Mods Anthology 4/Music-AmigaModsAnthology-4of4-Psychodk.mcsteam.iso/Tools/BeBox/BeBox_Infos.txt

Text File | 1996-04-08 | 15.5 KB | 449 lines

                                    Be, Inc.

         Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


Be, Inc. was founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis GassΘe, formerly president of Apple
products -- the R&D and manufacturing division at Apple Computer, Inc. Mr.
GassΘe announced Be's first product, the BeBox, on October 3, 1995, at the
Agenda '96 conference in Arizona (see press release).

Here's background infomation about:

   * Our vision of a new kind of computing architecture
   * Our team
   * Our market
   * Our product
   * Our partnership model
   * And our plans for the future.

Or download the complete Be backgrounder document inAdobe Acrobat format (160K).

You can reach us at:

Be, Inc.
800 El Camino Real
Suite 300
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]
Ftp: ftp.be.com
Web: http://www.be.com

Be Europe
Olivetti Building, Suite 336
Rue de l'Ancien MarchΘ
92800 - Puteaux
Tel : [phone]
Fax : [phone]
E-mail : [e-mail]









                                  What is Be?

                     Basic answers to sensible questions.

What is Be?

Be is a small (25-person) company with offices in Menlo Park, California, and
Paris, France. Be manufactures the BeBox and the Be operating system. Be was
founded about 5 years ago by Jean-Louis GassΘe, former president of Apple
Computer's R&D and Product divisions.

What is a BeBox?

The BeBox is a new kind of computer. It is not a Macintosh or PC clone. It has
two PowerPC 603 processors, expansion slots for lots of typical PC devices, and
tons of I/O (input/output) capacity. The BeBox runs the Be Operating System
software.

What is the Be OS?

The Be OS (operating system) is a brand new operating system created to run on
the BeBox. It does not run on any other computers at this time. It features
true preemptive mutitasking and multithreading, which take full advantage of
the two PowerPC CPUs in the BeBox. This means that applications written for the
BeBox can do a lot of things at once, very quickly.

I Get It! Now I'd Like to Know...

There's over 6 megabytes of related information on this web site. Here are a
few places to start:

   * For a detailed description of Be, the Be team, and Be's products, see the
     Be Backgound page.
   * For a lot of technical information, try the Technical Specifications page.
   * For a ton of questions answered about Be marketing and Be technical
     issues, try the Be Questions and Answers page.
   * To learn how to reach us by mail, foot, phone, e-mail, fax, and other
     means, see the Be Contacts page.










                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


The Vision

Be offers an exciting alternative to the current evolutionary approach to
advancing personal computing platforms.

Be targets this new approach at the very markets where customers and developers
are most in need of innovative technology, and where the limitations of older
architectures are the most visible: Media and compute-intensive applications.

Today's platforms are immensely successful in the office market because they
wisely adopted an approach of continuous incremental improvements, thus
developing a huge legacy of office automation applications. But that approach
has its downside. Today, architectures are mind-numbingly complex, large, and
fragile-the result of more than a decade of patches and extensions. The
interval between major revisions is usually measured in years (Windows 95 was
launched five years after Windows 3.0, and more years will elapse between
System 7 and Copland). New technology is becoming harder and harder to
integrate. The most glaring of many examples is multiprocessing.
Multiprocessing is an inexpensive way to increase computing power, yet
evolutionary platforms cannot support it.

Be, Inc. was founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis GassΘe, former president of Apple's
product division, to break the boundaries imposed by the evolutionary approach.
The first member of the Be product family, the BeBox(TM), was launched on
October 3, 1995. This system, with its combination of powerful hardware, a
portable, object-oriented operating system, and a host of advanced sound,
graphics, video, and communications capabilities, is poised to become a
significant alternative for next-generation applications.










                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


The Team

To achieve an ambitious vision in today's competitive business environment
requires the right team above all else. We have assembled an outstanding
management and operations team, complemented by hardware and software engineers
who are among the best and brightest in their fields. Equally important, our
team is small, focused, and tight-knit -- a key success factor for tackling
complex architectural challenges.


