Slashdot Mirror
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."
they have Hand in the Palm of their Hand?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I have an m125 and love it. Simple, functional, reliable. Now with this, hopefully I get a cell phone/all-in-one with all the goodness of a Palm!
KARMA TAG! You're it.
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.
Wouldn't they most likely use the best features from both?
I use my PDA mainly as an e-book reader. Unlike Palm, Clie has this cool scrolling wheel, which makes all the difference for me. A perfect example of a small innovation that can (and should) mean big bucks for the company.
Yahoo is carrying an article , too.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
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
My guess: Handspring - Phone/Palm Combo
Palm - Normal PDA
Handspring / Palm - low cost entry... Not sure which one probably will end up to be Palm.
Newsfollow.com
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.
Doesn't anyone remember that Handspring was a Palm spin-off? Was this all just a bunch of chess moves? Did Handspring ever intend to become a viable player, and if so, why give up now?
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
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.
Random is the New Order.
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.
Help me become a Porn Star Guru
That depends on what you want from your PDA. I got a Palm M515 for under $200 recently. It's great and does everything I need. Some people seem to want to use their PDA as a laptop replacement, in which case it probably wouldn't suit their needs. Personally I prefer using my laptop for those kinds of things because it has reasonably sized screen and something that resembles a real keyboard.
I have the Palma Sutra program. It's definitely a worthy investment. Great way to kick your crotch into high gear. Never tried it with a love doll though.
No, it wasn't a Palm spin-off. It was two of the founders of Palm, who got shuffled out after Palm was bought by 3Com, starting their own company.
I'm going to miss Handspring - I still have and use my Visor Deluxe daily, although the screen's starting to go and it'll have to be replaced soon. I refuse, however, to give in to farting around with those damn thumboards on the Treos. Looks like it may be a Sony for me, or just go PocketPC.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
So what gets dropped
:-/
Half of the staff.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Um... no. Handspring was created by Jeff Hawkins (the designer and creator of the original Pilot/PalmPilot), Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan. The Original Three Founders of Palm left that comnpany because 3Com refused to spin off Palm as a separate entity. About a year later, Palm decided to do just that.... Hopefully now, Hawkins will come back into the fold and knock some sense into the gaggle of executives that Palm has acquired over the years...
I'd buy a Zaurus.
This post is dedicated to all of those
Doesn't this make the order of things something like:
- Guys invent Palm Pilot
- US Robotics buy out guys - guys make money
- 3Com buys out US Robotics - guys make money
- 3Com spins off Palm as separate company - guys make money
- Guys leave Palm, undoubtedly with money, start up Handspring
- 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.a world in progress...
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.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
"Palm Springs For Sale"
There's a way to freak out about a gazillion old folks...
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!
Palm can provide the upper-class business models (read: expensive, primarily PIM functions, long battery life, sleek design) and sell low-cost models under the Handspring brand (e.g. for students, young adults etc.).
:)
Maybe even Handspring products will focus on multimedia capabilites, personally I think Palm never really quite managed to score in that area.
But then again, things could remain the way they are
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
...I'd probably get a Sony CLIE, because they have the biggest screen.
As it is, I see no reason to upgrade from my old Palm V. Which, I think, is the problem--Palm really hasn't come up with anything compelling.
However, perhaps BIGGER SCREEN the merged company might BIGGER SCREEN be able BIGGER SCREEN to work out BIGGER SCREEN something that BIGGER SCREEN would encourage people BIGGER SCREEN to upgrade?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
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.
The only difference here is that Handspring is DEAD. I see this more as a nice gesture to Hawkins than anything else. I think Palm wants him back. Palm is starting to get the dillution you speak of from Sony. Clie sales have been on the rise for 6 months straight and should rise even more as prices go down and features go up. Right now The NZ90 is the single most useful all in one device with GREAT integration that I have EVER seen.
The iPaq has also made a huge dent in sales of Palms. Handspring hasn't been a player for more than a year.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Nothing really. Handspring decided to end production of the Visor last year IIRC. The Treo line (smartphones) is what Handspring has been focusing on.
The only overlapping products from these two companies are the Treo 90 (the only non-smartphone PDA in Handspring current product line) and the Tungsten W (the only smartphone from Palm Inc). Both of them are OS 4.1 devices and should reach EOL by the time the merger completes.
