By Steve Niles
On September 20, 2001, Palm, Inc. released a brand new handheld called the Palm m125, the latest addition to the popular m100 series. The Palm m125 is pictured in Figure A.
FIGURE A
The Palm m125 brings expandability to the m100 line. (click for larger image)
The Palm m125 handheld has the same contour shape of the other products in the m100 series, but it sports a unique two-tone Sonic Silver and Dark Black faceplate and a flip cover that has a soft, flexible feel and follows the contour of the faceplate. The Palm m125 uses the latest version of the Palm OS, Version 4.0. The new device improves on its predecessors with a faster processor, the Dragonball VZ 33 MHz. It's powered by two AAA batteries and includes 8MB of RAM.
The Palm m100 line was introduced in August of last year. You can read my review of the original Palm m100 in the August 2000 issue of PalmPower at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200008/m100001.html. Palm surveyed a sampling of Palm m100 buyers and discovered a full 95% were first-time buyers, and 25% were under the age of 25. They also noted a higher proportion of buyers were women than was typical of Palm handheld purchasers. To Palm, this was a great success, as women, youths, and first-time buyers were exactly the target audience they were aiming for with this line.
The attraction of the Palm m100 line for this segment of buyers was its durable design, its low cost, and its ability to be customized with a colorful array of interchangeable faceplates like the ones pictured in Figure B.
FIGURE B
The Palm m125 can be customized with interchangeable faceplates.
The Palm m125 retains all these qualities, making it sure to appeal to that same user market. This, of course, begs the question, what place does a discussion of the Palm m125 have in an enterprise-focused journal? Is the Palm m125 really an enterprise tool? I say, "Yes, it is," thanks to the fact that Palm followed through on some promises made earlier this year.
Migrating technology
In the April 2001 issue of PalmPower's Enterprise Edition, I wrote an article entitled, "Why the Palm m500 series is ideal for the enterprise," at http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200104/newdevice001.html. In this article, I discussed how the features and benefits of the Palm m500 and Palm m505 made the devices a perfect fit for the enterprise space. These features included an SD and MMC (Secure Digital and MultiMediaCard) expansion slot, a Universal Connector, wireless connectivity, and document reader capability.
