The year was 2000 and Google was getting into mobile devices. They titled their operating system ANDROID and wouldn't you know it needed a MIDI solution. My company SONiVOX (then called Sonic Network) was happy to oblige. We had been developing and licensing a highly customized embedded MIDI synthesizer with matching wavetables (sounds) for about 10 years, called EAS (Embedded Audio System). As mobile MIDI solutions were being replaced by MP3 playback we were looking for an exit strategy for the EAS. Therefore, when Google required the solution become open source we saw no problem with that and off it went. EAS still ships as the sole MIDI solution for Android devices today.
