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Jean-Louis Gassée was born March 1944 in Paris, France. He was an executive at Apple Computer from 1981-1990. He is most famous for founding Be Incorporated, creators of the BeOS computer operating system.
History
Gassée worked for Hewlett Packard , and was later head-hunted to start Apple Computer's French subsidiary, and moved on to work as lead of product development. In 1990 he quit Apple to start Be Inc., which developed and released the media operating system BeOS. Famously, Apple Computer offered to buy Be Inc. in 1996 for $125 million, however Gassée demanded $200 million which was a price Apple found outrageous. Instead Apple went on to purchase NeXTSTEP and reacquired Steve Jobs in the process. Be was eventually sold for $11 million to Palm, Inc. in August 2001. BeOS had gained a cult following, but the company was never financally viable. Projects to recreate or update BeOS such as Haiku and YellowTAB Zeta attest to the popularity of Gassée's failed venture.
Gassée left Palm Inc. in January 2002, since then he served briefly as President and CEO of Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATC) and is now a General Partner at Allegis Capital, a venture fund in Palo Alto, California. Since November 2004 he is chairman of PalmSource, Inc..de:Jean-Louis Gassée fr:Jean-Louis Gassée it:Jean-Louis Gassée pt:Jean-Louis Gassée fi:Jean-Louis Gassée Template:Wikiquote