Start-up Diba lures big fish with new IDEAs

Electronic News, July 8, 1996 by Cynthia Bournellis

Belmont, Calif.--The pool table in the kitchen at Diba, Inc. is a significant symbol. It is a gift to the engineers as a result, and a reminder, of the company's new million-dollar contract with a major Korean manufacturer.

That contract, which will be announced mid-month, may be Diba's largest, but it is not its first. The creator of software for information appliances landed its first big fish in May. Zenith Electronics Corp. will ship televisions based on Diba's IDEAs (Interactive Digital Electronic Appliances) hardware reference platform this Christmas.

At a retail price of $999, Zenith's NetVision TV will let viewers surf the Internet and perform E-mail. Also based on IDEAs, Zenith will market a 35-inch TV, called Inteq. Inteq is a home theater TV, which will retail for more than $3,000.

Diba was an ideal partner for Zenith, because of the company's technology and cost-effective approach for simple Web browsing and superb graphics, according to John Taylor, a Zenith VP. Diba's scan conversion capabilities create high-resolution graphics on a standard definition picture tube. Zenith is talking to a number of chip companies that will supply processors.

The concept of an Internet TV is what got Diba co-founders Farid Dibachi and Farzad Dibachi's blood pumping. That and their lack of enthusiasm over designs they were developing for Oracle's Network Computer. "We got started because Farzad got sick and tired of working for Larry Ellison," said Farid of Oracle's CEO.

Farzad spearheaded Oracle's New Media division. He recruited his brother Farid, who was then running Wavetron Microsystems, Inc., a multimedia hardware company, to work on the NC. They both quit last October to start Diba.

Diba started out developing software for a TV Web browser. But the engineering team soon realized that the product lacked a specific underlying technology. It needed software that had a very small footprint. "What we needed was a compact yet capable application foundation. And we wanted something more than just an operating system," said Farid.

So the Dibachis tried to buy the technology elsewhere and approached a number of companies. However, they failed to strike any deals. "They (companies) either didn't have the right products or business models," said Farid. Part of the problem was in finding technology that would deliver decent computer graphics and text on a television.

In their desperation, Diba turned their search into an opportunity and created the technology in-house. "It became our focus to solve the TV problem, but more importantly to solve this application foundation problem. We essentially wanted an OS that could serve as the heart of a class of devices we called information appliances," said Farid.

Other Diba-based devices include a compact kitchen appliance for storing recipes and nutritional information and an E-mail/phone appliance that has an optional thermal printer. These systems, which look like something out of the classic Jetsons cartoon series, are expected to retail between $300 and $600. Cost of production will range between $150 and $300 depending on the appliance. The devices' semiconductor components will consist of flash memory, a CPU, DRAM, Ethernet and modem chipsets and graphics and audio chips. PCMCIA cards, CD-ROM drives or SmartCards can be added.

While Diba has partnerships with semiconductor suppliers Cirrus Logic, Rockwell and Motorola (Motorola will supply its embedded 68000 family to OEMs), other chip companies are beating a path to Diba's door. Intel just had its 10th discussion with Diba; no done deals yet. Diba also approached a major semiconductor company in Sunnyvale, Calif., to whom Farid proposed to buy three chip devices, minus the memory, for $150. "Even if I don't save money on the chip itself, I'll save a hell of a lot of money on just slapping it on the board," he explained.

S3 and C-Cube Microsystems Corp. are also possible contenders. "The chip guys are difficult, because they think the PC rules," said Farid. 'This way of thinking is bogus...there are 5 billion people in the world with only 150 million PCs. Chip companies don't understand the importance of a new class of devices. They need to realize that therein lies an opportunity for them to integrate different pieces of hardware technology, in the form of discreet elements, right now."

The IDEAs architecture consists of four layers: hardware modules, application foundation, application and a plastic enclosure. A set of hardware modules matches various processors with different memory arrangements and different connectivity and output options. Every module consists of a combination of hardware components, logic interface designs and external device drivers. The application foundation is a thin layer of software designed to interface between the hardware and other applications.

But it is the plastic enclosure that Diba is counting on to hook consumers and jump-start revenues. Diba commissioned designer Bob Brunner, formerly head of industrial design at Apple Computer, to create the kitchen, mail and Internet designs.