eShop Inc. (formerly known as Ink Development Corporation) was an American computer software company founded on May 10, 1991. It was originally founded in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame, California, Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough, California, Hillsboro ...

in 1991 to develop products for

Go Corporation GO Corporation was founded in 1987 to create portable computers, an operating system, and software with a pen-based user interface. It was famous not only for its pioneering work in Pen-based computing but as well as being one of the most well- ...

PenPoint The PenPoint OS was a product of GO Corporation and was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants. It ran on AT&T Corporation's EO Personal Communicator as well as a number o ...

operating system. In later years, it developed software for the

Windows for Pen Computing Windows for Pen Computing is a software suite for Windows 3.1x, that Microsoft designed to incorporate pen computing capabilities into the Windows operating environment. Windows for Pen Computing was the second major pen computing platform for x ...

and

Magic Cap Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued object-oriented operating system for PDAs developed by General Magic. Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on Magic ...

platforms. In 1993, it was renamed to eShop Inc. and developed electronic commerce software, focusing primarily on the "business-to-consumer" marketplace. eShop Inc. launched eShop Plaza on November 7, 1995, which included stores from online merchants. eShop was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

on June 11, 1996 for less than $50 million and eShop's technologies were integrated into

Microsoft Merchant Server Microsoft Merchant Server, released in October 1996,Merchant Server 1.0 ann ...

.Microsoft Acquires eShop
(press release){{Cite web, url=http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/Thomson_M&A/Microsoft_Corp_acquires_eShop_Inc-558953020, title=Microsoft Corp acquires eShop Inc (1996/06/11) - Thomson Financial Mergers & Acquisitions - AlacraStore.com, date=2009-08-03, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090803105753/http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/Thomson_M&A/Microsoft_Corp_acquires_eShop_Inc-558953020, access-date=2018-09-13, archive-date=2009-08-03

Pierre Omidyar Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 199 ...

, one of the founders of eShop, earned over $1 million from the deal and later founded

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

References

External links

"IBM, Microsoft do some power shopping"
article on CNET Software companies established in 1991 Microsoft acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States Software companies disestablished in 1996 1991 establishments in California 1996 disestablishments in California 1996 mergers and acquisitions Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area American companies established in 1991 American companies disestablished in 1996