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Indepth On 3Com and Spinning Off The PalmPilot

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-all-details dept.

We recently covered the possibility that 3Com would spin-off their PalmPilot division. There's been an increasing amount of confirmation about this move, and C|Net has done an indepth look at the story. From the perspective of how business operates, it's an interesting story alone, but it's even more curious in light of the recent announcement regarding the Handspring. Where do you folks see the PalmPilot ending up?

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:a few things don't make sense to me by Croaker · · Score: 4

    1) I wonder if Hawkins & Co. didn't have some sort of card of their sleeve for this. Maybe, as a price for parting amicably, they got a license for the OS. It seems obvious now why Hawkins and Dubinsky bolted... they had a vision for the Palm that included expansion and driving the units down lower in the market. Palm itself seemed happy to be making expensive nerd toys. They probably had a good grip on the arms they needed to twist in order to get what they wanted. And, on the surface, licensing the OS doesn't seem like a dumb thing to do... expand the platform's acceptence, yaddah yaddah. It's only when Handspring proves they can make a better Palm than you for less money do you smakc yourself in the forhead and yell "d'oh!"

    2) I dunno. I sort of doubt that Dubinsky and Hawkins would have been dumb enough to walk onto a plank that someone could snatch out from underneath them, though. They didn't make the Palm #1 by being dumb.

    3) 'Cause it's neat? Cause you could link a whole lot of them together and get a Beowolf cluster less powerful than a standard desktop? The nerd's urge to do inappropriate things with inappropriate hardware just is. You shouldn't question it, because sometimes the results are useful. Like the personal computer, for example.

  2. Watch 3Com lose the market... by dmorin · · Score: 4
    The Pilot jumped to the front of the pack because of Jeff Hawkins, and his approach to the design of the device. He didn't think primarily about the OS, or the cost, or the color. Read an interview with the guy, and it'll be essentially him talking about how he believes the human brain works, and why his devices fit that model.

    Now he's making a competitor to the Palm. And 3Com (soon to be just Palm) is stuck catering to the high end corporate accounts that can afford to pay extra hundreds of $$ for units with no upgrade path that are essentially variations on a theme over and over again. The Vx is the exact same machine as the V, except more memory. Why didn't some genius figure out how to make the V expandable (that is, "officially" expandable)?

    Hawkins and Handspring are taking a different approach. Lower the entry pricetag and target the consumer market. As a boss of mine said, "I've got kids entering college, there's no way I wouldn't get them one, priced right. But no way I'm spending $500 or more to buy them each a PalmV just because it's lighter." And the iMac-like (or is it Gameboy-like) color schemes don't hurt if you're going after a younger market. VP's may want the cool metallic look, but college kids want the yellow one or the orange one.

    What was a primary complaint about the Pilot? Addon devices. It was just the right size to fit into a pocket, so as soon as you stuck something on it like a pager or modem, it got bulkier. Handspring solves that by introducing an upgrade slot (external, not like the PalmIII's!) that only adds "wheat thin" sized cards. How does 3Com solve the problem? By introducing a series of machines (the V series) that aren't upgradeable at all?!

    I have a IIIx. I'm going to skip the V generation completely. Come Q1 next year, I'm probably going to become the first Visor person at my company. On top of everything else it's got going for it, it's still Palm compatible, so I don't even have to fight the wince vs palm battle.

    d

    --
    www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
  3. a few things don't make sense to me by Hollins · · Score: 4
    Some questions:
    1. Why did 3Com license PalmOS to Handspring in the first place? This, of course, was a great thing for consumers, but seems like a bad idea for 3Com. So far, they've been able to artificially inflate the price of Palm devices by having exclusive rights to the OS and a following of devotees who love the interface and form factor of Palm devices. Now they have competition from other PalmOS devices (in addition to CE).
    2. What were the terms of the licensing agreement? Perhaps 3Com planned on using Handspring to gain market share for PalmOS before yanking the rug out from under them by not renewing the licensing agreement. This would be very similar to how Apple treated clone makers after Jobs came back. This strategy would likely backfire, as I think the Visor's expansion port is going to become a standard with a lot of loyal users.
    3. Mostly unrelated: Why do so many people want a Palm Linux port? I'm a Linux user and I love the OS, but porting it to Palm seems silly. PalmOS is small, tight and fast. As long as we can sync to a Linux box, why cram Linux in there? If it's things like telnet and emacs people want, port these apps, but I don't understand trying to put Linux on Palm. However, my attitude toward this might change if Iomega can get a clic in a Visor.