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To: P.M.Freedman who wrote (33765)	9/9/1999 9:05:00 PM
From: Mang Cheng	Respond to of 45548

"New President Reads Palm's Future" "Handheld platform roars ahead, with big plans for the Web and smart phones. " by James Niccolai, IDG News Service September 9, 1999, 7:06 a.m. PT SAN FRANCISCO -- When Alan Kessler took over in June as president of Palm Computing, his job description called for a lot more than keeping the Palm at the top of the handheld market. The 3Com subsidiary is expanding its territory by licensing the Palm platform to manufacturers for use in a range of devices, including "smart" cellular phones. Kessler, 41, most recently was senior vice president with 3Com's global customer service group. IDG News Service caught up with him late last week to ask him about the future of the Palm. Palm Phones IDGNS: What sort of benefits might the Palm operating system in a smart phone bring to consumers? AK: We are not in the phone business and that's a great question that a Qualcomm or another [Palm] licensee can answer. But think about it. [You have] your address book with phone numbers, and just a quick touch of the screen dials the number for you. Have you ever tried to program a phone with names and addresses? Maybe there's a way to beam the information from your handheld device to your phone. IDGNS: Can you give me another example? AK: Maybe you want to surf the Net and you have a wireless phone, and you've got your Palm and they talk to each other in some way. Maybe you run a software application on your Palm that lets you use your phone for Net access. IDGNS: Do you think people will want to carry around a smart phone, a notebook, and a Palm computer? AK: I see the smart phone opportunity as just that: it's an opportunity, it's a good thing. We've shipped 4 to 5 million Palms. Smart phones could ship hundreds of millions. We actually think the opportunity is huge, and in fact a lot of people might want a two-piece solution: a really teeny little phone and a really elegant Palm that work together seamlessly. Platform Progress IDGNS: L.M. Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and other members of the Symbian alliance have developed the EPOC operating system for wireless devices. How will Palm compete in the smart phone business against such a strong alliance of wireless communications firms? AK: We'll compete in a way we always would, by trying to present a value proposition that's unique and differentiated to all the names you mentioned and anyone else. ... Remember the Palm economy: 18,000 Palm developers, 1.5 million Java developers, 450 add-on products, and over 3000 applications. So we can bring a lot to the party. IDGNS: The Palm computer has enjoyed a long run of success against rival devices like those based on Microsoft's Palm-size PC. What's your strategy to maintain that success over the next 12 months? AK: My number one strategy is not to build the Palm-size PC. No, I'm serious, because when you take a PC and try to shrink it in the palm of your hand, that has created to date a bad user experience, and that is the antithesis of the Palm experience. Clip It or WAP It IDGNS: Analysts have said Web clipping is an extremely efficient way to download short bursts of text to the Palm VII. They also say users are more emotionally driven, and would like the freedom to surf the Web at large. Do you see the need to deliver broader Web-browsing capabilities in the Palm computer in the future? AK: We see the need to deliver more and more content, based on the need that our customers have. But remember that a broad, untethered Web surfing experience in any handheld needs to keep the user experience in mind. You don't want to download a normal Web page from the Internet onto a handheld over a wireless network. That's what Web clipping is all about; it's really simple for content providers. Go to Palm.net and look at the many, many applications there. IDGNS: Are there any other planned improvements for Web clipping--maybe increasing the bandwidth from 14 kilobits per second? AK: The feedback is that the performance has been pretty good. The biggest change is going to be more content. The other thing we're doing as part of the early launch in the New York area has been to learn about the behavior of the network, and learn about the operation of the network and have a great, reliable experience. So we're obviously tweaking this along the way. IDGNS: Will WAP [Wireless Access Protocol, a technology for browsing Web content on handheld devices] also turn up in the Palm? AK: [We've licensed] the WAP technology; absolutely, we're committed to having it as part of the platform. pcworld.com Mang