From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Handspring to Launch Palm Competitor (NY Times on the Web
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 08:31:25 -0500
September 10, 1999
Handspring to Launch Palm Competitor
By REUTERS
SAN FRANCISCO -- The inventors of the held-held computer that rocked the
high-tech world are back -- this time with a new product aimed at knocking
their own successful invention, the PalmPilot, off its pedestal.
Handspring Tuesday will take the wraps off the new product that's been
cloaked in secrecy over the past year.
The hand-held computer will be unveiled on the company's Web site then and
will only be sold online until early next year, when it is launched to
retail channels, sources near the company said.
The Palm's creators last year bolted from 3Com Corp., which owns Palm
Computing, to found their new company, now known as Handspring, to compete
against Palm in the hand-held computing market.
And if trade industry and media reports are accurate, the security was
cloaking a product that's basically an upgrade of the original Palm, and
Handspring may have been trying to keep competitors from knowing exactly
which features would be added.
With the new product, named "Visor," the Palm's inventors apparently haven't
strayed far from their initial idea. Like the PalmPilot it's a personal desk
assistant that can be linked to desktop computers and networks. But it may
do a better job of delivering updated features, according to analysts who
were briefed.
A Time magazine reporter, Joshua Quittner, received a press briefing, and,
despite being "bound by one of those silly nondisclosure agreements"
reported: "If it's as good as it looks in demos, I can't imagine why anyone
would want to buy anything else."
ZDNet, the online news service, reported that the Visor comes with modules
that can make it work as a digital camera, music player, pager and wireless
telephone, updating it for a consumer market with far more advanced digital
devices and wireless services than when the Palm first appeared.
At $149 for the lowest-price version, Visor also significantly undercuts the
cost of the Palm, whose price has reached a bloated $500-plus level in its
latest incarnation, the newly launched Palm VII, according to ZDNet.
The upstart Handspring would neither confirm nor deny" the details that have
leaked out during a period of briefings given to the trade press and general
media, but said that a product launch will take place.
Handspring will have its hands full trying to supplant its own creation,
PalmPilot, which has a loyal following with about 4 million users and 15,000
software applications written for it.
But the new company is counting on strong demand among consumers for new
portable computing devices that take advantage of Internet and wireless
computing.
Breakthroughs in the speed and price of wireless applications are expected
to boost the device market dramatically, which already is at $1 billion.
Dataquest has forecast 30 percent annual growth in the handheld computer
market, with sales reaching 21 million units a year by 2003.
The PalmPilot, invented by Handspring's Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins,
dominates that market now, with nearly 80 percent of the total. But the
machines are aimed primarily at office users who share data with their
desktop. Visor, with its modular approach that uses Palm's software, appears
to be trying to hit more market segments, ranging from the general consumer
to the office user.