As a longtime PalmOS user and a PalmOS developer, I think this is probably a good thing. Palm was just beginning to start producing devices that were for the same market as the new Handspring devices.
Handspring was no longer for me -- they are focusing on devices with wireless connectivity and thumbboards. But it's a style some people like. This gives Palm a wide variety of handhelds, probably a wider variety than anyone else.
This will also pretty much make the competition for PalmOS devices Palm and Sony. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it might not be too bad. Sony is concentrating on PalmOS with multimedia extensions, Palm is concentrating on PalmOS in small, extremely functional devices. There's a lot to be said for both.
My last buy was a Sony NX70. After seeing and using the big screen, it was hard to go to anything else. Still, I can certainly see the alure of the very small TungstenT...
Sean.
mystery investor loans palm $50 million:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2
sony invests $20 million in palmsource:
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Sony_Invests_in
now, palm is going to buy handspring for $169 million:
http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/230-1.
wild.
another fun fact, more people own sony aibo robot dogs than handspring treos.
cheers,
pt
Going proprietary is ALWAYS a bad idea for consumer relations. If the Springboard slot had been a compact flash slot you would STILL be able to use that slot. It's a lesson that Apple has learned somewhat, but that Sony is still hardheaded about.
Palm certainly doesn't want Handspring for their Visor line. There isn't much value to that. I don't believe there is anything on the Handspring Visor line has that Palm doesn't already have or couldn't add on their own.
In fact, Handspring announced in January 2002 that they would discontinue the Visor line when they were coming out with their Treo Communicator (cell phone) line. My guess is that Palm wants to get into the cell phone business. What else does Handspring have to offer? Would you want a Palm branded reconditioned Handspring Visor?
--- I'm Green Hornet's sidekick not Inspector Clouseau's!
handspring hasn't been doing much the past few years to compete with Palm -- Sony has been pushing the consumer PDA side (and continues to). handspring was focusing on communicators, and thats something Palm is just now getting into, so it made sense to rejoin the groups that had gone separate ways.
Am i the only one baffled at the amazingly Pro-MS sentiment on Slashdot when it comes to handhelds?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Which is why iPAQ (and all top end PDA) sales are falling and the only area of growth is the sub-$150 dollar, cheap and simple end of the market.
I've got a Clie SL10, not very powerful (to say the least) but it does pretty much everything I need (store contacts and appointments, make the odd note, play the odd game to speed the commute home). The only advantage the iPAQ I have at work has is that it can play MP3 and WMA, but the battery doesn't last long so I'd still end up using my MP3 player anyway.
... is completely wrong.
/. article spells that out. Can't we get some kind of co-ordinated outcry from the rest of the tech sector about these kind of layoffs? Why don't we boycott Palm and PalmOS products, until Palm/Handspring management get their heads out of their asses and think about the employees that have been keeping their companies afloat, instead of their own pocket books.
"Any merger spells elimination of product lines."
I'm sorry, but who gives a shit? There is a glut in the handheld market right now - the reduction of products represented in both the Palm and Handspring product lines is beside the point.
The real question is - How many tech workers are going to be losing their jobs as a result of this merger?
According the article on ZDNet, Palm will lay off 125 people - not a huge amount, but after the killing spree that merged tech companies have wielded against their workforce, thats 125 too many.
There are always alternatives to taking jobs away from hard-working people. Why can't management take a pay cut instead? Or, if management is too greedy to indulge in self-sacrifice, perhaps allow everyone the option to take a 5% or 10% reduction in their pay - if they know there will be pink slips in Friday's check if they don't, I can't imagine people not doing it.
The tech industry as a whole has its priorities in the wrong place - the quote I posted from this
I say, F*** Palm and PalmOS, until they rescind their decision to lay off 125 workers. Anyone else out there have some backbone? Lets show some solidarity here. Who's with me?
Handspring has been losing money and slipping market share. It probably will go broke if Palm weren't gonna acquire it. (See the story on The Register.) There'll be one less competitor anyways if Handspring cease to exist.
What's good, however, is that Jeff Hawkins will return as CTO and Donna Dublinsky will return as a board member. They were the founders of the original PalmPilot company and left because of the (mis)management of US Robotics/3Com. Their return to Palm Inc will surely bring more innovations to Palm Inc.
This is sad. Less competition means lesser features and higher prices. Sony is good competition, but more competition is always better for the consumers and -- in the long run -- for everyone.
