.KEYWORD editorial898
.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.TITLE Jeff & Donna’s excellent adventure
.DEPT
.SUMMARY We were as surprised as everyone else when Palm creator Jeff Hawkins announced his resignation from 3Com. When Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz got the news, he set up an exclusive interview with Jeff to get the whole story. The interview was fascinating, but what did it all mean? How will the departure of 3Com’s visionary inventor impact the future of the Palm platform? How will it impact you? Will there be more cool toys? You’ll need to read David’s editorial to find out.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
From time to time, I get reminded how strange life can be. In the early 80’s, when I moved to the Bay Area after college, I used to have a phrase (actually more like a mantra): "Only in Silicon Valley". I used this phrase to refer to all the strange industry goings on that I, a neophyte from Massachusetts, found myself encountering. For example, one day I was having a burger in the local Carl’s Junior fast food joint and I overheard the acquisition discussions between one of the bigger software companies and a well known database vendor.
Other things that initially seemed strange now seem perfectly normal. For example, you could go into Fry’s and get surly service, computer motherboards, and shampoo. It was all any good, red-blooded engineer needed for survival. And yes, you could also get nacho chips and UART chips. It was a cranky sort of bliss. Here’s a hint to CompUSA: add snack foods and grooming supplies to your stock. We’d buy more stuff. And to those wierd supermarket places like Shopright and Pathmark: add some computer gear. Then we’d actually go inside.
Here in Central New Jersey, we’re not completely devoid of strange. The Stewarts drive-in root beer joint that’s the dictionary definition of summer decided to be closed for business on the Fourth of July. Strange. There’s a CVS pharmacy in the big shopping center next to where I live. There’s another CVS pharmacy at the other end of my condo complex, in the next shopping center. But that doesn’t seem to be enough. They’re now building a new CVS to go between the two. Strange.
Even the Internet is not devoid of strangeness. And no, I’m not talking about the government’s continued attempts to restrict free speech with CDA II. No, I’m talking about customer service. As our readership has grown, our Internet feed has proven to be somewhat inadequate to the task–especially on the first couple of days after we launch the journal. It takes everyone more time to load pages than we’d like. So we’ve embarked on an effort to add bandwidth, and our goal was getting it online before the August issue. Unfortunately, the ISPs and Web Presence Providers (WPPs) have other ideas. Like never returning phone calls. Like not responding to email. Like not even listing customer service numbers or changing them to unlisted numbers after taking credit-card numbers. So, despite our best efforts to spend money and increase bandwidth, it hasn’t happened yet.
Here are couple of customer service notes that we’re now going to track closely at PalmPower:
.BEGIN_STEPS
.STEP Publish your phone number. Ours is on our credits page.
.STEP Answer your phone.
.STEP Answer your email.
.STEP Return phone calls.
.STEP Don’t take money unless you can do items 1-4 above.
.END_STEPS
We’ve noticed that there are some PalmPilot software and hardware vendors that violate these guidelines. Be forewarned: we’ve started getting complaints and we’re going to make a special point of telling readers in reviews if you sell a PalmPilot product and your phone number is unavailable.
I, too, am not without my own strangenesses. Here I am the glorious editor-in-chief of the leading (at least in terms of the number of readers) and certainly the coolest publication on the PalmPilot, and I’m sitting here in a nasty Bennigan’s on a Saturday night writing my editorial using a Newton MessagePad 2000. Strange. Don’t fret, though. I also have my PalmPilot with me (along with my cell phone, pager, dictating machine, and remote door opener for my Forester). I’m so wired it’s silly.
And you also don’t need to fret that I’m writing this editorial on a Saturday night, rather than painting the town red. First of all, I think applying red paint to the entire town is probably against the law, somehow. Second, I’ve actually got a date tomorrow night, and I need to get all my edits and the editorial done before then. Of course, the woman I’m dating is the same woman I broke up with in February. I know I broke up with her because I wrote it down. I know, because I checked. But for some reason, I’m going on a date with her tomorrow and we talk almost every night. Strange. But I’m a guy. I’m not supposed to understand how this stuff works. Very strange.
