ALAMEDA, Calif., Oct. 25, 1994 -- Geoworks (NASDAQ/NMS: GWRX) today
announced at the annual American Electronic Association meeting in
Monterey, Calif., that Brother International Corporation has selected the
compact, object-oriented GEOS operating system for a sophisticated new
family of information appliances.
According to Brother, this strategic partnership was formed with Geoworks
because the GEOS operating system can be easily and quickly customized to
fulfill Brother's strategy of establishing leading positions in multiple
international markets.
Brother is another in a growing list of leading worldwide original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to announce that it has adopted GEOS system
software for its consumer computing devices (CCDs). Among the others that
have adopted GEOS are Casio and Tandy for their personal digital
assistants, Sharp Electronics for its new PT-9000 personal information
assistant, and IBM EduQuest for its SchoolView family of PC products
designed specifically for K-12 education markets.
"Brother is targeting the rapidly growing high-end segment of the
information processing market that requires products rich in graphic
functions and are easily affordable to a broad cross-section of
consumers," said Gordon Mayer, Geoworks president and chief executive
officer. "GEOS is ideal for this type of consumer product as it provides a
unique combination of ease-of-use, high performance and low cost."
Geoworks is the first independent software vendor to supply Brother with a
graphical solution for its products. To date, Brother had developed its
own proprietary character-based system software. Along with the GEOS
operating system and flexible user interface, Geoworks is licensing a
suite of graphical applications to Brother.
"The market for information processing products is changing at an
incredibly rapid pace and we needed to align ourselves with a partner that
can help us get new, higher functionality products to market more
quickly," said Roger Nakagawa, sr. vice president, Brother International
Corp. "We evaluated numerous options and determined GEOS is the superior
solution."
For Geoworks, the alliance with Brother marks another major milestone in
its quest to establish GEOS as a leading operating system platform for
consumer computing devices such as mobile computers, smart phones and
interactive TV.
Establishing partnerships with the world s leading computer hardware
vendors, independent software developers, communication services providers
and mass market distributors is a primary component of Geoworks business
strategy. Geoworks is pleased that Brother has joined Geoworks as a
strategic partner.
To date, Geoworks has established relationships with America On-Line,
Canon Business Machines, Inc., Casio Computer Co., Ltd., CompuServe, Inc.,
IBM EduQuest, Motorola, Inc., Sharp Corporation, Tandy Corporation and
Toshiba Corporation. In addition, Hewlett-Packard Company and Novell,
Inc., recently made significant equity investments in the company.
Geoworks develops and markets operating system and application software
for the emerging consumer computing device (CCD) market. CCDs include
mobile devices, information appliances and set-top boxes for interactive
television
CONTACT:
Megan Manning
Copithorne & Bellows
(415) 975-2217
Deborah Dawson
Geoworks
(510) 814-5750
-- -Brian Smithson brian@grot.starconn.com