A contemporary history of vision, betrayal and the birth of the mobile internet
By Dr Theodor Heutschi
Prologue: The Snow of Helsinki
The winter of 2000 in Finland was particularly harsh. When Theodor Heutschi and his engineer Orest Goricanec landed at Helsinki Airport, snowfall had already brought all air traffic to a standstill. Long delays. Darkness. Freezing cold.
The two Swiss pioneers – one with a doctorate in diffusion theory, the other an engineer from Bellinzona – had nothing but a suitcase full of dreams and a working prototype device called Voyager. A device that was described in the patent application of 26 February 1998 as an ‘Electronic Device, Preferably an Electronic Book’ [1], but was in fact much more: a tablet computer with a touchscreen, mobile internet, GPS, Bluetooth, voice control and a virtual retinal display for 3D images directly onto the retina [1][2].
When they finally reached their hotel, they found themselves standing in front of locked doors. The night porter had already gone home. The two men stood in the Finnish winter for thirty minutes, calling in vain, until someone finally opened the door. They were exhausted, unprepared – and were due to face one of the most powerful technology companies in the world the next morning.
Chapter 1: The blueprint from Switzerland (1998 - 2000)
While Google was being founded in California and Steve Jobs was taking his first steps towards returning to Apple with the iMac G3 in Cupertino, Theodor Heutschi was working on something in Switzerland that would be a decade ahead of its time.
His patent US 6,335,678 B1, filed in February 1998 and published in January 2002, described a device with a hyprid-touchscreen (capacitive and resistive) just 1–3 cm thick that could display an entire book page on a screen [1]. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The patent covered:
Heutschi named his company MONEC Mobile Network Computing AG – founded in Bern in 1999 – and christened the device Voyager. It was not an e-book reader. It was not a PDA. It was not a mobile phone. It was all of these things combined, years before the term ‘smartphone’ was invented.
"Ten years before the Kindle and iPad", As later described on his website, Heutschi had drawn up the blueprint for the mobile age [4].
Chapter 2: The Birth of the Group (2000)
In 2000, Heutschi underwent a strategic transformation. MONEC Mobile Network Computing AG became MONEC Holding AG – a modern corporate structure with a clear division of responsibilities [5]:
| Tochergesellschaft | Funktion | Ziel |
|
MONEC Management AG |
Distribution / Marketing |
B2B & B2C Strategy and Sales |
| MONEC Produktion AG | Manufacturing Tablet Computer | Scalable production in Switzerland, Asia and USA |
| MONEC Forschung & Entwicklung AG | Technical Advancement | Innovation boost for Generation 2.0 |
| SOHARD AG | Software-Development | Operating System optimisation, Apps, Cloud-Services |
Sohard AG was a strategic acquisition: an established Swiss software company that was intended to bridge the technological gap between hardware and software. Heutschi did not build a start-up – he built a corporation that would take the Voyager from prototype to mass production.
The vision was clear: mobile internet would only take off once it reached a critical mass of 25–27% market share – a finding from Heutschi's doctoral thesis that would later influence the go-to-market strategies of Apple and Google [4].
Chapter 3: The meeting of the titans – and their blindness (2000)
The conference room at Nokia headquarters in Espoo was modern, bright and impersonal. Six Nokia managers sat on one side of the table, with Heutschi and Goricanec on the other, still bearing the marks of their night-time odyssey through the snowstorm.
Heutschi presented the Voyager. He demonstrated the touchscreen interface, the icon-based operation, the ability to download books, newspapers and stock market data directly. He spoke of critical masses, of diffusion theory, of how mobile services would only take off once they had achieved a market share of 25–27%.
The Nokia managers listened. They smiled. Smugly.
And then they said the words that would go down in the history of technology:
"This is a niche product. Perhaps a few tens of thousands of devices per year. We are focusing on the mass market."
Heutschi opposed them. He told them that there was no way around this device, that this was the future. The six Nokia managers laughed at him [6].
At the end of the meeting, they asked if they could keep one of the devices. Heutschi said no. Proudly. Or perhaps intuitively. He sensed that these people did not deserve his idea.
What he didn't know was that these six managers represented a company that at that time controlled 32% of the global mobile phone market, employed 60,289 people and accounted for 4% of Finland's GDP [7]. A company that, in its arrogance, believed that ‘connecting people’ was enough to secure its future. A company whose culture was later described by employees as ‘temperamental’ and ‘fearful,’ where bad news was not allowed to reach the top because top managers shouted ‘at the top of their lungs’ [8].
Nokia did not see the Voyager. They only saw their own dominance.
