Launching a new operating system for PCs in a world dominated by Windows might seem a sure-fire way to lose money but Be Inc has one enthusiastic supporter – Microsoft Corp boss Bill Gates. When he faced a grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Gates was happy to cite Be Inc as one of the competitors threatening his organization. Of course, Microsoft enjoys the same symbiotic relationship with Be and Apple Computer Inc that a shark does with the shoals of tiny fish that nibble the odd morsels of food from between its teeth – it doesn’t eat them because they help to keep it healthy. And Jean-Louis Gassee, chairman and CEO of the Menlo Park, California company, does not take Gates’ endorsement as any indication that Be poses any threat whatsoever to Windows. In his weekly column in the French daily Liberation, he points out that privately-owned Be has just raised a $25m round of funding from investors. He poses the rhetorical question: Are we to believe for an instant that these professionals would have agreed to invest or to find investors if our project had been presented as an alternative, a competitor, to Microsoft?
By Brian White
Indeed, Be is currently pushing its OS for Intel platforms with a warning for those tempted to pay $99.95 ($69.95 for a limited period) with a warning. This release is still definitely for ‘geeks, enthusiasts and the curious’ only. It’s fast and it’s stable, but it is not yet a complete OS supporting most popular hardware with hundreds of commercial- quality applications (although that’s where we aim to be in the future). Gassee compares Be with Linux and sees a future where enthusiasts bring up their PCs with a boot manager and then switch to the most suitable OS for the applications they plan to run. Though the Be web site lists some 600 applications that can be run under BeOS, there is a lack of familiar names on the list though Be has said the number of applications should really begin to build up by the third quarter of this year. It said it will concentrate on multimedia applications for the home enthusiast market, such as amateur musicians and real-time video editing for home videographers and local television (CI No 3343). Technically, Be boasts that its pervasive multithreading architecture gives it a big advantage over competitors. And while it claims no ambitions to compete with Windows, a Windows emulator is rumored to be in the pipeline (though it will have to be a lot faster than that offered by Apple to be of any practical use.) But what gives Be a sudden credibility is not Gates’ endorsement, as he has an obvious motive to make it appear that the Windows monopoly is facing serious threats, it is the appearance of Intel Corp as a rumored participant in Be’s recent $25m round of funding that suggests that Be has a future (CI No 3377). An all-purpose OS like Windows may well be a drag on Intel’s ambitions to move into high-end applications while BeOS may just possibly be the vehicle to take it into profitable new niches.
