- Be Inc.
Infobox Defunct Company
company_name = Be Incorporated
company_
slogan =
fate = Dissolved
successor =
foundation = 1990
defunct = 2001
location = Menlo Park,California USA
industry =
key_people =Jean-Louis Gassée ,Steve Sakoman (founders)
products =BeOS ,BeBox
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the
BeOS operating system andBeBox personal computer . Be was founded by formerApple Computer executiveJean-Louis Gassée with capital fromSeymour Cray .Be's corporate offices were located in Menlo Park,
California ; as well as regional sales offices inFrance andJapan . The company later relocated to Mountain View inCalifornia for the duration of its dissolution.The main intent of Be was to develop a new operating system using the
C++ programming language on a proprietary hardware platform. The BeOS operating system ran on the BeBox, but was later ported to Apple'sPower Mac s despite resistance from Apple, due to the hardware specifications assistance ofPower Computing . In 1998, the system was ported to the Intelx86 architecture, and PowerPC support was reduced, finally being dropped afterBeOS R5 .History
Be was founded by former
Apple Computer executiveJean-Louis Gassée in 1990 withSteve Sakoman after being ousted by Apple CEOJohn Sculley . Be aimed to create a modern computer operating system written in C++ on a proprietary hardware platform. In 1995, theBeBox personal computer was released by Be, with its distinctive strips of lights up the front that indicated the load of each CPU, and the combined analogue/digital, 37-pinGeekPort has made it a highly desirable item for collectors. In addition to BeOS and BeBox, Be also producedBeIA , an ill-fated OS forinternet appliance s. It was however used commercially bySony (with the eVilla) andDT Research , amongst others, during its short lifespan.In 1996, Apple was searching for a new operating system to replace the
Mac OS , the two final options wereBeOS andNeXTSTEP . The deal swung towardsNeXT due to the persuasive influence ofSteve Jobs and the incomplete state of the BeOS product, criticized at the time for lacking such features as printing capability (although Apple ultimately ended up scrapping many components of NeXTSTEP and rewriting them from scratch, including —ironically— the entire printing subsystem.)Ultimately the assets of the corporation were bought by
Palm, Inc. , where Gassée served on the board of directors, for US$11 million in 2001, at which point the company entered dissolution. The company then initiatedlitigation againstMicrosoft for anti-competitive business practices, specifically the prohibition of OEM's to allow dual-boot systems containing both Microsoft and non-Microsoft operating systems. The suit was settled in September 2003 with a US$23.25 million payout to Be, Inc.Company name
According to several sources including "
Macworld UK ", the company name "Be" had its origin in a conversation between Gassée and Be co-founderSteve Sakoman . Gassée originally thought the company should be called "United Technoids Inc.", but Sakoman disagreed and said he would start looking through the dictionary for a better name. A few days later, when Gassée asked if he had made any progress, Sakoman replied that he had gotten tired and stopped at "B." Gassée said, "Be is nice. End of story."External links
* [http://www.beincorporated.com/ Dissolution information]
* [http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/ Be Site] (Archived)
* [http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/aboutbe/benewsletter/ Be Newsletters] (Archived)
* [http://bebox.nu/history.php The BeBox Zone - History]
* [http://www.bebits.com/] BeBits-current development
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