Palm to Buy Handspring

liam193 writes "CBS MarketWatch is reporting that Palm has agreed to buy Handspring for $169M. If you were purchasing a PDA right now, would you choose Palm, Handspring, or avoid them entirely? I guess one of my concerns is that Handspring has some really cool features that Palm may want to keep. Any merger spells elimination of product lines. So what gets dropped? Palm which has probably a nicer "case" style or Handspring with its less desirable case but some features you don't find on Palms."

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it - what does Handspring bring to Palm? Certainly a couple of years ago they had nice features compared to the palms of the time, like expansion ports and such like, but now Palm has that too.

Re:Why?

[Netscurror]

Well, there's one competitor less, isn't that something?

Re:Why?

[jtrostel]

Palm regains Hawkins, Colligan (and Dubinsky?). They also get the treo product line, which is a nice, functional pda-cell-phone combo, that actually can last for a reasonable period of time.

The new treo 600 will include an expansion port, which was sadly missing on the earlier treo line. The battery size has been increased too, if early reports can be believed.

Uhhh...

[kikta]

"So what gets dropped? Palm which has probably a nicer "case" style or Handspring with its less desirable case but some features you don't find on Palms."

Wouldn't they most likely use the best features from both?

choose, but choose wisely....

[sweeney37]

If you were purchasing a PDA right now, would you choose Palm, Handspring, or avoid them entirely?

I would avoid both of them entirely, but not because of the sale, but because of the clunky design, smaller screen size, and general lack of innovation. With Handspring came along, it pushed Palm to adapt and made their products cheaper, and smaller. But overall both of their products we're basically the same. I mean how long did it take for Palm to develop USB functionality, even Handsprings came with it right out of the box?

Then the Palm OS market changed when Sony came along, they pulled the 6 Million Dollar Man on the competitors. They made their handheld, faster, smaller and added functionality the others were lacking. I did my research and at the time bought the Clie PEG-SL10 and I haven't looked back. Palm may of been one of the originators but Sony has been the innovator.

I think this sale is bad for everyone, competition always spurs more innovation.

Mike

Re:choose, but choose wisely....

[c13v3rm0nk3y]

I did my research and at the time bought the Clie PEG-SL10 and I haven't looked back.

I also did some research -- for over a year -- and decided on a Palm Tungsten T over anything from Sony. I never considered a PocketPC.

Although Sony did have some very cool features, they all failed the "hand test". As soon as I actually held one in my hand, it felt sort of flimsy and toy-like. I'm left-handed, and it utterly failed the "hold it in the other hand" test. The Tungsten T passed this test for me, and with flying colours.

Over the last few weeks, it has passed all my usability tests, as well. This is where the Sharp Zaurus failed for me; it passed the hand test nicely, but as soon as I used it for any length of time, it's value decrease to almost 0, and off to eBay it went.

Of course, my decision was really made for me this time 'round: I use a Mac at home, and Palm is the only company that really supports Mac OS X.

Re:choose, but choose wisely....

[Planesdragon]

Then the Palm OS market changed when Sony came along, they pulled the 6 Million Dollar Man on the competitors. They made their handheld, faster, smaller and added functionality the others were lacking. I did my research and at the time bought the Clie PEG-SL10 and I haven't looked back. Palm may of been one of the originators but Sony has been the innovator.

I've got a PEG-S360, and the headache of finding anything that works with it (like, oh, screen covers) has convinced me never to buy another Sony PDA.

Sure, the jog-dial is nice, but it doesn't make up for the absolute incompatability with anything of a "standard" palm shape. It wouldn't be so bad if Sony was consistent--but of the several Sony PDAs at the local stores, no two use the same form factor for anything more than the memory stick.

If I was purchasing a PDA right now, I'd pick up the new Zire from Palm. Form factor's just about right, the camera's nicely integrated, and it's got that spiffy five-way button thing.

(Yeah, and Sony has a few models with comparable features--for 150% - 300% of the cost.)

I think this sale is bad for everyone, competition always spurs more innovation.

Handspring hasn't really been competing for a few years now. Palm buying them is like AOL buying Time-Warner--the market will get a new big player, but it's not about to go away. (Heck, competition between Sony and "nuPalm" will be enough to spur innovation, even if every other Palm OS manufacturer went out of business.)

Elimination?

[thamaht]

A merger doesn't always mean elimination. In many cases there's actual merging.
I don't see why it has to be one or the other. Palm has been smart, and if they continue to be, the features of the Handspring will be added in to the next Palm Pilot revision.

Re:let's face it

[Drakonian]

Depends if you want to carry around a little computer or a PDA. No doubt that PPCs have more features, but they are considerably bigger and suck up the batteries much faster. I prefer PDAs as small as possible - I like the Palm V form factor.

This is good for Both - Like Apple

[StAugustineLovesYou]

This "is a good thing (tm)" for both companies. The major competition for the PalmOS platform is no longer Handspring, but the explosion of PocketPC based products. By consolidating, Palm will be able to avoid brand dilution, and put up a united front against Microsoft in the handheld market. This is very similar to the move Apple made a few years back to reign in the clones.