Chairman and CEO
Jean-Louis GassΘe

Mr. GassΘe has overall responsibility for Be's operations. Prior to forming Be,
he was associated with Apple Computer for ten years. He served as president of
Apple products, the R&D and manufacturing division of Apple, from 1988-1990.
Before that, he was Apple's senior vice president of research and development
(1987-1988), and vice president of product development (1985-1987). In 1982,
Mr. GassΘe founded and ran Apple's French operation, Apple Computer France
SARL.

Prior to joining Apple, Mr. GassΘe was president and general manager of the
French subsidiary of Exxon Corp. He also held several management positions with
Data General Corp., including general manager for France, area manager for
Latin countries, and marketing manager for Europe. He spent six years at
Hewlett Packard, serving in several positions, including sales manager of
Europe.


Vice President, Engineering
Erich Ringewald

Mr. Ringewald oversees software and hardware engineering. He joined Be after
more than six years at Apple Computer, where he held several software
engineering and R&D management positions. He was the manager of special
projects software (1989-1991), assistant to the director of European R&D at
Apple Computer Europe (1988-1989), manager of the next generation system
software group (1987-1988), author of Multifinder and manager of the MacOS
group (1986-1987), and a member of the Mac Plus ROM team (1985-1986). From 1983
to 1985, Mr. Ringewald was a senior software architect for Tecmar, a
manufacturer of expansion cards, hard disks, network hardware, and software for
the IBM PC and the Macintosh.


Vice President, Finance, and CFO
Wes Saia

Mr. Saia is responsible for all areas of finance and control, including
relationships with outside investors and legal counsel. He also manages
personnel and general administration. Mr. Saia joined Be from Asante, a company
that specializes in networking products for the computer industry. As Asante's
vice president of finance and CFO from 1993-1994, he completed an initial
public offering that raised $25 million in cash. Mr. Saia also served as vice
president of finance and CFO at Bimillenium, a startup software company, from
1992-1993, and as vice president of finance and CFO for Vitalink, a public
company specializing in data communications, from 1987-1991. While at Vitalink
he also completed an initial public offering and a secondary round of public
financing, raising a total of $45 million.

Mr. Saia has also worked as a controller at Intel (1983-1987), vice president
of finance at Fox & Carskadon (1981-1983), and controller with Sprint and
Southern Pacific (1971-1981).


Vice President, Operations
Tadek Margulewicz

Mr. Margulewicz handles all aspects of operations for Be, including
manufacturing. He joined Be in 1993 after five years at Sun Microsystems, where
he focused on improving operational efficiencies in manufacturing. While at Sun
he managed the risks and benefits associated with outsourcing manufacturing and
implemented a worldwide inventory management system, resulting in significantly
improved asset management. From 1982-1988 he was director of manufacturing and
distribution for Friden Alcatel, and was responsible for transitioning new
products from design engineering into volume production.


Vice President and General Manager, Europe
Jean Calmon

Mr. Calmon represents Be's interests in Europe. He has more than 24 years of
operational experience with major companies in Europe, and has specialized in
developing the operations of U.S. high-technology companies in Europe. Mr.
Calmon was most recently vice president, Europe, of EO, Inc., a subsidiary of
AT&T, from 1992-1994. Prior to that, he was president of EDS French operations.
Previously, he was associated with Apple Computer from 1981-1990. As sales
manager and then general manager (France), he built Apple's largest subsidiary
and most successful network of resellers from inception to $270 million in
revenues in five years. He also developed and implemented new distribution
strategies while managing channels of distribution as well as the large account
and education business as director of Apple Europe. Before Apple, Mr. Calmon
spent ten years with IBM as marketing representative and district manager in
the computer division.












                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


The Market

The BeBox enables users to run multiple compute-intensive programs
simultaneously at blazing speed, synchronize music and sound, view and edit
videos, take advantage of telecommunications applications, and access the
Internet-all at the same time. Its built-in database is accessible at all
times, so users can continually store, retrieve, and update key information
from multiple sources. The combination of these features makes the BeBox
particularly attractive to the fast-growing A/V market -- currently valued at
more than $7.3 billion by Dataquest -- as well as to technology enthusiasts and
hobbyists.

The BeBox is also an excellent system for programming, for compute-intensive
applications, for video games, and for personal productivity tools.

For more information about Be Marketing, see the Be Marketing Questions and
Answers.











