GO Corporation was founded in 1987 to create software for mobile computers and personal digital assistants. It was famous not only for its pioneering work in pen-based computing but as well as being one of the most well-funded start-up companies of its time. The company encountered many difficulties, such as convincing the public of the feasibility and usefulness of hand-held and pen-based computing; having to develop its own handheld, pen-based computers as well jockeying for support among industry giants such as IBM, Apple Computer, AT&T and Microsoft. The hardware group was spun off as a separate company, named EO Inc.. EO Inc. was later acquired by AT&T. Go's PenPoint OS eventually ran on AT&T's EO Personal Communicator, but as tablet computing waned in the 1980s and early 1990s, so did the fortunes of GO, especially in the face of competition from Microsoft's Pen Services for Windows. After burning through $75 million dollars of venture funding, the company closed in 1994. Its founders were Jerry Kaplan, Robert Carr, and Kevin Doren. Mr. Kaplan subsequently chronicled the history of the company in his book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure (ISBN 0-7351-0141-8). Omid Kordestani, current VP of Global Business at Google, began his startup career with Go Corporation. While much of what transpired at GO was eclipsed by high-fliers of the dot com era that immediately followed GO's demise, the company was famous in its time for its longevity, its constantly shifting fortunes, the amount of money it spent, and the caliber of talent it attracted.
Lawsuit
On 29 June 2005, Kaplan filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that Microsoft technicians had stolen technology from GO that had been shown to them under a non-disclosure agreement. [1] [2]
External links
- Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure
- IDEO - Company that helped develop the EO Personal Communicator, based on the PenPoint operating system.
