Connectivity means a lot if you need to be mobile

By ADAM GIFFORD

Last week it finally happened. On the street I bumped into Henry, who had been trying to reach me for the number of someone who could help him with some research.

"I've got it right here," said I, reaching into my pocket - not for my little notepad but the Palm Vx.

The number was in the notepad. But the fact that I reached first for the Palm showed that carrying it around for months in an attempt to develop familiarity was paying off - it was becoming central to my working methods.

Why would I want that to happen? Because handheld computing makes sense to me, in a way few other gadgets have.

My mobile computing solution is now a Palm, a folding keyboard and a mobile phone, which I use to e-mail stories from anywhere. Inward e-mail is another matter.

It will probably be another year before the network backbone - CDMA, GPRS or whatever - is sufficiently developed to make data download speeds practical for that sort of application.

What makes a Palm-type device so compelling is the growing connectivity.

An electronic organiser only makes sense if your day is broken into a lot of appointments. A paper-based address book can probably hold its own against an electronic one. Paper and pencil can do what an electronic note taker does, at a fraction of the price.

But start combining applications on a device, and making that device connect to other devices, and something larger than the sum of the parts emerges.

E-mail alone is a compelling application.

A survey by brokers Goldman Sachs found that when workers were given a handheld pager for checking and relaying e-mail, their laptop use fell by an average of 45 per cent. Some 19 per cent stopped using them altogether.

In Sydney last week for the launch of the Palm m500 and m505 - successors to the Palm V series - the company's executives stressed the product's growing connectivity and expandability.

Craig Will, Palm director for Japan and Asia Pacific, said Palm's purchase of server synchronisation company Extended Systems, due to be completed by June, will accelerate the Palm invasion of the corporate world.

"Most Palm organisers are connected to PCs in corporate environments, but we're just starting to see integration into back end systems," Mr Will said.

"Over 350 Fortune 500 companies in the United States have standardised on Palm for groupware and other applications."

The Mobile Internet Kit, released last November, has accelerated that trend.

Mr Will said many of the 150,000 registered Palm developers are working on making large enterprise systems, CRM (customer relationship management) applications and databases run on the Palm OS.

It is Windows-with-a-walking-stick CE or the pioneering Psion, or the dozens of other PDAs (personal digital assistants), rather than Palm OS which have fallen by the way.

US data from last September showed more than 90 per cent of PDA sales were Palm OS devices. Palm itself accounted for about two-thirds of the total, and its licensee Handspring had just over 20 per cent of the market.

Handspring, founded by the team which created the Palm Pilot, has launched Springboard, which has an extra slot for add-on modules and USB support.

Although Palm thought these developments were worth copying, it rejected the Springboard interface as proprietary technology. It has instead gone for a smaller expansion slot which will take MultiMediaCards and the SD (Secure Digital) Card, which was created by the Secure Digital Association, a 160-member consortium including SanDisc, Toshiba and Panasonic.

The MMC or SD cards can add extra memory, data or applications.

The slot also accepts SDIO (Secure Digital Input/Output) devices. Third party manufacturers have already developed cameras, GPS locators, modems, voice recorders, MP3 players and Bluetooth connectors to fit the slot.

Mr Will said the take-up of SD in Japan, which drives the adoption of many consumer technologies, is extraordinary, with Panasonic alone releasing several devices or appliances each week with SD slots.

When the Palm m500 and m505 become generally available in June, they will come with a USB cradle. Users who want to connect to computers through a Serial port will need to buy a separate cradle.

Palm has promised to stick with the same connector for at least two years for all its models, which should make it easier for customers who want to switch devices but do not want to buy a new set of peripherals.

The main difference between the m500 and m505 is that the latter has a colour screen, despite being only slightly thicker.

Palm promises the Lithium Ion battery will give three to four weeks average use, better than other colour PDAs.

Expect to pay about $1199 for the m500 and $1359 for the m505.

Meanwhile, Palm is laying off between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of its staff as it faces the slowdown in the US economy.

It also cut prices of older models in the US to move inventory.

* Adam Gifford travelled to Sydney as a guest of Palm.

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Palm

Secure Digital Card

Handspring