From: Alan Kay
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: Alan Kay to Join HP
One of the nice side benefits is that HP already does lots of open source stuff and was extremely supportive of keeping Viewpoints Research Institute (the nonprofit we set up after Disney) open and flourishing. Squeak and Croquet will always be open source. I think there is lots of potential in this new relationship.
Cheers,
Alan
At 4:53 AM -0500 11/26/02, Gary Fisher wrote:
Wow!
I can't think of any company or group of companies which has done more to get computing technology into the hands of people than HP/DEC/Compaq, nor a more appropriate setting for "The Future: Part Two" to move from ideaspace to reality. If you think the past ten years have been exciting, hang onto your hats -- the best part of the ride is just ahead!
Gary
From: William Cole
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 11:52 PM
Subject: Alan Kay to Join HP
November 26, 2002
A Computing Pioneer of the 1970's Joins Hewlett-Packard
By STEVE LOHR
Alan Kay, a personal computing innovator who was a leader of Xerox's pioneering Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970's, has joined Hewlett-Packard as a senior researcher.
His arrival at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, which the company is announcing today, comes at a time when the company is hoping that research can point to new markets in personal computing and give the company an edge against Dell Computer - the pacesetter in today's personal computer business and a company known more for operational excellence than product innovation.
Hiring Dr. Kay is an investment in Hewlett-Packard's innovation strategy. Throughout his career, Dr. Kay has worked on the design concepts and underlying technology to improve the interaction between people and computers. In the late 1960's, when computing was done on room-size mainframe computers, Dr. Kay described a concept computer he called the Dynabook. It would weigh little more than a book; rest on the user's lap; and come with a flat-panel screen, a keyboard and a stylus, since it would recognize
handwriting. It would communicate wirelessly.
The computer industry has been pursuing the Dynabook ever since. The recently introduced Tablet PC models, made by PC companies like Hewlett-Packard and running Microsoft software, is the latest entry.
At the Xerox research center, better known as PARC, Dr. Kay led the team that put a graphics-capable display, overlapping windows, icons and a point-and-click user interface into a working computer called the Alto. Apple's Macintosh and Microsoft's Windows are descendants of the Alto.
Dr. Kay and a few PARC colleagues, notably Dan Ingalls and Adele Goldberg, also developed Smalltalk, an influential programming language that uses blocks of code, known as objects, that are put together, like the cells that make up the human body, to build applications.
At Hewlett-Packard, Dr. Kay, who is 62, intends to continue pursuing his goal of improving the experience of computing. "The goal is to show what the next big relationship between people and computing is likely to be," Dr. Kay said in an interview.
The best way to do that, Dr. Kay explained, is to build prototypes that will "show ideas in motion."
"The trick for a person like me," he added, "is that you get people most excited by something that looks like a product. And I'm betting that some of it will be interesting to H.P."
With the PC business in the doldrums, many executives and analysts say they believe that the industry is entering maturity. Dr. Kay disagrees. Personal computing, he insisted, is "ripe for new markets - I don't think the real computing revolution has happened yet."
Dr. Kay declined to discuss his ideas precisely. Starting at Xerox PARC, he has focused on trying to make computing an engaging medium for play and learning, and he has often worked with children. After PARC, Dr. Kay held research positions at Atari, Apple and Disney, where his five-year contract ended in September 2001. Since then, he has worked mainly at a
nonprofit organization he helped found, the Viewpoints Research Institute, which seeks to find ways to use computing to improve education for children as well as their understanding of complex systems like software.
Since he left Disney, Dr. Kay has been approached by other technology companies besides Hewlett-Packard. But the person who recruited him at Hewlett-Packard, Patrick Scaglia, who heads Internet and computing platforms research, had studied under the same professor, Dave Evans, at the University of Utah, which was a wellspring of early computer graphics research.
"Ultimately, it comes down to the vibes and trust," Dr. Kay said of his decision to join Hewlett-Packard.
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