Sunnyvale, California-based General Magic Inc is to spin off its handheld products division as an independent company. Known as DataRover Mobile Systems Inc, the new company will focus on producing mobile computers for vertical market industries. When General Magic first went public in February 1995, its main business was handhelds, with the focus on its development of the Magic Cap operating system for personal digital assistants. But a year later the company was in financial trouble, and by February 1997 it had decided to refocus on network services. However, General Magic kept developing Magic Cap, and in December 1997 launched its first DataRover 840 handheld device, using a MIPS R3000 RISC chip and running Magic Cap 3.1. The 840 tablet computer, priced at $1,000, began shipping in February of this year, and was manufactured under an OEM agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co Ltd. It can send and receive emails and faxes, access the web via various wireless and landline connections, and tie in to information from back-end databases from Sybase Inc and Oracle Corp. Healthcare and utilities customers were among the first takers. A rapid application development kit for writing forms-based applications for the unit was also released in February. General Magic will retain a significant minority interest in DataRover, and contribute certain assets and technology rights. It will be run by Stephen Schramm, previously vice president and general manager of the DataRover division. Recently signed agreements have pushed the product into public safety and pharmaceutical verticals, the company said, and it promises a new collaborative partnering strategy. DataRover isn’t the first division to be spun-off by General Magic. Mountain View, California-based AltoCom Inc was formed in March 1997 to concentrate on General Magic’s software modem technology (CI No 3,114), which has most recently appeared bundled in with Philips Nino, Compaq C-Series and Samsung InfoMobile handhelds. General Magic itself will concentrate on the recently launched Portico virtual assistant integrated voice and data messaging service – previously known as Serengeti – which it is currently promoting via a high profile media advertising campaign. It will also continue the development of its magicTalk voice user interface platform. Portico currently uses speech recognition technology from Nuance Communications Inc. á
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