I hope Sony introduces something to compete with the Tungsten/Treo lines.
Why pay Microsoft/HP cash for the OS license just to reflash it with Linux? I've been happily using my Sharp Zaurus 5500 for months. Sharp also just released a major software revision for the 5500 based on the new 5600 software and it's improved the Zaurus quite a bit. Oh yeah, and the upgrade was free - unlike the $29.99 I spent to upgrade my iPAQ 3630 from PPC2000 to PPC2002.
Donna Dubinsky wasn't a developer - she was the "Professional Manager" that was brought in to run Palm during the early startup days. She, along with Jeff Hawkins (the fellow who essentially invented the Palm computer) and Ed Colligan (an early Palm marketing head) were the three core people who left to found Handspring. They took a few other engineers with them when they left.
In the last year or so, Handspring stopped building standalone organizers (the core Palm hardware business) and bet the company on wireless communicators using the Palm OS, to mixed results (popular acceptance, critical praise, but losing money because the adoption rate wasn't fast enough). With Handspring, Palm gets some new expertise in building phone/PDA devices that they lacked (despite the i705 and Tungsten W, this wasn't a Palm strength), to complement their existing lines of organizers/networked wireless devices. Now they can compete in all three categories directly - standalone organizers, Bluetooth/WiFi organizers, and cellphone/2.5g/3g organizers.
What products are dead out of this? I'd guess all the existing standalone devices from Handspring die, but they're already on the way out now anyway. At some point, the Handspring brand replaces the Zire brand for the low end. And the Handsprig Treos push out the Tungsten W, while the i705 dies a quiet death.
I'll stick with my existing 3 devices - a Tungsten T (the everyday pocket device for me), my Zaurus 5500 (when I want wireless or I don't have the space to transport a real computer), and for sentimental value my Newton Messagepad 2100. I don't think anything will come out of this merger for at least a year or two that would compel me to swap out any of the handhelds I own.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The PalmPilot company was founded by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dublinsky. 3Com bought it via its aquisition of U.S. Robotics. Jeff and Donna soon left to found Handspring. 3Com spun off Palm years later.
Read the other replies for further details.
Actually, the official press release contains a nice summary timeline:
1995 - U.S. Robotics purchases Palm, Inc.
1996 - Palm introduces the PalmPilot 1000 and 5000 organizers.
1997 - 3Com purchases U.S. Robotics
1998 - Hawkins, Dubinsky and Colligan leave Palm to create Handspring
2000 - Palm executes an Initial Public Offering, separating from 3Com
2001 - Palm begins building separate businesses
* Todd Bradley named Palm Solutions executive vice president and chief operating officer (June 1)
* Palm announces plans to create OS subsidiary (July 27)
* Palm OS subsidiary acquires assets and talent from Be, Inc. (Aug. 16)
* David Nagel is named Palm OS subsidiary president and chief executive officer (Aug. 27)
2002 - Palm further builds on two businesses
* OS subsidiary creation completed (Jan. 1)
* Bradley promoted to president and chief operating officer of Palm Solutions (May 2)
* OS subsidiary named PalmSource
* PalmSource names founding board of directors (June 24)
* Bradley named Palm Solutions chief executive officer (June 25)
* Palm Solutions and PalmSource move to separate campuses (August)
* Sony invests $20 million in PalmSource, marking first outside investment (Oct. 8)
* PalmSource adds four new licensees in year
* IRS approves the spin-off as tax-free for U.S. citizens' federal income-tax purposes (December)
2003 - Palm announces plans to acquire Handspring
The only thing Handspring brought to the table was their Springboard technology. I don't know if any of you did any work on it, but it was nice because it used the PCMCIA design, so it was easy to develop.
Now, Sony did do a lot, simply because they hit the market at the right time -- just when colour was about to hit. This meant that their name as a multimedia giant was used to lure people in, plus, they're just damn good at making electronics. I would have really loved to see them go with Pocket PC, but it has helped PalmOS to have such a strong company behind it.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
The $30 one at K-Mart and Target is, I believe, a rolodex. Unfortunately, it is fixed-purpose electronics and cannot run external programs. Not much memory, no backups, no real pen imput... It is a toy, like those little electronic things with rubber keypads in pink with Hello Kitty on the cover.