But they did not forget it either. The idea of a webpad – a tablet with internet access – remained in their minds. And Nokia was a company that sought partnerships to fill gaps.
Chapter 4: Nokia's Secret Partnership (2000 - 2009)
The rejection of the Voyager 2000 was not the end of Nokia's tablet ambitions. On the contrary, it marked the beginning of a decades-long search for the perfect webpad – always in partnership with the only company that had reasonably suitable software: Microsoft.
| Jahr | Entwicklung | Details |
|
2000 |
Rejection Voyager |
Heutschis Concept dismissed as a niche market |
| 2001 | Microsoft Tablet PC Launch | Bill Gates announces stylus-based tablets, without internet, without telephone [9] |
| 2005 | Nokia 770 Internet Tablet | Linux-based, without telephone, commercial failure [10] |
| 2007 | Nokia N800 / N810 | Further development with Maemo OS, still without telephone [10] |
| 2009 | Noika Webpad with Microsoft | Secret project, discontinued before market launch [11][12] |
The irony was perfect: Nokia, which rejected Heutschi's Voyager in 2000 because it was ‘too early’ and ‘too complex’, was working nine years later with the very partner Heutschi had used for his device: Microsoft.
The secret Nokia webpad from 2009, which never appeared, had:
It was as if Nokia and Microsoft had copied Heutschi's blueprint – but without the courage to implement it. The project was discontinued before it reached the market [11][12].
Chapter 5: The birthday party that changed everything (2002)
The 50th birthday of a Microsoft engineer. A party in Silicon Valley. The husband of a friend of Laurene Powell, Steve Jobs' wife. Jobs went reluctantly – he hated such social obligations [13][14].
There he met the Microsoft engineer. A man who – proud of his work – told Jobs about Microsoft's tablet PC initiative. Again and again. He had already told Jobs about it ten times, Jobs later told Walter Isaacson. And each time, he told him how Microsoft would change the world, how notebooks would disappear, how Apple should license Microsoft's software [13][14].
But the engineer made a crucial mistake – from Jobs' perspective:
"He designed the device completely incorrectly. It had a pen. Once you have a pen, you're finished. [13][14]
Jobs came home. Angry. Annoyed. And said to his wife:
"Screw it, we'll show him what a tablet can really do." [13][14]
The next day, Jobs went to his team and said, "I want to make a tablet, and it must not have a keyboard or a stylus." [13][15]
Admirable foresight: Heutschi's 1999 Voyager already featured a tablet with a functional hybrid touchscreen that could be operated with the fingers or optionally with a stylus (capacitive and resistive).
The connection to Heutschi: The Microsoft engineer who annoyed Jobs so much was influenced by that presentation in Helsinki two years earlier. By those six Nokia managers who rejected Heutschi's Voyager but couldn't forget the idea of a webpad. By the collaboration between Nokia and Microsoft, which in 2009 actually developed a webpad with a stylus – a device that never made it to market [11][12].
History is not a straight line. It is a tangle of missed opportunities, proud engineers and chance encounters.
Chapter 6: The Exodus (2001 - 2002)
The New Economy bubble burst in March 2000. By July 2002, the markets had wiped out seven trillion dollars in assets [16]. Credit Suisse, until then a proud investor in MONEC Holding, found itself in the most serious crisis in its history.
John Mack, the new CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston, was faced with a disaster in 2001:
"Brian, I've got the biggest, most fucked-up company in the world right here" [17]
The losses were catastrophic: CHF -1.0 billion in 2001, CHF -1.2 billion in 2002. Credit Suisse First Boston had to cut 1,900 jobs [18]. Venture capital for tech start-ups – such as MONEC Holding – was frozen.
Heutschi was faced with an impossible choice: without fresh capital, the Voyager could not go into series production. The production subsidiary was at a standstill, R&D was running on a shoestring, and the Sohard subsidiary was burning through cash.
Then a private financier entered the picture. A former manager at Credit Suisse, he was already a private shareholder in MONEC and a shareholder through his company Bern Venture. The financier offered to take over Heutschi's share package with MONEC Holding AG and all its subsidiaries.
In 2002, Heutschi sold his shares. He left the company he had founded. The Voyager remained behind – unfinished, misunderstood, in the hands of a banker.
Chapter 7: The liquidation of Vision (2002 -2004)
What happened under the investor was not a continuation of the vision, but its dissolution:
| Year | Event | Significance |
|
2002 |
Takeover by the financier |
Transition from inventor to finacial investor |
| 2003 - 2004 | Liquidation of all subsidiaries | Production, R&D, everything closed, Soahard AG was sold |
| Ab 2004 | MONEC Holding AG as a pure patent holding company | No employees, no products, only patents |
The financier had no intention of building the Voyager. He did not see Heutschi's invention as the future of mobile internet, but rather as a legal asset to be exploited. The subsidiaries that Heutschi had worked so hard to build up were wound up. The engineers were dismissed. The production facilities were closed.
