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Has Palm Dropped the Mobile Enterprise Ball?
Source: Computergram International
Date: June 13, 2001
Number: 4184
By Dan Jones
The CEO of troubled handheld maker Palm Inc yesterday promised an increased focus on wireless devices and enterprise software from the company over the coming year, as well as an overhaul of older models. However, Palm is unlikely to deliver on these aims much before the end of year, leaving rivals like Microsoft Corp and Research In Motion Ltd a clear run at the emerging corporate wireless market in the meantime.
Speaking at the Bear Sterns technology conference in New York City, Carl Yankowski talked about forthcoming mobile enterprise data access software and a new wireless PDA device due before the end of this year. The company has long talked about delivering a RIM-like wireless device and it seems it will also provide wireless email and data access software to accompany the PDA. "I've been using prototype software [on a Kyocera Palm smartphone] that lets me go behind the firewall of Palm headquarters and download my email and calendar," said Yankowski.
The software and integrated wireless device, which will replace the VIIx, are expected before the end of the year. Yankowski said the Palm III and IIIc devices will also be phased out, meaning that the company will have effectively upgraded its entire product line by 2002.
Despite the upgrades, however, Santa Clara, California-based Palm appears to losing ground to rivals like Microsoft and RIM in the wireless enterprise market. Wireless email, contact and calendar access is already available from both RIM and Microsoft. Microsoft will shortly introduce its Mobile Information 2001 Server, which is intended to become a hub that pumps all kinds of enterprise data to mobile devices. Meanwhile, RIM is working with IBM Corp to enable users to access CRM, SFA and other types of applications on BlackBerry pagers. Of course, third-party software vendors and service providers like Everypath Inc and Aether Systems Inc can already offer this on all of these device types.
One of the reasons that Palm may have slipped up in this wireless race is the collapse of its merger with synchronization software vendor, Extended Systems Inc. "Extended Systems had good agnostic middleware, but with 30 sales people, Extended was never going to be the lever into the enterprise," Yankowski said, adding that Palm is now focusing on working with systems integrators and selling into the enterprise.
Nevertheless, Palm certainly considered Extended its ticket into the enterprise when it announced plans to buy the Boise, Idaho-based firm in March. It described the firm's products as the "glue, which binds the wealth of enterprise applications with easy to use handheld computers, which can now be managed by CIOs." So either Palm was not in full possession of the facts about Extended when it started the buyout, or Yankowski is now indulging in a spot of revisionism |