Entry level, $100 Palm based devices (From Palm, Handspring, or Sony) have an extensible, programmable OS. This allows for example, for encrypted password storage vaults, automatically synchronized web page readers, sketch programs, heirarchical planning software, thesauruses, Japanese Dictionaries... whatever someone can think of. They also generally have a greyscale screen and an adequate amount of RAM (well, sony does anyway). When you go up in price you spend more to get brightly colored screens, slightly faster processors, and model-specific features like built-in cameras, cellphones, or MP3 players.
Spend a bit more (300+)and you have a Pocket PC or Linux based device. These are larger and heavier than Palm-based PDAs, but have more compatible software (It is easier to port an existing Windows application to a Pocket PC handheld than to a Palm PDA. Same for Linux). They usually have faster processors, but slower software which take up significantly more ram. Someone else on this board can extoll the virtues of the above, I simply don't like how large and inelegant those devices can be.
Personally I find my Clie to be terrifically useful compared to the dayrunner which was too large to fit in a pocket. But not everyone does. Truthfully, if I hadn't gone out looking for useful software, it wouldn't provide any added benefit over a standard day planner.
In short, the value of one depends on what kind of person you are. Do you love technology? Do you normally keep notes digitally? Do you travel a lot, network frequently, or have an irregular schedule?
I know this whole segue is a bit offtopic, but I hope it helps.
The ______ Agenda
A PDA can do so many things, but I think people use the calendar function most. An electronic calendar has several advantages over regular ones. The biggest in my opinion is that you can synchronize it with one or more computers. You can have the same calendar at home, at work and on the road. The biggest advantage of that is if you loose your PDA you still have all your data left. If you loose a regular calendar it's gone.
Another great thing about PDA-calendars is the search function. You can easily search through your whole calendar in a matter of seconds.
It's also very easy to edit the info in a PDA-calendar. Sure you can do that in a regular one as well, but it usually looks pretty messy afterwards.
Martin
Why give up now? Well, last week Handspring announced it was on the verge of NASDAQ delisting.
This is a good thing. Why? Because Palm/Handspring gets to consolidate the product line. Some people were bitching and moaning about "what gets dumped? Palm's good stuff or Handspring's good stuff?" I would assume it would be Palm's BAD stuff and Handpring's BAD stuff, thus leaving a tighter product line with the best features from both companies. Sounds like a good deal to me.
This rings familiar from the Apple times. Remember how many products Apple had? And then they had the clones. Buy out the clone licenses, tighten up the product line, and voila. Apple is much more focused. Consumers in the Palm market will have fewer, but BETTER options. No more confusion between 16 SLIGHTLY different products, but instead having more features in fewer models.
I'm an optimist I guess...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Jeff and Donna founded Palm Computing, but they needed captial, so they merged their company with U.S. Robotics.
:)
All is fine until 3Com acquired U.S. Robotics for its line of telecommunication products, and got Palm Computing as part of the deal. 3Com never really knew how to manage the subsidary, Jeff and Donna got upset will the management, so they made an OS licensing deal with Palm Computing and left 3Com to found Handspring.
The usual IIRC restrictions apply to this bit of info.
Why not just buy a Treo? I refuse to pay $500 for a smartphone with poor reliability from a company with demonstrably poor customer service. This assessment is borne out by my own experience over the past few years and the reviews I've read on customer-ratings sites. Nearly every one of these sites contains complaints from Treo users about these issues, and it's a deadly combination. The device itself is great, but for what it costs it should work reliably, and when it doesn't, Handspring should be willing to replace it with a minimum of hassle. A Treo user should not have to go without for two weeks until their device comes back from the shop.
I'm buying a warranty with my used Visor that will ensure I maintain a working device for one year. By then, hopefully there will be an acceptable alternative to Handspring in an reasonable price range. Maybe it will even come from Palm.
Are you kidding? Most of my life I was one of those types who wrote things I needed to remember down on random pieces of paper that I shoved in my pocket, lost on my desk, threw away by accident, etc. I lack organizational skills, have a hard time remembering things, and I like gadgets. I tried carrying a paper & pen organizer in college. It worked okay, but I had a hard time finding notes I had written... was it two weeks ago or two months ago? With a PDA I can jot random notes and find them later in an instant with the search feature. I can have all the same addresses in my computer for e-mail and in my PDA for when I need to send a package from the post office. With the calendar, task list, and reminders I no longer suffer from as much anxiety about what I'm forgetting. Plus I've got a pocket calculator, pocket games, free databases that include conversion charts, drink recipes, a basic Spanish dictionary, and anything else I decide to download. Not bad for a hundred bucks. The Handspring Visor Deluxe was the best PDA I ever owned for the money. I had been using a PocketPC on loan from the office, but switched back to the Handspring soon after. The PocketPC was neat, but it just doesn't handle the simple organizational stuff as well.