So, with access to virtually everything cool for the PalmPilot, why am I writing this on the MessagePad? Well, the primary reason is that the Newt has a bigger screen and a nice word processing program. I can actually get a full line of text and a complete article written on the device. It’s a bummer that Apple foolishly discontinued it.
Of course, now that the Newton’s been canned, my ever unfaithful eye is wandering. The Toshiba Libretto is looking particularly svelte these days. At under two pounds, with a color screen, and running a complete Windows environment, it’s looking mighty sexy. Of course, after plopping down well over a grand for my Newton and its associated goodies, convincing my business partner to let me get the Toshiba will be a tough sell.
"Hey, David! I thought this was a PalmPilot magazine. When are you going to talk about the PalmPilot?"
Well, dear reader, I’m glad you asked. Right about now. Isn’t it amazing how these things work out?
The Big News for July was that Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky resigned from 3Com/Palm Computing. This is pretty big. Jeff and Donna ran Palm Computing when it was a small, 28-person, independent company and Jeff is credited with designing the original Pilot device. He really is "the man" when it comes to this device. And now they’ve bailed. Most strange.
Before I tell you my assessment of this, I’ll tell you about the interview. I had a great conversation with Jeff on his first day "off", his first day not employed by Palm Computing or 3Com. We’ve transcribed and reprinted that conversation in it’s entirety in this issue (minus a few confidential "off-the-record" comments). It’s probably the most important article you need to read in this issue of PalmPower.
So what does Jeff’s resignation mean to the future of the Palm platform? And isn’t it strange that the two founders should suddenly bail? What’s it all mean?
First, I don’t think we’re going to see any discernable impact on the Palm platform for quite some time. By virtue of manufacturing and production requirements, hardware is designed well in advance of reaching the market.
In other words, if they operate like any other hardware company, 3Com already has the next generation of the Palm platform well into the engineering stages (and possibly even pre-manufacturing). And even the follow-on generation is probably getting some work. This means that we can assume that Jeff will have influenced at least the next two or three years of Palm platform devices (and in the interview, he tells us he may have influenced up through five years out).
Interestingly, it’s not clear (even to him), whether 3Com/Palm will be inplementing much of his plan. He said as much in the interview. So that leaves us with the first question: just how much real influence did the Palm platform’s inventor have at 3Com? We’ve been told he was the chief visionary, but we’ve also been told that he had no direct reports. Just how frustrating would that be to an entrepreneur who previously had an entire 28-person team?
The party line is that the parting was amicable. In fact, Jeff really stressed how important it was to him that people know it wasn’t an acrimonious "breakup". We’ve been told that Jeff and Donna have licensed the PalmOS for use in some future device. And as the team that created the fastest growing consumer device in history, it’s pretty clear that investment money will be readily available. We may see some really cool stuff coming from the J&D team.
But what really happened? Is there some juicy gossip? Honestly, I don’t know. But I’d guess that there is probably some truth in all of the speculation. 3Com is one big-ass company and it’s bound to have some serious, but necessary bureaucracy. Did Jeff want to build something that 3Com didn’t? Did 3Com want to build something that Jeff didn’t like or in a way he didn’t approve of? Did the bureaucracy prove stiffling? Did he spend way too much time in meetings and way too little time getting things done? Or did they just all miss the small-company comraderie and environment?
I’ve been an entreprenuer and top-fish of my small pond for eleven years. If I were in Jeff and Donna’s shoes, I’m sure all of the above would have been somewhat true at some time or another. I’d certainly enjoy the bucks and economic power of the parent company, but I even get restless in meetings I call. So I could certainly imagine that after a bunch of years supporting the parent company, Jeff and Donna needed some fresh air.
In any case, we wish everyone the absolute best. We’re convinced we’ll see some nice innovation on the Palm platform from 3Com. And we’re now hopeful for cool stuff from J&D as well.
Most of all though, I’m most hopeful that there will someday be a Palm device that has a big enough screen and a strong enough word processor that I can finally leave this bloody Newton at home for good.
.BIO David Gewirtz is the Founder and Chairman of Component Enterprises, Inc. He is the Editor-in-Chief of PalmPower Magazine, published by Component, and The Insider for Lotus cc:Mail, published by The Cobb Group division of Ziff-Davis. He is also the author of "The Flexible Enterprise" and "Lotus Notes Revealed".
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6c120
