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Jobs and OQO

Thursday June 6, 2002 2:03 pm PDT by Arnold Kim

This Business 2.0 article reveals that Jory Bell, founder of OQO, pitched his idea to Steve Jobs:

Within weeks of leaving his job at Apple Computer (AAPL) in 1999 -- as a lead developer for Apple's PowerBooks -- Jory Bell pitched his former boss, Steve Jobs, his killer idea: a portable PC slightly bigger than a deck of cards that would pack all the punch of a high-end laptop, cost less than $1,500, and give Apple a chance to license its operating system to a product that could render traditional handhelds like the Palm Pilot obsolete.

Jobs didn't go for it, so Bell, 34, went to find some investors who would. By this holiday season, his San Francisco-based startup, OQO, will begin selling his dream machine, called the Ultrapersonal computer.

Apple's take on this idea would have been interesting.

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