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 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.
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
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.
I have TopGun SSH on my Visorphone which would work fine on a Treo at higher speeds (GPRS) if I could afford one. I have been able to remotely administer my servers out of near disasters before. What is your point? -N
I've nothing to say here...
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...
Until they have SSH clients and proper wireless access, the point is moot anyway.
Huh? how many SSH clients do you need?
It isn't enough that the offer GSM, CDMA, Bluetooth, and 802.11? What other form of wireless are you looking for -- telepathy?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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!
...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.
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!
TGssh doesn't verify the server's public key, so it's not actually secure at all.
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."
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
Kyocera's been making the SmartPhone series like this for some time. The QCP-6035 is superior to the m125 in features - It only lacks the SD Memory slot. The QCP-7135 has PalmOS 4.1, a color screen, smaller profile, the SD Memory slot, and a more ergonomic feel.
My fiancee has the QCP-6035 and it's really nice. EudoraWeb is decent, but I've since installed Blazer (from HandSpring) and it works great. The main downside is that the phones are PCS, meaning that you'll have to have service through Verizon or Sprint. The 7135 is available via ALLTEL, but you can transfer it over to a different CDMA network.
There's also a fairly large hacking and customization community over at SmartPhoneSource.com, that can give you all the tips and tricks to using your phone, as well as setting up your phone to switch providers, load OS updates (both phones use a custom version of the OS), and other cool stuff.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
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
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.
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.
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
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.