.FLYINGHEAD THE PALMPOWER INTERVIEW
.TITLE Part 2: Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot
.SUMMARY We continue our fascinating discussion with the the father of the PalmPilot in Part 2 of The PalmPower Interview with Jeff Hawkins. Jeff shares with us interesting insights into the design and execution of the PalmPilot, along with some ideas for the future.
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.GRAPHICPAIR A Jeff Hawkins, PalmPilot Inventor | .BLUENOTE We continue our fascinating discussion with the the father of the PalmPilot in Part 2 of The PalmPower Interview with Jeff Hawkins. Jeff shares with us interesting insights into the design and execution of the PalmPilot, along with some ideas for the future. |
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.Q DG
I was listening to one of the lectures at the developers conference. One of the things I found kind of curious was that Rob Haitani, one of your senior product guys, said that your early interface prototypes were developed using HyperCard. Please share with us some interesting "early development" stories like that.
.A JH
It’s hard to remember these things. I have a brain that sort of washes things out. Well, the HyperCard thing was sort of interesting. Rob worked very heavily on the user interface of the PalmPilot. We went through a tremendous number of iterations. Almost minute by minute we would modify things and test them with people because he got very facile at using HyperCard.
.CALLOUT I’m putting a stake in the ground and saying I’m not going to build something bigger.
If I look back, I think one of the real big insights we made in the product design process, which is not one we had coming in, is the use of these buttons. You don’t want to have hard wired functions when you’re building a platform that’s programmable to do various things. You don’t want to have lots of buttons, because buttons are confusing. We had an original prototype which had one button. We kept trying to do more and more with this one button.
Then we sat back one day and said "What do people really, really want to do?" because we were counting the steps it took to do things they really wanted to do. We basically said "You know, there are a number of things that people want to do so often and so commonly, were willing to print pictures of them and put them on dedicated buttons and put them on the machine," which was kind of against the computer design philosophy if you think about it. That’s not the way desktops and laptops are produced.
Of course, we didn’t go overboard. We kept the number of buttons down, we thought very hard about where they were going to be placed. Made sure that they’d work well with games and things like that. But that was an insight that came through by sitting there watching people using the product and watching them use paper. And we said, "Gee, we’re not as quick as paper, what can we do about this," over and over and over again.
.Q DG
Can you share one or two more?
.A JH
Let me just think for a second. We had a tremendous amount of debate about things that people thought were absolutely necessary to have on the product. It was perceived at the time we did the PalmPilot that it was absolutely essential to have a PC Card slot for example. We didn’t have one. I didn’t want to put one in there. There was a lot of pressure to put one in there. We kept coming back to "What are people going to use it for? What works on it and doesn’t work on it?"
In general, we tried to not put things in the product. We tried to keep it small and cheap. That’s why we didn’t put the PC Card slot in the machine. But we did say, "People really do want to upgrade their machines. They want to be able to upgrade the functionality, they wanted to upgrade the storage." You can do that with a PC Card, but it’s actually very hard to do. Basically all the memory has to be on the card and it just doesn’t work well. The PC Card interface wasn’t designed for that.
We ended up putting in, as you know, a memory card. But a non-standard memory card, and one that we don’t even publicize much. That allowed people to do it. We were the first people to do that in a product. It cost us money, it affects size and there’s performance issues with it. But we felt it was such an important thing that even though we had everyone telling us we had to put this standard in, that was the wrong solution.
We sat back and said "No, but this really is an important functionality, PC Card isn’t the way to do it. Let’s come up with something else." That has been very successful. Many people upgrade their machines and this pager card goes in that slot. It’s kind of a good turn that we didn’t expect perhaps when we started the program.
Let me think about the user interface a little bit and see if there’s anything real particular there that we did. Some if it is not even just magic. I remember picking the size of the display. I did that. I said okay, it should be about this big. I drew a little picture on a piece of paper. I said "It has to be a nice number, that means divisible by eight evenly. " I just made that up, picked that one out of a hat pretty much. So there’s a lot of serendipity in this stuff too. Could’ve done something different there. But didn’t really matter I suppose.
.Q DG
But it actually worked.
.A JH
Yeah, it worked. We made sure we could put reasonable screens on that size display in that number of pixels and said, "Yeah, we can do that. "
.Q DG
I understand that originally Palm Computing was a software company, then you got involved with US Robotics and then US Robotics was then acquired by 3Com. Where do you fit on a day to day basis in terms of all of that.
.A JH
Let me make sure you’re clear about this. Although Palm was started as a software company, we did the entire development of the hardware PalmPilot before US Robotics acquired us. Some people have the misconception that they came along and said "Let’s build this thing. " It’s just the opposite. We built this thing. They said "We like this so much, we’ll buy the company. "
So we did that. We did the hardware. I could tell you where I fit in back in those days and where I fit in today. At the time, I was really the only person at Palm (we had 28 employees) who had a thorough hardware background. I have an electrical engineering degree. Although I never actually designed real hardware, I managed programs for my previous employer in hardware and I knew a lot about hardware issues.
