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

To: Moonray who wrote (31181)	5/24/1999 9:38:00 AM
From: Richard P. Roberts	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

One Thumb Up for the Palm VII (from Business Week) It dawns on me while pulling out of the Orlando airport that I'm not quite sure how to get to the hotel where I'm supposed to give a speech. So I pull over, whip out my wireless Palm VII, flip up the antenna, and tap the MapQuest icon. I enter my location and destination address and after a minute or so, driving instructions appear on the screen. Cool, I think, trying to repress the realization that I could have accomplished the same thing, only slightly less conveniently, by stopping at the Hertz counter for directions. This, in brief, is the promise and the challenge of the Palm VII, which hits the market on May 24, with initial availability limited to the New York metro area. It's fun and handy to be able to grab all sorts of information from specially prepared Web sites. But does this newest member of 3Com's Palm family--basically a slightly bigger Palm III with wireless features--provide enough value to justify its cost? The cost of adding Web access to the popular organizer is considerable. The Palm VII will retail for $599, compared with $249 for the III and $449 for the sleek new Palm V. But that's only the beginning. You also need one of Palm's two service plans. For $9.99 a month, you get 50 kilobytes' worth of transmissions, roughly 80 E-mail messages or the compressed Web pages that Palm calls ''Web clips.'' Triple the volume goes for $24.99. In both cases, extra transmissions run 30 cents per kilobyte. Cost is only one of the constraints on the Palm VII. Like the Palm III, which is about half an inch shorter and not quite an ounce lighter, the VII is powered by a pair of AAA batteries. But wireless communication takes a lot of power. So to make the batteries last at least a couple of weeks (vs. six or more in the Palm III), the radio is turned on only when the antenna is flipped up, which keeps the Palm VII from doubling as a pager. This, plus its ability to receive E-mail sent only to an account at palm.net, limits its utility as an E-mail terminal. MOVIES. Still, the Palm VII offers an intriguing assortment of services, many of which take advantage of the fact that when you transmit, the BellSouth Wireless Data network can figure out your location within a radius of a mile or so. So when you select the United Parcel Service icon, you get, in addition to package tracking, the location of nearby drop-off points. The Moviefone guide gives you listings and show times for nearby theaters. But the Etak Traffic Touch kept insisting it had no report on traffic conditions for Zip code 20036 in the District of Columbia, even though it did have information for metro Washington. (I never did succeed in getting a free 30-day trial of Etak's extra-cost traffic service customized for your commuting routes.) Because all traffic in and out of the Palm VII is encrypted, it's well suited to E-commerce, though only a few applications will be available at the outset. You can buy tickets from TicketMaster Online, and Bank of America customers can manage their accounts. Fidelity Investments provides online trading. Other services range from the useful to the lighthearted. Travelocity and OAG Online let you check flight schedules and status. Several news sources keep you on top of the headlines. You can even get the latest sports scores from ESPN. In its current form, the Palm VII is a way-cool executive toy. It will become an important business tool if companies decide it's worthwhile for them to hook up their computer systems to palm.net so that they can transmit corporate data to Palm VIIs in the field. Then you could receive E-mail from your corporate in-box, get wireless updates to product catalogs and other databases, even process orders. With the ingenuity that programmers have shown in developing applications for the Palm, this wireless capability could become interesting. But while the Palm VII is about the slickest and most versatile wireless device that I've seen, it could run afoul of the same problems that have long restricted wireless communications to niche markets. The networks are too expensive and too slow, rarely achieving sustained speeds of more than 9.6 kilobits per second. They also bog down when traffic is heavy or in areas where reception is poor. And the network the Palm VII uses is available only in large North American urban areas. Until wireless data communications get faster, cheaper, and more ubiquitous, devices like the Palm VII may have a hard time justifying themselves. BY STEPHEN H. WILDSTROM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE: Palm VII Wireless Features TYPICAL SERVICES Driving directions Movie programs & times ATM locator Traffic conditions Stock quotes News & sports Airplane flight info MONTHLY FEES $9.99 for 50 KB (equivalent of 80 E-mails) $24.99 for 150 KB (240 E-mails) 30 cents per additional KB