Returning to the fold?

[Malfourmed]

I don't pretent to know my PDA history but wasn't Handspring founded by the guys who created the Palm Pilot in the first place?

Doesn't this make the order of things something like:

1. Guys invent Palm Pilot
2. US Robotics buy out guys - guys make money
3. 3Com buys out US Robotics - guys make money
4. 3Com spins off Palm as separate company - guys make money
5. Guys leave Palm, undoubtedly with money, start up Handspring
6. Palm buys Handspring - guys make money

BTW I'm using the term "guys" generically, I think at least one of the key people was female.

Springboard

[Lxy]

I'm pissed that the springboard slot has been discontinued from Handspring models. I bought mine specifically because of the slot, and I've got several attachments for it. It's by far the most economical way to upgrade a PDA, and they scrapped it. My hope would be that Palm returns the Handspring slot, but I kind of doubt they will.

Re:let's face it

[Fringe]

Well, we have two ipaqs and two Palms. My daily driver is a Palm IIIc, a 20MHz 8MB 160x160 psuedo-antique, while the much newer, faster, hi-rez, 32MB iPaqs sit unused. (The wife has the Zire 71.)

The short answer is, I want what works best on the road for on-the-fly PDA functions. That's Palm. Not Linux, not WinCE, just Palm. And I say this as a developer for all three, whose current day-job is embedded Linux and who has done commercial WinCE work.

The same thing you like about Linux over Windows (excepting open-source, i.e. efficiency, lack of bloat), you dislike about Palm over Linux. It's a specialized system for a specialized purpose, and it works exceptionally well for that. One OS is not ideal for every platform and application!

Sitting on innovation

[eoinatstraylight]

It's a harsh reality, but with the patents palm aquired with buying handspring, they may just sit on them to ensure no competitors get to use them.

It's happened before, remember SyQuest? They made removable storage similar to the zip and Jaz drives, only theirs were virtually indestructable, and based on tried and tested winchester technology.

When SyQuest finally went titsup.com, its only competitor iOmega bought the patents, and they havn't seen the light of day since.

I'd hate to see another technically superior product get betamaxed by a large company.

Re:Sitting on innovation

[jht]

Indestructible? You must be thinking of some other company named SyQuest - because all the SyQuest drives I ever saw sucked big-time. Using Winchester technology in a cartridge with unreliable sealing technology was a recipe for disaster on a regular basis. Iomega Jaz drives were a little better, but not that much - their advantage was size and speed compared to SyQuest. Zip drive media was pretty good, though - it was the drives that were cheaply made and relatively unreliable.

The most reliable drives I ever remember seeing were the old Iomega Bernoulli drives. I used to have two of the 90 meg drives that I used to move files between home and work. So I usually had a couple of cartridges in my briefcase. One time, in a pinch I had to use a Bernoulli cartridge as an ice scraper on my car's windshield.

The cartridge did the job effectively. And I continued to use it for data afterwards.

Handspring doesn't bring much to the table compared to Palm in the patent area, I think. I suspect the purchase is more based on getting a complementary product line (the Treos), a low-end brand name less goofy than Zire, and a bunch of skilled hardware engineers.

A Special Kind of Moron You Are

[NDPTAL85]

Wow! They really broke the mold when they created you didn't they!?!

Listen up. The IT (tech) industry is the only industry thats designed to minimize and or eliminiate ITSELF. From the printing press to the cotton gin to the airplane to the computer to the PDA, each technological advance allows mankind to do the same amount of work or more with less people/workers/employees.

Simply put, Handspring is screwing up. They need to be bought or they're out of business. THe only reason to buy them is to gain marketshare and cut expenses. Whenever companies merge there are always redundancies. You don't even know if all of those 125 workers will be tech workers. But does a company really need duplicate anything? Do they need 8 office admins if they previously did fine with 4? Do they need two cooks if they only had 1 before? The same goes for programmers or netadmins. They don't need anymore of those.

Contrary to your idiotic claims there are NOT always alternatives to laying off people. If you are redundant, than you're redundant. Should they keep you on and pay you to sweep the floors instead of eliminating your position? Thats worse than unwise, its insulting.

Perhaps Hewlet-Packard should have just kept bleeding money. Because obviously executive pay always makes the difference. When a company is losing billions of dollars the millions paid out to the top brass REALLY makes a difference eh?

Do you think the technology industry is special or something? That workers in this industry are a special breed of citizen deserving of protections others do not receive? This is what happens to EVERY maturing industry. Consolidation and elimination of redundancies.

DEAL.

Re:So...

[buckhead_buddy]

Cool way to make profit. (1) Create successful company. (2) Leave company. (3) Create new company kinda like old company. (4) Sell new company to old comapny. (5) Repeat. Based on this scenario, I'd expect the next company to be named "Cash Cow". Or perhaps "Other Handspring".

No idea about handhelds, but for desktop OS's I think "NeXT would be a good name. :-)