Brian P. Dougherty (born 1956) is an American software developer and businessman best known as the founder and CEO of Berkeley Softworks (later GeoWorks Corporation), which produced the pioneering GEOS graphical operating system for the Commodore 64 in 1986 and the influential PC/GEOS operating system for the IBM PCs and compatibles in 1990.

While Dougherty was CEO of GeoWorks, he had been approached by several large technology companies including Microsoft and Apple because of the success of the GEOS operating system.

His first long-time success was a simple graphical user interface for the Commodore 64, 128, Plus/4 and Apple II platforms, dubbed GEOS.

[7][8] GEOS also included pre-installed software useful for desktop publishing or education: geoWrite, a text-editing and word processor application; geoDraw, a simple drawing program; geoPublish, a desktop publishing program made for producing multi-page documents such as newsletters; geoBASIC, the BASIC programming language with added extensions for graphic design; geoNET, a low-cost local area networking application used for educational environments that works with the C64 and C128 and allows Apple IIe computers to be networked with each other or with an IBM PC (allowing it to be used as a printing or file server); geoCalc, spreadsheet program for offices; geoProgrammer, a machine language development tool which provides programmers with an assembler, linker and debugger and reads directly from geoWrite files; and geoFile, a data-filling application in which information is organized and stored in forms.

Named geoRAM, it was created by the co-founder of Imagic Dave Durran, it was a 512k expansion unit that could upgrade a C64 to 576K of memory or a C128 to 640k.

At the price we sell our software we really can't afford to have 20 or 50 people in customer service answering the phones".

[8] With the help of Berkeley Softworks's interface-converter called geoCable allowed GEOS to work with multiple different types of printers such as the Apple LaserWriter.

The ability to print to high-end printers allowed GEOS to have a head start in the desktop publishing platform.

[1] Around the same time, GeoWorks had extensive discussions with Apple about developing a low-cost notebook computer which ran a modified version of PC/GEOS but with a Mac OS-styled UI.

[1] Dougherty accused the Java development team at Sun Microsystems for studying PC/GEOS and stealing some of its concepts to implement into Solaris.

In 1998, Dougherty and Nintendo of America alumnus Mark Bradlee founded GlobalPC Inc., a start-up manufacturer of Internet appliances.

The assets acquired by MyTurn would were being utilized to manufacture, distribute and sell the GlobalPC, an Internet appliance and easy-to-use computer intended for first-time users which was designed to be hooked up to a television for use.