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Technology Stocks : General Magic -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rangle who wrote (5330)	2/24/1999 6:36:00 PM
From: Nick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10081

I found this article on C/Net called...Where are They now? Tech star No. 5: General Magic Debut: 1993 Claim to fame: introduced online/mobile device collaboration to the world Current occupation: maker of Portico, a fax/email/scheduling manager The promise 1970s star Melissa Manchester could have been addressing General Magic when she sang the words "You almost had it all" in her hit "Don't Cry Out Loud." When the Web was still a baby in 1993, if you wanted message boards, software, and chat, you went to an electronic bulletin board system--a BBS. Competition for BBS subscribers was fierce. To gain an edge, AT&T enlisted the help of General Magic, an upstart start-up founded by members of the original Mac development team. General Magic produced Magic Cap, an operating system for personal digital assistants (PDAs), and Telescript, a network protocol that allowed intelligent messaging. With Telescript, Magic Cap devices could perform advanced searches, automatically download information, and, in theory, even perform financial transactions like purchasing airline tickets and making hotel reservations. AT&T partnered with General Magic for its PersonalLink online service, and Motorola and Sony signed on to build Magic Cap PDAs in 1994. The future looked bright: there were even plans for Magic Cap-enabled interactive televisions. The permutations Magic Cap and Telescript could have been huge, but General Magic dropped the ball. The company repeatedly missed deadlines, angering investors. As Telescript hit repeated snags, AT&T's lead on its competitors slipped, and the fragile alliance of General Magic supporters started to crumble. As more and more people migrated from proprietary online services to the Web, Telescript lost its purpose. General Magic tried to pitch Telescript as a Web server add-on, but again, the product was late. Palm Computing drove the final nail in General Magic's coffin when its Palm OS became the industry standard operating system for PDAs, running Magic Cap out of the market. The prognosis General Magic is trying to reinvent itself with Portico (formerly code-named Serengeti), a "second-generation" digital assistant. Portico manages all your communications from a single interface. With one phone call, you can listen to your email, hear details about your day's schedule, manage contacts, and fax information to other people. It even synchs up with Microsoft Outlook or your PalmPilot over the Web. Microsoft recently took notice and signed a licensing deal with General Magic. Odds are, General Magic will ride Portico to respectability, but it already had its shot at the big time, and it missed. Take a tip from Melissa, guys--don't cry out loud.