Mountain View, California-based Eo Inc looks like beating Apple Computer Inc to market with a personal communicator: the company has formally launched its first two products, the Eo Personal Communicator 440 and 880, handheld devices with facsimile, electronic mail, cellular phone and personal computing capabilities. The 440 weighs 2.2 lbs, the 880 4 lbs; they are based on AT&T Co’s Hobbit RISC and the 440 runs at 20MHz, delivering two to three times the performance of a 20MHz 809386SL microprocessor. The EO 880 runs at 30MHz, delivering performance comparable to a 33MHz Intel 80486SX. They come with built-in messaging capabilities for exchanging electronic mail and fax messages. The PenPoint operating system and nine bundled applications are included in ROM. EO will first release the Personal Communicators in an extensive beta test programme beginning at the end of the year. The first test customers will include NBC TV stations, Aetna Life & Casualty and Levi Strauss & Co. As reported, all Eo users in the US will receive a free subscription to an AT&T EasyLink Services AT&T Mail electronic mailbox, accessible through an 800 number for sending and receiving electronic mail and faxes. They run for on batteries for up to four hours and an optional extended-life battery pack for the Eo 440 provides up to seven hours of continuous service. Batteries can be recharged in 90 minutes. The applications are for facsimile, electronic mail, note-taking, calculation, scheduling, and address book management. Word processing, spreadsheet and database applications in development. The 440 and feature a cellular-ready 14,400bps V.32bis data modem with up to 38,400bps throughput, and 9,600bps send-receive fax capability. They have built-in microphone and speaker for spoken annotation of forms, documents, meeting notes and diary appointments. The CellPhone connection is an optional extra. They have 4Mb or 8Mb, expandable to 12Mb, and an internal hard disk option is offered. A high-speed serial port and cable offers exchange of data with MS-DOS machines, and a parallel port supports printers or an external 1.44Mb floppy drive. There is a communications port for optional cellular and other wireless modules, and a type 2 PCMCIA slot (two in the EO 880) for future expansion. The Eo 880 has a VGA and an SCSI II port for connecting external drives. Volume is set for second quarter 1993. The 440 with 4Mb is $2,000; with 4Mb and internal modem it’s $2,500. The 880 with 8Mb and modem is $3,300; the cellular phone option is $800. The 440 will later take a 20Mb and the 880 a 64Mb disk, not yet priced. Eo has also signed with Sun Microsystems Inc’s Sitka Corp to bundle Sitka’s mobile networking products in the machines: Sitka’s PenTOPS and PenCentral products will give access to all network resources, including shared files, network printers, CD-ROM, and network applications, such as corporate databases and groupware, Sitka notes.