... like it's a good thing :-/
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
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.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
This sounds remarkably like the process that Apple went through. Apple liscensed their OS to compete better with WinTel. After reducing their prices slightly but not really adding innovation, Apple bought the competition. I can't really comment on whether Apple is better off today, or what impact this will have on Palm.
If this were a study in genetics, their next product would be born with webbed feet and flippers.
Creating the perfect PDA for busy SCUBA divers!
I wonder if you can get GSM service at 100 meters...
The enemies of Democracy are
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."
Have you actually been following what's going on in handhelds these days? It doesn't sound like it. Palm and Handspring today make entirely different products. Palm makes PDA's; Handspring makes "communication products" - handhelds based on cel phone designs. There's no overlap - neither company has individual models comparable to the others'.
But regardless, I wouldn't buy any model from either company. Others have already mentioned the Sony Clies - I have one of these, and I bought one for my wife too (she loves it). We don't need high-end features, and in the low-end the Clies have several features that Palms don't (and Handspring doesn't even make a low-end device). Sony also is far ahead of Palm in industrial design IMO - it's akin to, say, Dell vs. Apple. I'd actually love to have one of the real high-end models but don't feel they're worth $800. The recently announced top-end Clies, though, do have a lot of useful features - including built-in wireless, a built-in keyboard, camera, and MP3 player. In other words, the best of what both Palm and Handspring offer and in a much better-looking design. But still too expensive for me.
This looks familiar, and it bodes well. Steve Jobs left Apple (involuntarily, admittedly) and started NeXT, which was bought by Apple. Result of management merger: Apple's current product line. Result of technology merger: Mac OS X.
I'm still pretty darned satisfied with my Palm M500, and I'll happily keep using it, at least until the merger/shakedown results in a new product. As for competitive pressure: Sony, if not others, will still keep Palm on their toes.
One of my favorite uses for the Palm Pilot is reading. For example, if you go to Baen.com you'll see many popular books for download FREE! And if you like the free ones, you can pay for electronic copies of later ones in the series. For example, I loved the Honor Harrington "On Basilisk Station", so I started buying the books. Soon I found it easier to buy the electronic versions and read those on my CLIE. Baen even included a CD with the latest Honor book that contains EVERY HONOR BOOK EVER MADE in electronic form! Combine that with the low price of electronic books bought online (4-5 dollars per) and you have convienence at its finest.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Someone reaches a SVP or equivelant level in a company. Realizes they have maxed their income potential.
Finds something the current company isn't doing well. Finds other internal resources who feel the same.
Starts a spin-off focusing primarily on what the big company is too slow to implement or too big care about.
--- I do not moderate.
It really depends on your needs.
If you want a cool handheld linux device, and you don't care that it is very "sub-optimal" for appointment/contact management, the Zaurus is very nice. Your geek coolness goes up by +10 if you have one.
If appointments/contact management are important to you, you want some kind of palm or palm-compatible. IMO, the PIM software available for the palms are way beyond anything available for the Zaurus (and I'd be willing to pay US$100 for something really good for the Z, but it just doesn't exist).
I have (or used to have) a Palm III, a TRGPro, and a Zaurus 5500. While the Zaurus is cool, I need good PIM apps, and the ones available for the Z do not meet my needs (the Z makes a really cool wireless web browser, though). Because of this, I can't use the Z, and so I recently started looking for a color palm. I eventually settled on a refurbished Sony Clie (the Zire 71 was attractive, but it uses Palm OS 5.2, which has the "new" grafitti, and I did not want to learn a new system). I'm really happy with the Clie (even though I personally try to avoid Sony products in general).
Also, while you can, in theory, run palm apps on the Z, they supposedly run very slowly . I've thought about doing this, but decided against it after reading the reports.
