.KEYWORD esinterview
.FLYINGHEAD PARTNER INSIDER
.TITLE Palm and Extended Systems team up to maximize the benefits of handheld deployment
.OTHER
.SUMMARY The past several months have seen the relationship between Palm, Inc. and Extended Systems take some interesting twists and turns. Recently, Associate Technical Editor Theodore Durst had a chance to sit down with Joanne Taylor, Media Relations Manager for Extended Systems, to learn more about the company and its exciting relationship with Palm, Inc.
.AUTHOR Theodore Durst
Extended Systems (at http://www.extendedsystems.com) is a provider of mobile information management solutions designed to enable users to access, collect, synchronize, and print information on demand. The company’s products include data synchronization and management software, short-range wireless connectivity products, and client/server database management systems with remote access capabilities. Palm once described Extended Systems’ product offerings as the "glue" that binds enterprise applications with handheld computers.
It’s no wonder then that the two companies have forged such a strong bond. I recently had a chance to speak with Joanne Taylor, Media Relations Manager for Extended Systems, to learn more about the company and its relationship with Palm, Inc. Taylor is pictured in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A Joanne Taylor, Media Relations Manager for Extended Systems.
"Extended Systems has been selling into corporations for many years," Taylor explained. "We began as a spin-off of Hewlett Packard, selling print spoolers when that was really a hot technology and then graduated to print servers." This remained the business of Extended Systems for some time, helping them open several large corporate accounts. "What we are able to do now is to leverage those relationships into our new technologies."
That leveraging started with companies like Hewlett Packard and 3Com, which was where their relationship with Palm began, as at the time Palm was still a part of 3Com. This relationship eventually led to an announcement on March 6, 2001 that Palm, Inc. had agreed to acquire Extended Systems Incorporated as part of Palm’s ongoing strategy to serve the enterprise marketplace. The slowing economy and market conditions took their toll, however, leading both companies to conclude that a termination of merger plans would best serve both companies and their respective shareholders. On May 17 the companies announced that they had mutually and amicably agreed to terminate their proposed merger agreement.
"With the challenges that Palm faces right now, they have to remain focused on their business today," Taylor said. "The last thing that they need is another business to manage." Ultimately, though, Taylor believes this will work out better for everybody. In fact, on June 26, Palm and Extended Systems, Inc. announced that they had signed a non-binding Letter of Intent for Palm to resell Extended Systems’ XTNDConnect Server Software as a Palm branded product by the fourth quarter of this calendar year. "They can offer it as an add-on piece," Taylor explained. "This makes their offering a lot more valuable to the enterprise."
Through this agreement, Palm can address several important issues its enterprise customers have: seamless integration, security, and reliability. The idea is that the two companies will promote XTNDConnect Server Software to developers, which will spawn greater application development for deployment of the Palm family of handhelds within enterprises. By reselling XTNDConnect Server, Palm becomes a single vendor that can provide hardware and software that allows seamless integration of mobile devices into corporate IT infrastructures. The advantage for Extended Systems, says Taylor, is that they get the benefit of being able to work with other companies.
.H1 What is XTNDConnect Server?
Simply put, XTNDConnect Server provides mobile devices like Palm handhelds with behind-the-firewall access to real-time business information. Any corporate information that resides on your company’s Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity)-compliant database servers will be accessible from Palm OS handhelds.
The executives of both companies agree that offering enterprise customers a combined solution of Palm’s handheld computer technologies and Extended Systems’ mobile infrastructure software will lead to broader adoption of mobile devices. Palm and Extended Systems also plan to work together to provide a migration path for existing customers using Palm’s previous enterprise-class synchronization software, HotSync Server.
.H1 Early foray into the enterprise
Taylor believes that it’s to Extended Systems’ benefit that solutions providers like Palm are turning attention to addressing the needs of the enterprise, as it means their plan has been right all along. "Maybe we were a little early," Taylor concedes. "IT certainly wasn’t ready for the type of technology that we provide. It is still having a hard time, to some degree, putting all of the pieces together. What type of software do I need? What type of infrastructure do I need? What devices should I have? How am I going to manage it?"
The current adoption of handheld computers can be compared to laptops a few years ago. As laptops started to come into the corporation, IT was very afraid of what was going to happen. There’s one difference, however. By and large, laptops were being bought by departments at that time. PDAs are being brought in by individuals. It’s a whole different game with PDAs, because senior vice presidents are walking in with something that doesn’t fit into the IT strategy at all.
Taylor agreed and added, "One of the benefits of our product over our competitor’s products is that it supports multiple devices. So, we don’t care what type of device you use, and we don’t care what type of connection you want to make. So, you can be using a modem, you can have an 802.11 wireless modem, you can access your information that way. You can put it in a cradle, which is a more traditional way for being in the field entering data and updating data. When you get back, you can synchronize through the cradle and update the data."
Taylor went on to note that Extended Systems’ product is also an add-in to IT with such things as a backup and restore and automatic application restore. If you’re on the road and somehow you delete your sales application by mistake, the next time you synchronize your handheld, it all comes back up.
Security is naturally a big issue for any enterprise as well. I asked Taylor how Extended Systems is dealing with security on a competitive stance.
"With us, you have to be an authenticated user," she explained. "So, you do have to use authentication, password protected. Then we also offer the Certicom authentication, which is a form of encryption." Certicom (at http://www.certicom.com) provides them with a 128 bit encryption.
.H1 Conclusion
It’s easy to see why Palm CEO Carl Yankowski recently said, "The mutual attraction Palm and Extended Systems felt in our merger plans remains as strong as ever." The technologies these two companies provide seem to dovetail perfectly. Working together as independent partners, they can offer a mobile infrastructure platform that maximizes the benefits of mobile device deployment. And in the end, it’s you, the customer, who will truly benefit.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Extended Systems, visit http://www.extendedsystems.com.
For more information on Certicom, visit http://www.certicom.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Theodore Durst is an Associate Technical Editor for ZATZ:Pure Internet Publishing, a freelance writer, analyst, and product marketing wonk. He can be reached at theo_durst@zatz.com.
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