Be Incorporated
Be Incorporated was an American company, the operating system BeOS and BeBox - Computer has developed. The company was located in Menlo Park , California .
history
Be Incorporated was founded by Jean-Louis Gassée and Steve Sakoman in 1990 with $ 9 million in seed capital . The sponsors were AT&T and Cray . 1995 Be presented the BeBox and the BeOS operating system developed for it . In 1997 the production of the BeBox was stopped. After Be had given up the production of its own hardware, the company Apple , which was looking for a successor to Mac OS 8 , showed interest in a takeover. This failed, however, as Jean-Louis Gassée demanded $ 300 million and a seat on the board.
The End
In 2001 , Be Incorporated sold its "intellectual property," u. a. BeOS , to Palm Inc. for $ 11 million as the company faced bankruptcy . The company then filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for distorting competition , specifically because of the restriction of OEM versions not to allow dual-boot systems that contain both Microsoft's and systems from other manufacturers.
In September 2003 , the two parties agreed out of court to pay Be $ 23.25 million.
In addition to BeOS, Be also made BeIA , a limited version of BeOS, especially for embedded systems, whose unexpectedly low sales success some blame for the bankruptcy of Be.
Its headquarters were in Menlo Park , California . There were also branches in France and Japan . For the duration of the bankruptcy, the company headquarters was relocated to Mountain View , California. The company was finally liquidated in 2009.
origin of the name
The company's name probably had its origins in a conversation between Gassée and co-founder Steve Sakoman . Gassée originally wanted to name the company "United Technoids Inc.", which Sakoman did not agree with, which is why he promised to look for a better name in the dictionary. A few days later, when Gassée asked him how he was getting on, Sakoman replied that he finally fell asleep at the letter B over the dictionary. Gassée said: “Be is great. End of the story". ("Be is nice. End of story".)
