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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William Wang who wrote (18879)	7/9/1998 12:10:00 AM
From: The BayWatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

COMS news out today re: Palm Pilot : 03:36 PM ET 07/08/98 INTERVIEW-3Com seeks Palm Pilot business sales By Neil Winton, Science and Technology Correspondent LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - 3Com Corp said on Wednesday it wants to enhance the performance of its Palm Pilot hand-held computers to make them essential tools for business. 3Com, the Santa Clara-California based computer network equipment maker, said Palm Pilot computers, which it inherited when it took over U.S. Robotics Corp in the middle of 1997, was currently its fastest growing business. In an interview, Janice Roberts, 3COM senior Vice President, said the company had recruited leading software manufacturers including SAP AG of Germany and Oracle Corp of the United States to provide new applications. 3Com was also considering joining the Symbian consortium, which was set up last month to exploit Psion Plc's EPOC software in wireless mobile devices. The cigarette-pack sized Palm Pilot provides an electronic diary and contact store. The device sells for around $399 in the United States before tax. 3Com has shipped more than 1.4 million. Analysts say that devices like the Palm Pilot have so far appealed to a limited market of those excited by technology rather than those drawn by efficacy. But Roberts said 3Com wants to change this. "Essentially we have grown the Palm Pilot business very successfully, in fact it is the fastest growing segment that we have in 3Com today," Roberts said. Replying to a question about the departure of the two creators of the Palm Pilot announced earlier this week, Roberts said the departure of Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky was amicable. "We are going to license the operating system to Donna and Jeff as they develop new business. It will be a new partnership for Palm," Roberts said. "We are seeing huge opportunities for the product, not just for professional users, not just for individual users, but we are now beginning to see enterprise (business) applications. "We've announced relationships with SAP and Oracle, and we last year gained market share by selling more devices to individual users. This year we expect to extend this into businesses. "We want companies to specify Palm Pilot as a productivity tool. It has to be a solution not just a device." "We want it to be specified by IT (information technology) departments, and the way to do that is to make it a productivity tool." 3Com was also discussing joining Symbian. Last month British small computer maker Psion, telecommunications groups Nokia Ab Oyj of Finland, Ericsson AB of Sweden and U.S. semiconductor and telecommunications equipment maker Motorola Inc announced they will jointly seek to exploit Psion software for the next generation of mobile communications and wireless information products. The vehicle for this would be the Symbian consortium. "We may join this consortium, we are talking to them. They've asked us to be a part of this and we may do this." The Palm Pilot competes against a range of devices like Nokia's Communicator, a more expensive device which incorporates a chubby looking mobile phone which folds out into a keyboard and can send faxes and surf the Internet. Other more expensive devices include so-called clamshell products with keyboards like Psion's series "5," and Hewlett-Packard Co's HP300. COMPAQ Computer Corp , Casio Computer Co Ltd , Sharp Corp and Philips Electronics NV also have contenders in this overcrowded market. And the competition is set to become tougher. Roberts said 3Com will introduce new Palm Pilot variants this year. "There will be new devices later this year. We will have a portfolio of hand-held devices in the Palm range." ((Neil Winton 44 171 542 7975 neil@jinks.demon.co.uk))