Be Goes for $360m IPO, Focuses on Internet Appliance Market.Be Inc (company) Be Inc - The company that produced the BeBox, founded by Jean-Louis Gassee, former product chief at Apple. , which announced a $360m initial public offering on Friday, is looking to move the Be operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. from its multimedia niche to become the OS of choice for the budding internet appliance Also called "information appliance," "smart appliance," and "Web appliance," it is a device specialized for accessing the Web and/or e-mail. Designed for ease of use, it plugs into a telephone jack or LAN connection for Internet hookup. market. The Menlo Park Menlo Park. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 28,040), San Mateo co., W Calif.; inc. 1874. Electronic equipment and aerospace products are manufactured in the city. Menlo College and a Stanford Univ. research institute are there. 2 Uninc. , California-based company - which is offering six million shares at $6 each - has already been chosen as the OS provider for Microworkz Inc's iToaster, a low-cost network computer-style appliance. Be claim that its OS is an ideal platform for vendors requiring a modular, multimedia-friendly internet for a range of devices, from screen- phones and set-top boxes The cable TV box that sits on "top" of the TV "set," although it is often located several feet away in an equipment rack. The set-top box descrambles the premium channels and provides a tuner for the higher cable numbers that very old TVs did not support. to low-cost PCs. However, the company will face stiff competition from more established vendors such as Microsoft Corp, Apple Computer Corp and Oracle Corp, who all want to get a lion's share of what looks to be one of the most lucrative emerging markets in the industry. By 2002, International Data Corp estimates that there will be more than 151 million internet appliances installed worldwide. In its S-1 filing with the SEC, Be says that its internet appliance strategy is to promote BeOS through relationships with OEMs, application developers, consumer electronic manufacturers and internet service and content providers. It currently has relationships with Hitachi Ltd, Fujitsu Computers GmbH and Intel Corp. Internet-based applications running on BeOS include a native web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. , email, file transfer and productivity tools. The company is working with application developers to increase the number of applications running on BeOS, including audio and video mixing, graphics, productivity and gaming software. Swedish company Opera Software has just announced that it has ported its well-regarded browser to the operating system. To raise awareness of the OS, the company is planning to launch a "Be Everywhere" marketing campaign. Be markets and sells BeOS through distributors, resellers and its Be Depot.com web site and intends to establish agreements with OEMs and internet appliance manufacturers to bundle BeOS with their hardware platforms Each hardware platform, or CPU family, has a unique machine language. All software presented to the computer for execution must be in the binary coded machine language of that CPU. Following is a list of the major hardware platforms in existence today. See platform. and devices. |
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