If your a business person, and you use Outlook at work (don't we all?) then you don't want a bulky PDA. The killer PDA application is the whole Outlook paradigm: Calendar, Contacts, Inbox
You need to do some homework on the features of cell phones out there and find one that has Outlook integration. Most can sync appointments and contacts back and forth. Some can download inbox email so you can read 'em offline. Some (Nokaia Communicator) can even connect to the net (with the disadvantage of dial-in costs, low battery life and being bulky & expensive - the speaker phone option on it is amazing though).
In the end we are moving to devive fusion anyway and PDA as we know it will cease to exist. We'll all just be using funkier, move advanced cell phones.
All your base are belong to us!
The upstart has been assimilated, Handspring is finally dead: RIP Its always a sad day when an upstart company fails to make a full go of it. I love my Visor and have been very sad to see the decline of the Springboard modules and now the eventual death of the company. The only unique advantage Handspring had over the other palm device companies was the Springboard slot. They were never going to make it as a phone company anyway and Palm had them covered in the hand held market. They quite literally shot themselves in the head when they dropped the only compelling reason to buy a handspring, its expandability. What a treat it was to be able to modify at will the capability of the visor. GPS, Wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth, Digital Cameras, Cell phones, Visor brought these features to us in a palm device years before any other company started development. Sharing the development load over the community was a great decision that allowed Handspring to move quickly and stay on top of the latest technology without spending company resources. As always is the trend, products get smaller faster and more feature rich. I suppose Handspring's demise was an inevitability given its business model and lack of cutting edge design. From the stand point of a compulsive DIY'er, this is a sad day in muddville.
The millions paid to the top 0.x% of the payroll(the CEO and his gang) are often paid at the expense of the rest of it. Example: a 1M$ quarterly bonus could pay 10 high-priced specialists for a year at 100k$ a pop. So when you yank the plug for 100 workers at 50k$, you get 50M$ or just about the payroll of the council (5M$ times 10 assholes).
Considering the fact that ruining the life of tens of people for a stupid quarterly bonus is always the choice of the CEO, we are faced to a situation where the abuse of a few leads to the sacrifice of many. How altruistic.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
I own a Handera 330. I love it; jog-wheel, hi-res screen, switchable backlight, CF & SD card slots. It really was best of breed when I got it. I've been hoping for sometime that they would release an updated version (possibly color, OS5). But I just discovered that they are exiting the Palm handheld arena.
I don't want a phone/PDA. I would extremely miss my jog-wheel. Sony seems to be the only choice for a full featured PalmOS handheld now.
Is the Zaurus a real alternative?
I gave up thinking of a cool sig
"If you were purchasing a PDA right now, would you choose Palm, Handspring, or avoid them entirely?"
..
You're going to hate this, but I'd probably get a Palm. I used to have a iPAQ and then got an Vx from work.
The Vx is bigger and bulkier and the battery life does suck. Oh yes, and I've had it crash about 4 or 5 times but
The software! The diary, notes and calendar is way more powerful than iPAQ's. Varying snoozes on appointments, alarms on tasks, multiple addresses on contacts - the list goes on. Oh yes, and I'm a heavy Outlook user, so it's a boon to have decent Outlook compatibility (PocketOutlook on the ipaq was great - but nothing else would replace the other built in apps and still sync with Outlook).
Also I love the today screen. I have several plug ins and it shows me everything I need to know on one page.
Finally I know some people hate PalmSync but I like it for one major reason. I can pick my palm out of the cradle at any time and know that it's synced with my Outlook. On ipaqs I'd have to hit the button on a regular basis.
Would I go back to iPAQ's? Yes, but only if they dropped their prices (they're a tad pricey) and substantially beefed up the built in software and syncing. Would I go for a Linux PDA? Haven't really thought about it to be honest. For me, I don't care what the OS is - just how well it does the stuff I need (it could be written in Cobol for all I care).
Neither the PPC or Palm are the best. Both have pros and cons. But I can put up with the fact that the Palm is bigger, bulkier and eats batteries quicker because the PIM stuff is more powerful.
Of course, YMMV.
Details on the new Treo - the Treo 600 - are starting to leak out, and it looks like a pretty major improvement. The photo from the merger even gave us a decent Hi-res photo of the new Treo. I think it looks pretty cool, but the obvious lacking feature is a higher-resolution screen. I wonder if the coolness factor of the Treo 600 helped encourage Palm to make the merger?