51 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
51 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
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In 1990, ex-Apple employees Jean-Louis Gassée and Steve Sakoman created a
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company: Be Incorporated. It was founded with a purpose in mind: to create
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a powerful, elegant, media-oriented, friendly computer that addressed the
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user's needs. They manufactured a product to tackle these goals head-on: a
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personal computer called the BeBox. This computer and its operating system,
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the BeOS, were first presented at Agenda 95 in October, 1995. The audience
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was elated.
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The BeBox and BeOS had features that were never before seen in the world of
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personal computing. The BeBox contained two processors and three additional
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chips dedicated to sound processing to provide a fast platform for video
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and audio. In the back of the BeBox was a feature of particular interest
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to computer enthusiasts and developers -- the GeekPort, which was a multi-
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purpose port intended for experimentation.
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The operating system, BeOS, was equally packed with features. Its design
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was attractive to many and its yellow tabbed windows distinguished it from
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the Macintosh and regular PCs. For many people, it was an operating system
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that was easy to fall in love with.
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Unfortunately, Be, Inc. abandoned its stake in the hardware market because
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of low sales and hardware supply problems. The BeOS was then modified to work
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on Apple Macintosh systems in 1997 and again to regular PCs in 1998. Although
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it had many enthusiastic users and developers, it never gained a significant
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market share for a variety of reasons which included a lack of third party
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programs, hardware support, and Microsoft's business tactics. In 2000,
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BeOS saw its fifth release in two versions: a Pro Edition and a Personal
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Edition. The Personal Edition didn't have quite as much software included
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as the Pro Edition, but it was free for anyone to download. This undermined
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the sales of the Pro Edition, increasing Be's financial difficulties.
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The company shifted its focus to attempt to use BeOS in Internet appliances.
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Some claim that this decision eroded the credibility of BeOS as a viable
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alternative to Windows or Linux. Be, Inc. filed for bankruptcy in 2001
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and soon after sold its intellectual property to Palm, Inc.
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Be, Inc. left behind a legacy: a community of dedicated and loyal users
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who continued to use BeOS despite the demise of its parent company. Some
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people added support for newer hardware and others wrote software to keep it
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current.
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Others wanted to recreate the entire operating system. Michael Phipps was
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one of them and in August 2001, he founded one of several projects started
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with the intention of reviving BeOS. The project was called OpenBeOS. Not
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only was OpenBeOS going to rewrite the operating system, but it also had the
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ambitious goal of writing it so that programs written for BeOS would run
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unmodified on the new software. In June of the following year, OpenBeOS held
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a convention in Columbus, Ohio where talks were given and a new name for the
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project was announced: Haiku. The rest, as is often said, is history.
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