declan@portia.Stanford.EDU (Declan McCullagh) (07/14/90)
Stolen without permission from the San Francisco Chronicle, and shamelessly edited... FLIGHT FROM APPLE CONTINUES, AS A LEADING SCIENTIST LEAVES The exodus from Apple Comptuer, Inc. continues... William Atkninson, one of person computing's leading scientists, has left to form a new venture with Andrew Hertzfeld, one of the original architects of Apple's popular Macintosh computer. The two, along with former Apple engineer Mark Porat, are forming a company called General Magic Inc. to produce what Hertzfeld described as a "personal intelligent communicator." He would offer no further details of the product, other than to say it will be two years before it comes t market. Hertzfeld called the company an "Apple spin-off," saying that the Cupertino personal computer maker has invested in the venture and holds a minority stake in the company. Hertzfeld wouldn't say how much Apple has invested in General Magic, or how much equity it holds. But Apple has the option to increase its stake, he said. Hertzfeld and Atkinson have each invested $100 million in the venture, he said. Hertzfeld hasn't worked directly for Apple for six years, although he has served as a consultant on technology projects. General Magic came about as a result of one of those projects, after Apple decided the project would be suitable for outside development... ... It's interesting to speculate as to what General Magic's eventual product will be... There is a need for small, portable, personal "communicators"; perhaps with better LCD screens, better batteries, denser RAM, and faster processors, we'll see a mini-portable Knowledge Navigator (tm). Of course, everyone knows that the NeXT is already the full-sized version...$-) On a different note, expect a new version of GS/OS to be announced late next week - it may include some suprising new features, some of which will be heartily welcomed by game designers (if there are still any out there). -Declan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Olympic Technologies / Registered NeXT Developers \ declan@portia.stanford.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------