So I was, in the beginning, the hardware guy. Personally. I did the basic layouts of the product, I figured out where the batteries were going to go. I designed the screen size and the thickness and all that basic stuff. And then we hired some outside electrical engineers to actually do the engineering work. And an outside design firm.
So, the way we turned this from a software company into a hardware company is that we basically contracted out the hardware. We had myself, and then we hired a couple other people who had hardware experience after we started the PalmPilot. We had about three people on staff who kind of knew hardware issues during the development of the PalmPilot.
During that phase, everyone in the company practically worked on this thing. We were all intimately involved, we all went to every meeting and I drove most of the design issues and the design processes.
Today, of course, it’s very different. We have a lot of people here. We have a very big business that has to be run. We have many programs under development at this point in time. So we can’t take that sort of dedicated single focus thing. My particular role now if you’re interested in that is I am heading the focus on the real sort of strategic product direction issues.
As I said earlier, we’re at the beginning of this business. It’s going to change very markedly over the coming years. And I, more than anyone here, try to understand what that’s going to be and push the company to build products and develop technologies that can be important for the future. So I don’t get involved in the day to day revs or what enhancements we’re going to make to this particular part of the program or something like that. Although I get involved in that. But I tend to personally focus on the very long term. The long term being 18 months and out.
.Q DG
Considering that in 18 months you guys have built an entire market, I think that’s pretty good! Do you get any sleep?
.A JH
Thank you. Yeah, you know, we work hard here but we’re not frenetic about it. We try to be logical and thoughtful about it. Of course it gets a lot harder near release time when products are trying to get out the door. But I personally try not to get caught up in things too much. Because I find that when you get caught up in things too much it’s hard to think about the bigger pictures. I actually enjoy just dilly dallying once in awhile. This last month I spent a lot of time browsing the web on PalmPilot sites talking to developers. Just hearing what they’re doing and just getting sort of a bigger picture. I find that’s really important. So my job is really ideal, I think. I get to do all this fun stuff and think about the future and I get to relax while I’m doing it all the time. Not to say that we’re not working hard. Of course we are.
.Q DG
I was about to ask you how it felt to go and how your 28 people sort of handled the transition to being part of this huge empire here.
.A JH
Well, there’s two issues here. One is our own growth. The Palm division and how we grow. The other is part of being a much larger company now, 3Com. Those are two separate issues. We try to isolate the Palm employees from many of the issues of the larger parent, 3Com. We want them all thinking about our business, focusing on it. Today we’re in a separate building and we have our own sort of team and camaraderie here. That doesn’t mean we don’t take advantage of 3Com all we can. We do.
So senior management, their job is to sort of try to pretend like, "Hey don’t worry about 3Com right at the moment. We’re still Palm, get this stuff going, build our market," because our business is substantially different than much of 3Com’s business.
The biggest challenge, I would say, is growing our own organization literally tenfold over a two year period or even less than that. That is hard. We bring in all these new people. They haven’t been through the PDA wars like the original 28 were. They haven’t suffered through these problems and really struggled with them. We spend a lot of time working on conveying what we’ve learned to the new employees. In various methods of teaching, coaching providing feedback. Because, you know, it seems so obvious to us now on a particular decision what the right thing to do is. But when you’re a new employee, even if you were a senior person coming from another company, it’s not necessarily clear. They don’t have the same sort of background. That’s one of our challenges. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a strength of ours that we have this sort of core knowledge. Now we have to transfer it to a lot of other people really quickly. That’s a management challenge.
I think that’s the only issue we deal with. We haven’t lost anybody really. Everyone is excited about what they’re doing business is doing very well. The big issue is just how do you manage growth, and not screw up, too. You can have operational problems really easily as you go from zero sales to really large sales. It’s really easy to make big mistakes, in parts and manufacturing.
A lot of credit goes to our general manager Donna Dubinsky. She is tremendously operationally oriented and understands how to grow businesses and has done a fantastic job there. I hope we continue to do that. I’m sure we will.
.Q DG
So. Surprises. What are the surprises you’ve had in the past couple of years in getting to where you are?
.CALLOUT I think it also surprises how many people it appeals to today, even when we’re so early on.
.A JH
As I said in the beginning, I always felt that this would be a huge market opportunity. That’s not a surprise. I guess what is a surprise is the rapidity of the adoption of the product. I think it also surprises how many people it appeals to today, even when we’re so early on. You know, kids love this product. And we didn’t design this for kids. And it’s not priced for kids. But they love it, even in its current form. Children, from second grade on up love this thing. I went to a school the other day and talked to a bunch of second graders. There were kids in the class who knew Graffiti, had used PalmPilots and were telling me about the games they played. they were "Oh, yeah, my mom has one and my dad has one." You see this.
