Hewlett-Packard Co and Novell Inc have each taken significant minority stakes in Geoworks Inc, the Berkeley, California developer of operating systems for small hand-held devices. Hewlett-Packard wants to popularise the concept by flooding the lower end of the market with various application-specific information appliances, using low-end iAPX-86 parts such as the 8086, so that the basic devices can cost under $300 apiece. Target markets include estate agents, doctors and nurses. Hewlett will manufacture the devices, and Novell will provide networking software, the idea being to minimise the intelligence needed in the handheld device and put it in the server.
