Turns out that all the speculation over the identity of the major European company to join the list of backers of Eo Inc, the developer of the Eo 440 and 880 personal communicators, next week (CI No 2,116) was wide of the mark, and that the company is Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA. Eo builds its communicators around AT&T Co’s Hobbit RISC chip, and is also backed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Marubeni Corp as shareholders. Olivetti’s decision comes despite the fact that it is the controlling shareholder in Acorn Computer Group Plc, originator of the ARM RISC now owned by its Advanced RISC Machines affiliate. The ARM RISC is the chip used by Apple Computer Inc in its Newton Personal Digital Assistant.
