Gobe Software

Gobe Software, Inc was a software company that published an integrated desktop software suite for BeOS. In later years, it was the publisher of BeOS itself.

Gobe was founded in 1997 by some of the authors of the original Styleware application for the Apple II. After leaving StyleWare and creating the product later known as ClarisWorks and AppleWorks, Bob Hearn, Scott Holdaway, Tom Hoke, Scott Lindsey, Bruce Q. Hammond, and Carl Grice departed Claris and formed Gobe to write a product similar to ClarisWorks, but for BeOS.

GoBeProductive v1.0 for BeOS was released in August 1998 and v2.0 in August 1999.

The resulting product, Gobe Productive was by far the most polished of the word processors, spreadsheet and vector graphics applications for BeOS, but as an integrated package a la ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works.

When Be Inc. outsourced publication of BeOS in 2000 Gobe became the publisher of BeOS in North America, Australia, and sections of Asia. Only weeks after signing up other publishers around the globe, Be, Inc halted development for the BeOS platform and publicly announced that all of its corporate focus would be on "Internet Appliances" and made public announcements that hampered forward momentum of the BeOS platform. In addition, the publishers in general and Gobe in particular did not have source code access to the BeOS and were not able to continue its development or add drivers that the platform needed to be a viable alternative to Windows or Linux. Gobe also published Hicom Entertainment/Next Generation Entertainments "Corum III" role-playing game for BeOS during this period.

The failure of Be, Inc and BeOS meant ports had to be undertaken, and Windows and Linux variants were developed. Although the company shipped a Windows version of its software in December 2001, it was unable to obtain sufficient operating capital after the 2000 stock market crash and finally ceased operations in 2002. A new venture based in Beaverton, OR Gobe Corp purchased the rights to GobeProductive and the Gobe trademarks; it continues to publish the GobeProductive application for Windows.

Other Gobe Employees

* Dave Johnson
* Ben Chang
* Joël Spaltenstein
* Kurt von Finck
* Daniel Maia Alves
* Cheyenne Tuller
* Tomy Hudson---------------------------------------------------

See also

*Comparison of office suites

External links

* [http://www.gobe.com Gobe Corp.]
* [http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/clarisworks.php A Brief History Of ClarisWorks] - Bob Hearn
* [http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/developers/developer_news/spotlight/gobe.html Be, Inc. article] (archived)
* [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/02q2/gobe/gobe-1.html Ars Technica Review of Gobe Productive 3.03]