So I think there’s two things. One is how quickly we reached that million units, how quickly we think we’re going to reach the next one. Also, just the broad appeal of the product, even though we haven’t done the derivations yet that might appeal to specific segments. It’s just how fast it’s happening that’s both exciting and surprising and a little scary too, I guess. That would be the big surprise I guess. Nothing else is terrible surprising, a lot of things to worry about, but nothing terribly surprising.
.Q DG
When you were talking at the conference, you said you wanted to "own the shirt pocket", and the other thing you said was that you saw a picture of a time where your goal was you got issued a phone and you got issued a PalmPilot in the corporation.
.CALLOUT If it’s data and it’s in your pocket, that’s where we want to be.
.A JH
Well, there’s two things. The first comment about owning the pocket is really just a statement of how we view our market. It gets back to the size again. Form factor. If it is data and it’s in your pocket, that’s where we want to be. And I’m just putting a stake in the ground and saying I’m not going to build something bigger. And I’m not going to build something that implants in your ear. I use that internally because so many times people come to me and say, "Oh, why don’t you build something that’s tablet size or a Newton size?" You know, there may be a market there but you have to know what you’re going after and that’s not it for us. It’s really a usability/wearability form factor we’re trying to achieve.
The second comment was specifically related to corporate users. Corporate adoption. This is a subset of our overall market. But it is an important subset. And we are selling this mostly to business people today. But mostly they’re buying it on their own. They buy ten at a time or two at a time or one. But you know, you go to companies and there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of PalmPilots in the company. By no design. They just show up. And yet I do feel that the value of this will become more and more recognized to corporations and to the IS managers of corporations.
And they will at some point in time start to say, "Okay, well let’s just give this to everybody." And I make the analogy between the phone, voicemail, a PC, and E-mail and Web access. Which are things that you didn’t get 15 years ago. You got a phone, that was it. Now it’s standard for any sort of technology or business person to get all those things. It’s quite conceivable, and I believe it will happen that you’ll go to work someday and they’ll say to you "This is the remote access we use, and here’s how you’re gonna get your email, the company phone list is on here. Here’s the policy manual, here’s some applications we did custom for this company," and on and on.
We’re starting to see that adoption. But it’s really interesting. The companies that are starting to say "We give this to every employee" are entrepreneurial companies. Young companies. 300 employees or less. They’re young employees and they’re new. They tend to be more technology businesses. You see a lot of them near Silicon Valley. I think the large companies will get there someday. It may be five years before products will everywhere but they will. Because it’ll be inexpensive enough and the payback will be large enough that they’ll just get it.
That’s one of the things. There’s something, we were talking about my role earlier. I see this happening. I say "Okay, these customers don’t get this yet, but what can we do today to start preparing for that eventuality? What kind of products can we produce that assume that they’re going to adopt these things in large quantities? What will they want at that time?" And start building that stuff now.
.Q DG
Is there a security implication for a thousand employees popping down the corporate data and dropping it in their pocket and running around?
.A JH
Sure there is. But it’s not really different than doing it from a desktop computer or voice mail or something like that. Every access to data by employee has security concerns. You can argue that this makes it a little bit easier in some cases, if someone loses their PalmPilot or something. But those are issues that are the kinds of things we really have to sit down and talk to customers about and understand what they want to do. We’re doing a lot in the security area to make them feel comfortable with it. But it’s a problem they have to deal with. It’s not going to slow the adoption really. It’s like with PCs , there are security problems with PCs. People are struggling with it all the time. It doesn’t mean people are going to stop using them.
That’s an interesting problem. It’s going to get even worse by the way. As PalmPilots and handheld devices get more connected in the world. And are starting to be used more and more for transactions. It just compounds the issue.
.Q DG
What do you want to tell our readers?
.A JH
Well, a couple things. One is, I want them to be as excited about the future of this category as we are. I don’t know if they are or not, but I want them to realize that this is a very significant both technology and social thing that’s happening. And just sort of share in that enthusiasm. And the number two thing I would want them to know is that I don’t want them to have any doubts that Palm and 3Com are both extremely motivated to be the leader in this category.
I’d like them to believe that we have the right people and skills and wherewithal to maintain that leadership. And that we’re not going to drop the ball either from our own point of view or from our customer’s point of view.
A lot of people come and want to know if it’s a one trick pony, you just did this one product and that’s it? The answer is, "Hell, no!" We’re just getting started. You’re going to see some really dramatic things this coming year. I just want people to have faith and be comfortable in this and we’re not going to disappoint in making that vision a reality.
.Q DG
Any final messages?
.A JH
I would encourage your readers to tell us at Palm to tell us what they like and dislike about our products and services. It’s sort of a party-line thing, but it really is true. I’ve given you a bunch of other stuff, this is one thing we didn’t cover. We’re approachable people and we really do want to hear from you about what works and what doesn’t what ideas you have, business you want to start, whatever. People think that "Oh, I can’t reach these people." That’s baloney. They can reach us, they can reach me. They can call me if they have to. I might pass them on to the appropriate person, but I really do want to hear from them.