                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


The Product

The BeBox is the first true real-time, portable, object-oriented system that
features multiple PowerPC processors, true preemptive multitasking, an
integrated database, fast I/O, and a wide range of expansion options -- all at
an extremely aggressive price that is well below that of any competitive
offering.

The hardware features two PowerPC 603 processors running at 66 MHz, room for
256 MB of RAM, and 16-bit CD-quality sound. It provides a broad spectrum of
expansion and I/O options, including three expansion slots on the very fast
(132 MB/sec) PCI bus for high-speed add-on cards; five expansion slots on the
ISA bus for low-cost, lower-bandwidth cards; four MIDI ports, a high-speed SCSI
II port, and four serial ports.

Be's system software is small, fast, and real-time. It provides multithreading,
multitasking, and memory protection. On top of its proprietary kernel, Be has
designed a graphics server that delivers ultra-responsive, continuously updated
windows; a database server that supports live queries of user- or
developer-defined collections of data; and a digital media toolkit that allows
for manipulation of real-time streams of audio/video data. All of this is
accessible from an object-oriented C++ application framework. Be also ships a
graphical browser with every machine, which shows off many features of the OS
and allows the user to manipulate all of the files and database objects on the
computer.

For application development, Be offers the CodeWarrior(TM) PowerPC development
environment from Metrowerks, along with full technical and user documentation.
Developers can use the current version of CodeWarrior hosted on the Macintosh
for application development, and soon Be will offer the entire CodeWarrior
Integrated Development Environment -- including a high-speed linker, compiler,
and debugger -- native on the BeBox.

The BeBox also allows users to customize their systems with standard components
from the "PC clone organ bank," including monitors, keyboards, memory, hard
disks, CD-ROM drives, and modems.

For more detailed technical specifications about the BeBox and Be Operating
System, see the Be Technical Specifications page.












                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


The Partnership Model

Be is already working with and actively recruiting software development
partners, value-added resellers, systems integrators, and manufacturers whose
products or services will add value to the BeBox.

Be offers independent software developers a compelling alternative to
traditional computer platforms. The BeBox provides hardware and software that
are powerful enough to show off advanced software capabilities, and the
CodeWarrior for Be development toolset gives developers everything they need to
begin developing applications for the BeBox immediately.

In addition, Be offers an innovative and effective electronic distribution
model designed to maximize the exposure and profits of software developers. As
opposed to the traditional distribution model, which requires developers to
provide significant cash up front for catalog advertising and to support costs
of distributors and dealers, the Be distribution model requires minimal
up-front investment and eliminates the middleman completely.

Be provides developers with market access through a combination of e-mail and
Internet communications. Be systems have Internet connectivity built in, and Be
will register every customer's telephone number and Internet address, so the
company can supply developers with up-to-the-minute information about each and
every one of its customers, giving developers an opportunity for repeat sales
and easy distribution of software updates. By eliminating the middleman, Be
enables developers to offer software at a significantly lower price and avoid
the common problems of piracy associated with high-priced software. This
increases developers' profit margins.

In addition, Be is licensing its hardware and software technologies to
value-added resellers, manufacturers, and systems integrators, further
expanding the reach and capabilities of its products.











                                 Be, Inc.

       Overcoming the Limitations of Today's Computing Architectures


Future Directions

Be has created an architecture that can be broadly expanded to meet evolving
customer requirements and technological capabilities. The BeBox is the first
member of the Be product line, which is already being expanded to include
four-processor and portable configurations. Future Be products will also
incorporate other versions of the PowerPC processor.











                                Be Contacts

In the U.S.A.

Be, Inc.
800 El Camino Real
Suite 300
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Ftp: ftp.be.com
Web: http://www.be.com

E-mail:

   * For general questions about Be and Be products: [e-mail]
   * For information about becoming a reseller or VAR: [e-mail]
   * For developer support: [e-mail]
   * For questions and comments about the Be web and ftp sites:
     [e-mail]

In Europe

Be Europe
Olivetti Building, Suite 336
Rue de l'Ancien MarchΘ
92800 - Puteaux
Tel : [phone]
Fax : [phone]
E-mail : [e-mail]




        Be, the Be logo, BeBox, and GeekPort are trademarks of Be, Inc.

                         Copyright ⌐ 1996 Be, Inc.