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Jean-Louis Gassée Column

The First Be Shareholders Meeting May 31, 2000 Shareholder meetings can be very contentious or very boring. I've seen Al Eisenstat, Apple's veteran VP & General Counsel, face large audiences at Cupertino's Flint Center and masterfully talk down hecklers, or listen patiently to shareholders with a particular agenda. Executives and middle managers at these meetings were given the plum assignments of presenting motions on a cue from the chair: Do I hear a motion for... Other prosperous but not very visible companies hold their annual meeting in their offices. A few shareholders show up and the whole affair is over in minutes. It's true of many publicly traded companies that the most important events are earnings releases and conference calls with Wall Street analysts, not the annual congregation of shareholders. Be falls somewhere between these possibilities. There is shareholder interest in our technology and our product, but we don't require the same venue as a Yo-Yo Ma concert for our annual meeting. Fortunately, a mid-size facility was available near our offices, in Atherton's Holbrook Park. We tallied votes, elected directors, ratified the nomination of auditors, and that took care of the formal business part of the meeting. Then we reviewed Be's progress since the IPO and discussed our strategy. Finally, we demonstrated some of our current Internet appliances. As is true of other shareholder events I regularly attend, I felt that the demos were the real meat of the meeting. Although the formal process is important -- dealing with issues of corporate governance, who represents shareholders, and so on -- legal requirements make it quite dry. That is, unless real dissent exists among shareholders, or there is strife between shareholders and management. Legal requirements also temper the second part of the shareholders meeting. As much as we like to share our enthusiasm for the "everything connected, post-PC era" I often write about in this column, we have to tone down our statements. Our VP & General Counsel Dan Johnston must remind the audience of possible forward-looking statements at the beginning of the meeting and point to specific comments made during the session in a closing summary. It's less ponderous than it sounds, because attendees take these precautions with a benevolent smile. In any case, exercising caution is a small price to pay for staying on the side of the angels. This was a happy occasion for the Be team. We're looking forward to our next annual shareholder meeting, when we'll have another year of accomplishments to review.

Past Columns: March 7, 2001 Intemperance Makes the Suit Look Bad February 7, 2001 The Web Device of Choice at Home January 17, 2001 Transfer of Power December 6, 2000 One Step Closer November 15, 2000 Thoughts on Comdex 2000 November 1, 2000 Watching the Pendulum October 4, 2000 Plus çà change... September 6, 2000 Connected Appliances: A Field Report August 16, 2000 Sub-PC vs. Appliances July 12, 2000 The Victim Microsoft June 7, 2000 The Power of Words May 31, 2000 The First Be Shareholders Meeting May 24, 2000 Intellectual Property and Internet Appliances May 17, 2000 Spreading the Virus May 10, 2000 Numbers and Feedback May 3, 2000 Manufacturing Consent

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