Hi, I hope this would be the final message on this whole merger of PDI and HW topics. Hope you find the following story useful. Once upon a time, there was an engineer who had a vision to enhance lives of others. He had a profound heart for people with disabilities, especially for those who are blind and visually impaired. Thus, he started a company in New Zealand in 1980's to promote a product that, according to his vision, would have made computers simple to operate. Thus KeySoft was born in 1986, and hence, his company, named PulseData came to life. In 1990's, with the boom in Internet and PC use, this engineer built a computer that was ahead of even some mainstream devices at that time. Although it was a humble device in the beginning, this computer proved to be a success in some circles and later donated its name and workings to a PDA that resembles its operations today: KeyNote series, and its PdA version known as Braille and KeyNote Companion, which in turn became basis for BrailleNote in 2000. Also in 1990's, PulseData expanded its reach to Americans and beyond, eventually partnering with a small company in California known as HumanWare, and making it its American distributor and hence forming PulseData HumanWare. In 2000, PulseData International (PDI), as the New Zealand company called itself, released BrailleNote family (back then, it was an older Classic). It was revolutionary at that time, using a well-known operating system present on some mainstream PDA's and having the ability to send and receive emails. Few years later, PDI's competetors introduced quite a few challengers to BrailleNote, including upgraded notetakers and brand new devices with different concept from that of KeySoft. This competition is still ongoing, although the focus is now shifting to wireless braille displays. As for the BrailleNote, it was upgraded as well, culminating in significant software upgrade after a leader in notetaking devices merged with a producer of talking book players up north in 2007 and revived an old name for the entire merger (PDI and Visuaide in Canada merged in 2007 shortly before the fall and renamed the entity to HumanWare Group). However, the rebirth party of HumanWare was short lived, as its founder, piloting an airplane, crashed and left this earthly realm. Then a New Zealander took over, but after a few years, the former head of Visuaide took over the company and relocated its headquarters to Canada, while announcing new products, upgrades and promotions. And this is the status of HumanWare today. I left out Jolimont Capital's investment story out of this picture to clarify which company was which and to clarify key events and dates only. Cheers, Joseph
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