History
For many years, Dr. Gerpheide and Mr. O'Callaghan traveled in an attempt to convince makers of notebook computer to agree to use GlidePoint. Dr. Gerpheide recalls "We would often drive to the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas and stay in a seedy hotel. There wasn't money for a booth at the show, so we carried our GlidePoint prototypes around the convention center making demonstrations to whoever was willing to watch. The early prototypes had a suitcase full of electronic circuits. I knew they could be shrunk into an integrated circuit, but we didn't have money for that either. So we were seeking a large leap of faith for a manufacturer to agree to use the technology. It was even worse because at that time most notebook computers were running DOS, which did not need a pointing device!"
In April 1994, Cirque adapted GlidePoint into an integrated circuit and began selling a retail GlidePoint touchpad. The first notebook computer containing GlidePoint appeared soon thereafter. GlidePoint technology was licensed to Alps Electric Corporation LTD, and ALPS launched touchpad products into the market.
Decisions to align itself so close to one OEM, ALPS Electric Corporation, of Japan, prevented the management team to effectively capitalize the company through an IPO, and resulted in the company being purchased at an undervaluation by ALPS in 2003, rendering the original innovator of touch technology to a secondary technology provider.
Read more about this topic: Cirque Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)