TMCnet News
San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Chris O'Brien column: Jerry Kaplan and the iPad of the '80s [San Jose Mercury News, Calif.](San Jose Mercury News (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 25--Jerry Kaplan pulled out a leather case about the size of a notebook and snapped open the cover to reveal a computer with a familiar look. It's flat, has no keyboard, and sports a sizable touch-screen. The iPad? Nope, not by about two decades. Let me reintroduce you to the PenPoint computer, developed by Go Corp. of Foster City in the late 1980s. Conceived by Kaplan and Mitch Kapor, the PenPoint ushered in several years of hysteria when Silicon Valley was in the grips of pen-based computing fever. (The touch-screens responded to dedicated "pens" rather than fingers.) Six years and $75 million in venture capital later, Go evaporated, and so did the pen computing movement. But while now largely forgotten, the concept left a trail that can be traced all the way to the introduction of the iPad earlier this year. If not 100 percent perfect, the Apple device has finally brought the tablet computing concept into the mainstream after decades of dreaming and tinkering by companies large and small. As I thought about this ancestral debt, I decided to track down Kaplan to get his take on the iPad era. I located him in San Mateo, where he is now CEO of Winster, a social gaming company he launched in 2004. When I finally met him in person, I found a wiry executive, now gray-haired, but extremely high-energy. At first, he was reticent about drawing comparisons between the iPad and the artifact he holds in his hand. "This device is not an early iPad," he said decisively. But he warmed to the topic and hit his stride, striking the theme that occurred to me: "There's no such thing as a new idea in Silicon Valley," Kaplan, 58, said. "Somebody had it before you. They're all built on each other. These ideas are constantly regenerated." Kaplan told the story of Go in a 1995 book: "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure." In the first few pages of "Startup," Kaplan recounts how he and Kapor, the wealthy founder of Lotus, conceived of the idea for the PenPoint during a cross-country flight in 1987. They were lamenting all the computing gear they were lugging around and all the scraps of paper they had used to jot down contacts and ideas. That led to some quick brainstorming: How small and thin could you make a portable computer? What about a flat panel with no keyboard? What if information was entered using a pen (or stylus)? A few months later, Kapor urged Kaplan to start a company to pursue the vision. Here's why Kaplan says the PenPoint was totally different from the iPad. The PenPoint was focused on data entry for business users, whereas the iPad is a consumption device that can take advantage of the wealth of content now available on the Internet. Back in the late 1980s, companies like State Farm wanted the PenPoint so employees could fill out forms in the field. And Kaplan envisioned high-powered business users wanting the $3,000 machine to organize their contacts. Yet looking past that, it's hard to miss the similarities. Go executives gleefully talked about liberating the portable computer from "keyboard bigots." They wanted to build a device so thin it was the size of a notebook that fit in your briefcase. And in the late 1980s, the Go team asked potential customers and investors to imagine the device one day being connected to a wireless network that would allow information to instantly be transferred back to the main office. You know, real science-fiction stuff. Kaplan's book recounts all sorts of corporate drama and intrigue that contributed to Go's failure. But ultimately, it was also done in by the limits of technology. The device's handwriting recognition wasn't up to snuff. And the components to build it made it pricey while offering little processing speed or memory for the cost. It was a concept ahead of its time. But in trying to counter Go, Apple eventually developed the Newton. And in the wake of that failure, the Palm Pilot was introduced, which briefly became a mass market success, though by being a far smaller device than the PenPoint. And Microsoft, which briefly tried to build its own product to compete with Go, abandoned those efforts for a while but eventually rolled out a tablet early last decade. Still, it was Apple that finally put all the pieces together with the iPad. What did it do right? Kaplan notes that the prices of the necessary components continued to drop, while their power rose over the ensuing decades. And, of course, there's the Internet and robust wireless networks. And this may be the most important lesson from comparing Go's PenPoint to the iPad: Success is about timing as much as having the right vision. "It's like surfing," Kaplan said. "There can be lots of people out there on their boards. But you have to be at just the right spot to catch the wave at the very top." As for Kaplan, Winster is his third startup and after a modest start, it's just raised $3 million in venture capital to expand. Previously, Kaplan started OnSale in 1994, an online auction site that launched before eBay. Egghead bought OnSale in 1999 for $400 million. After that, Kaplan said he briefly retired. But what's clear, through the wins and losses that span four decades, is that he remains addicted to being an entrepreneur. "I discovered a horrible truth," he said. "Retirement really sucks. You're not making a difference. "You've got to put yourself in a position to fail to feel alive." Contact Chris O'Brien at 415-298-0207 or [email protected]. Follow him at Twitter.com/sjcobrien and read his blog posts at www.siliconbeat.com. To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |