenSoft and was formerly with Odesta Corp. as well as American Airlines, where he was an object-oriented database consultant.

Diana Bury, product manager, was previously a software product manager at GO Corp. Prior to joining GO, she was product manager of Symantec Corp.’s language products, including THINK C and THINK Pascal.

Tom Buttermore, vertical market evangelist, and David Baum, software architect and co-founder, joined PenSoft from Responsive Software Solutions, where they developed sales force automation and market intelligence systems for IBM Corp.

Mohr Davidow Ventures places investments in early-stage high-technology companies. Some of its other investments include MIPS Computer Systems, Touch Communications, Actel Inc. and Auspex Systems Inc.

CONTACT:
PenSoft Corp., San Mateo
Diana Bury, 415/358-1575
or
Hastings, Humble, Giardini & Freeman, Portland, Ore.
Charles Humble, 503/221-1063