What remained was an empty shell: a Swiss letterbox with a portfolio of international patents – including the fundamental US 6,335,678 B1, which Heutschi had invented ten years earlier.
However, this case should be worth millions. Not because of the product, but because of its legal action potential.
Chapter 8: The Battle for Priority (2009 - 2012)
The breakthrough: licence agreement with HP (March 2009)
Noch bevor Apple auf dem Radar erschien, gelang MONEC Holding AG ein erster strategischer Erfolg. Im März 2009 schloss Hans Ulrich Müller einen weltweiten Lizenzvertrag mit Hewlett-Packard (HP) ab [29]. HP, einer der größten Computerhersteller der Welt mit tiefer Expertise in Druckern und mobilen Geräten, erkannte die Validität und den Wert von Heutschis Patenten an - ohne Gerichtsprozess, ohne öffentliche Auseinandersetzung.
Der Jahresbericht anlässlich der ordentlichen Generalversammlung der MONEC Holding AG vom 10. Mai 2009 belegt: Der Vergleich mit Apple im Dezember 2009 resultierte in einem weltweiten Lizenzvertrag für alle Apple-Produkte [29][30]. Nicht eine einmalige Zahlung, nicht ein Schweigegeld, sondern eine umfassende Lizenzierung – die implizite Anerkennung, dass Heutschis Patente das mobile Ökosystem von Apple durchdrangen.
Die Bedeutung:
| Aspekt | Interpretation |
|
Weltweite Geltung |
Apple akzeptierte die Patente in allen Märkten |
| Alle Produkte | iPhone, iPad, iPod touch - das gesamte mobile Portfolio |
| Lizenz, nicht Kauf | Dauerhafte Anerkennung der IP, nicht nur Prozessbeendigung |
"MONEC fails to explain how Defendants 'would have obtained' selective knowledge of a specific patent in a specific case"
Der Kontrast ist aufschlussreich: HP und Apple erkannten den Wert der Patente freiwillig an. Motorola, Samsung und HTC verweigerten diese Anerkennung, und MONECs rechtliche Strategie war zu schwach, um sie zu zwingen.
| Prinzip | Heutschis Vision | Banker Realität |
|
Zweck |
Produkt für die Menschheit |
Geld durch Klagen |
| Mittel | Ingenieure, Produktion, Forschung | Anwälte, Gerichte, Drohkulisse |
| Wertschöpfung | Technologie, Arbeitsplätze, Fortschritt | Schadenersatz, Lizenzgebühren, Vergleiche |
| Risiko | Unternehmerisches Engagement | Kein Risiko, nur Rechtskosten |
Epilog: Der stille Pionier
Heute, über zwei Jahrzehnte nach dem Schneesturm von Helsinki, bleibt das Fazit:
Die Patente überlebten. US 6,335,678 B1 wurde in über 165 späteren Patenten zitiert – darunter von Apple, Samsung, Sony – als "fundamental prior art" [4]. Die Blaupause, die ich 1998 zeichnete, ist in jedem iPad, jedem Kindle, jedem Smartphone wiederzuerkennen.
Das Produkt starb. Der Voyager wurde nie gebaut. Nicht weil es technisch unmöglich war. Nicht weil niemand es wollte. Sondern weil Nokia 2000 zu arrogant war, um es zu sehen – und weil meine Nachfolger 2004 zu gierig waren, um es zu bauen.
Der Erfinder wurde zum Zeitzeugen. Ich bin nicht der Milliardär, der aus dem mobilen Internet ein Vermögen machte. Ich bin der Schweizer Doktor, der im Schnee von Helsinki vor verschlossenen Türen stand, während sechs Nokia-Manager lachten.
Aber ich bin auch der Mann, der Nein sagte, als sie mein Gerät haben wollten. Der Mann, der seine Patente nicht hergab, als Apple sie zerstören wollte. Der Mann, der heute zutiefst verurteilt, was aus seiner Firma wurde - aber stolz ist auf das, was er erschuf.
Der Voyager flog nie. Aber seine Idee umkreist die Welt.
Und die Geschichte erinnert sich vielleicht doch einmal daran, wer der wahre Erfinder war.
Quellenverzeichnis
Primärquellen (Eigene Dokumente und Zeugnisse)