October 5, 2000
AWSJ: Handspring's New PDA Faces
Obstacles In Asia
By MICHELLE LEVANDER
Staff Reporter
The creators of the original Palm personal digital assistant launched their
Handspring Visor in Asia this week, starting with the Hong Kong, Singapore
and Taiwan markets. But Handspring Inc., which aims to replicate its quick
gains in the U.S., will find it difficult to take on Asia's well-established
brands, analysts predicted.
Personal digital assistants, or PDAs, are small hand-held devices that work
as sophisticated calendars and address books capable of downloading
e-mails and sending short messages over wireless networks. Handspring
distinguishes itself from the PDA pack with its Springboard platform, which
allows users to add on devices that convert the Visor into a digital camera,
an MP3 player, a viewer for an electronic book, and soon a Global
Positioning Satellite locator.
Handspring's marketing strategy in Asia relies on tactics used in the U.S.
launch of 13 months ago, said Handspring's co-founder, Donna Dubinsky.
The two-year-old company will rely on a world-wide advertising campaign
with the slogan: "Visor Is. . ." focusing on the product's flexibility.
In Asia, Handspring will also try to expand beyond the traditional business
market for PDAs with a price below those of competing devices, and with
translucent covers in a variety of covers. In the U.S., Handspring appeals to
a "slightly younger, less affluent, less computer literate (customer)," Ms.
Dubinsky says.
However, Handspring enters the Asian market with some handicaps.
Its decision to wait until close to mid-2001 to launch a device that converts
the Visor into a mobile phone is a miscalculation, one analyst says, given the
popularity of mobile phones here. The U.S. version launches by year's end.
And Ms. Dubinsky admits that Handspring comes into the market with one
glaring weakness: the lack of operating systems in Chinese and Korean.
(Handspring does have a Japanese version and has enjoyed early success
there.) Analysts say a local-language operating system can determine
market dominance. JTel Co. in South Korea, for instance, holds the lead for
that reason, as does Legend Holdings Ltd. in China, which uses Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows CE Chinese operating system.
Handspring, which licenses Palm technology, must wait until Palm develops
its own Chinese and Korean operating systems, says Ms. Dubinsky. In the
meantime, users can buy software that allows them to enter Asian
characters into their PDAs.
Handspring also faces an uphill battle as it tries to build brand recognition.
Palm dominates many Asian-Pacific markets and Sony Corp. recently
introduced its own sleek, lightweight PDA based on Palm technology.
"Handspring will come in and get lost in the wash without spending
megabucks on a brand awareness campaign," says Ian Bertram, a regional
analyst with the Gartner Group.
And changing buyer habits in brand-conscious Asia isn't easy, says Dane
Anderson, an analyst with IDG. When Windows CE-based devices first
appeared here more than a year ago, people predicted they would overtake
Palm, but were proved wrong, said Mr. Anderson.
What Handspring does have going for it is a chic appeal that has boosted its
share in markets such as Japan and France. And then there's the question of
price. In Japan, the Visor sells at the Yodobashi Camera store for 31,290
yen ($286), compared with 57,540 yen for the Sony PDA with a color screen
and 52,290 yen for the black-and-white version. Similarly, in Hong Kong, the
latest Palm and Sony models retail for between HK$3,100 and HK$3,400
(US$398 to US$436), while Visor models start at HK$1,560. |
