.KEYWORD bercowinterview
.FLYINGHEAD THE PALMPOWER INTERVIEW
.TITLE PalmPower interviews Palm Computing
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY Last month, we interviewed Handspring. This month, Palm Computing’s VP Mark Bercow is in the hot-seat. In this exclusive interview, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz poses a series of penetrating questions to Palm VP Mark Bercow. Here are his answers.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 About this interview
Last month, we interviewed Handspring about their new products and their expectations for the future. At that time, we also extended an invitation to Palm Computing for a similar email interview. Unfortunately, their interview came in to us after we needed to "go live". Apparently, as part of the "quiet period" before a stock offering, the company felt it necessary and prudent to have a legal review of their comments.
We’re thrilled to have an excellent interview to bring you. In this fascinating interview, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz poses a series of penetrating questions to Palm VP Mark Bercow. Here are his answers.
.END_SIDEBAR
.Q PalmPower
Can you please explain why you’re spinning out Palm as a separate company and how that will impact Palm’s valuation as well as 3Com’s?
.A MB
There are three key reasons why it is the right action to form an independent, publicly-traded Palm company now: critical mass, market potential to move its successful platform beyond Palm-branded devices, and the opportunity to maximize shareholder value for 3Com and future Palm shareholders.
As for how this will impact valuation, we cannot comment on questions such as these as we are currently under the Quiet Period restrictions of the SEC for our IPO.
.CALLOUT We deeply appreciate their support, and stay tuned — the fun is just beginning.
.Q PalmPower
Do you consider Palm an "Internet stock"? If so, why?
.A MB
Our business includes hardware, OS, wireless, enterprise solutions, and Internet components. We can’t comment on our stock, though, because of the SEC’s Quiet Period restrictions.
.Q PalmPower
How do you think Handspring’s new offerings will impact Palm’s market share?
.A MB
The market is large enough to support both hardware businesses. The main impact is what Palm and Handspring are doing together to Windows CE — the Windows CE players have fallen even further behind in momentum, features, and price.
.Q PalmPower
We understand Handspring licensed the Palm OS. But the new Visor models seem to use almost exactly the same device shape as the Palm III series, almost as if Handspring is using the same Palm III case molds. What’s the story behind this?
.A MB
It isn’t our role to comment on their industrial design choices. They didn’t use our tooling.
.Q PalmPower
Do you expect Palm to adopt the Handspring Springboard architecture in future models? If not, do you expect Palm to do something similar?
.A MB
We already have a lot of expansion options for the Palm III and Palm V lines, and more is coming. There are a number of internal expansion architectures that Palm could adopt in the future, and that various current and potential licensees are encouraging us to consider, but we’re not prepared to announce anything at this time.
.Q PalmPower
Is the wireless Palm VII architecture available as part of the Palm OS license to Handspring?
.A MB
The Web clipping architecture is available for license, and OpenSky is our only announced licensee.
.Q PalmPower
How has the wireless nature of the Palm VII changed the world of Palm Computing?
.A MB
Some day, all info managers will have wireless access built in — either long-range wireless like the Palm VII or short-range like Bluetooth. So the Palm VII is our first step into that future. It’s very important because it’s enabling a lot of customers to create new uses for our systems — we’re finding that a lot of senior executives in corporations see it, immediately understand how it can help their employees, and want to get it deployed as soon as possible.
.Q PalmPower
The naming conventions for the Palm devices (i.e., Palm III, IIIx, IIIe, V, Vx, VII, etc) are confusing, at best. Are you planning to adopt a more understandable naming convention in the future?
.A MB
Actually, we’re re-examining our overall branding. For example, we know we need to put more separation between the name of our OS and the name of our hardware, so licensees and our hardware team have a level playing field. We’ll look at product naming at the same time.
Keep in mind, though, that no technology company with multiple product lines and fast product cycles has ever come up with a completely satisfactory naming scheme. There’s always a certain amount of confusion. Our current naming is actually less confusing than that of companies like HP or Casio. Quick, what’s the difference between a Jornada 430se and a Casio A-11+?
[We agree. I wrote "Make sure it’s got a little ‘Oooh’ in it
