The Osborne Encore was developed by Vadem Inc., a consulting company of Santa Clara, California, which offered the design to Osborne Computer Corp (OCC) for production. At that time, after launching the Osborne Executive, Osborne Corp. had serious financial problems. It was an MS-DOS based computer with a built-in modem. The keyboard had four 'icon' keys which called small programs located in ROM : the "phone" key called the communication software, the "clock" key called a calendar, the "disk" key booted the system and the "calculator" key called a small electronic calculator.