For five years, Jean-Louis Gassee has been Silicon Valley's mystery man.
Yesterday, he finally let the world see what he's been up to since he quit
Apple Computer in 1990 to start his own company.
At a conference in Arizona, the flamboyant Frenchman took the wraps off
the first product from Be Inc. Called the BeBox, it is a computer based on
not one but two PowerPC processors. It uses its own operating system, and
has a built-in database that lets users manage data.
The BeBox is just that -- a box that comes without a monitor, a keyboard
or other components found in today's multimedia computers. Although it can
be configured as a personal computer, it is designed mainly as the basic
system for running audio and video applications demanding huge amounts of
computing power.
Analysts who have seen the BeBox have come away impressed -- especially
by the operating system, which apparently is several steps ahead of
Microsoft Windows and Apple's Macintosh OS in its ability to handle many
tasks at once.
``This has the potential to be the OS for the next century,'' said Bruce
Ryon of Dataquest in San Jose. Tim Bajarin of San Jose's Creative Strategies
said the BeBox is ``the most impressive operating system-box match I've seen
so far. We could be seeing the birth of a new generation of systems.''
However, industry watchers say the BeBox only will be successful if
software developers embrace it. If not, it could wind up being another NeXT,
the sleek black computer designed by Apple co-
founder Steve Jobs that never took off.
``If they can't get the developer community behind them, they're dead,''
said Ryon. ``But the potential for them is pretty big if it could catch
on.''
In a statement, Gassee said his innovative system ``already has excited
developers and captured the imagination of our customers.''
Gassee seems to be positioning the BeBox for the graphics market, where
it could fit between personal computers that run on one PowerPC chip, and
workstations from companies such as Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems,
which use faster but more expensive processors.
``They're really taking a space that SGI can't come down to and the Mac
can't come up to,'' said Ryon. ``They're trying to hit the sweet spot in the
middle of that market.''
The basic BeBox system, including the motherboard and the operating
system, development tools software and cables, will go on sale this month
for $1,600. The company said a four-processor version and a portable model
are being developed, and that both the hardware and operating system will be
availble for licensing.
