.KEYWORD m125
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE The Palm m125 offers a compelling value proposition
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY On September 20, 2001, Palm, Inc. released a brand new handheld called the Palm m125, the latest addition to the popular m100 series. The m100 series has long been associated with consumers, which might make you wonder whether the Palm m125 could really be considered an enterprise tool. Contributing Editor Steve Niles says, "Yes, it can," thanks to the fact that Palm followed through on some promises made earlier this year. To find out why the Palm m125 is a great value proposition for your company, check out this review.
.AUTHOR 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.
.FIGPAIR A The Palm m125 brings expandability to the m100 line.
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.
.FIG 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.
.H1 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.
When Palm introduced the m500 series back in March, they said that they would migrate these key technologies down from the high-end models into the rest of their product lines. The Palm m125 is proof of their coming through on this promise. The primary features that led me to declare the m500 series ideal for the enterprise have been carried down into the Palm m125, creating an expandable, connectable, yet very affordable unit.
.CALLOUT Palm has given you yet another way to skyrocket your ROI.
The Palm m125 has an estimated U.S. street price of $249. In last month’s issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, we spent a lot of time discussing ROI (Return On Investment) when it comes to the deployment of Palm handhelds in your company. Well, thanks to the great value proposition the Palm m125 affords in providing the most powerful features of the m500 series in a device that’s nearly half the price, Palm has given you yet another way to skyrocket your ROI.
Let’s take a closer look at the features I mentioned above to see why the Palm m125 would fit in most any business place.
.H1 Dual-expansion capability
As I mentioned already, Palm introduced its dual-expansion architecture with the m500 line. You now have the ability to insert postage-stamp-sized content cards into the Secure Digital and MultiMediaCard expansion slot. These cards allow you to run a variety of different applications without using up any of the 8MB of storage space on your device.
In the m500 line, the cards are inserted into a slot positioned on the top most edge of the device. In the Palm m125, however, the cards are inserted into the left side of the device, as shown in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Expansion cards are inserted into the left side of the Palm m125.
There are already seven Palm branded cards available, including the PalmPak Travel Cards (for cities in the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific); the Games Card; the Dictionary/Thesaurus Card; a Backup Card; and a 16MB Expansion Card, which lets people store applications and content they create themselves. Five of these cards are pictured in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Here are five of the seven Palm branded cards already on the market.
Soon after the release of the Palm m125, Palm, Inc. is introducing five new PalmPak cards. First, there’s the PalmPak Travel Card: Rand McNally Road Atlas that provides you with maps, driving directions (city to city), and points of interest in the 48 continental United States. Then there’s the PalmPak Language Translator Card that allows you to translate among English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, with 40,000 words and 5,000 phrases. Finally, there are three PalmPak eBook Series Cards. These entertaining and informative ebooks include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Personal Finance Series: seven popular Personal Finance Books, including "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter;
.BULLET Mystery Book Series: Six books by Michael Connelly featuring Harry Bosch;
.BULLET Science Fiction: one trilogy and seven stories by Peter F. Hamilton.
.END_LIST
The new cards are scheduled to be available in November. The 12 PalmPak cards range in price from $29.95 to $39.99 (estimated U.S. street pricing). That’s a lot of content, and that’s just what Palm itself is offering. Many other companies offer expansion media content cards, including the following:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET FranklinCovey: FranklinCovey Handheld Library, including best-selling books such as The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People at http://www.franklincovey.com;
.BULLET Franklin Electronic Publishers: Holy Bible, King James Version at http://www.franklin.com;
.BULLET Handmark: SCRABBLE Crossword Game at http://www.handmark.com;
.BULLET Purple Software: 5 Classic Board Games at http://www.purplesoft.com.
.END_LIST
The SD card is a low cost memory option, one of the main reasons Palm chose it as its expansion standard. The small size of the card was another important factor in their decision, along with the high speed of data transfer and the amount of storage room available in these small chips. In fact, executives at Palm expect that in the near future a card capable of holding up to 1GB of information may be developed. Palm also chose the SD card because it has broad support from a wide range of companies, meaning it will be possible to take your card from your Palm handheld and put it into such devices as MP3 players, digital cameras, printers, etc.
To discuss the real boon expansion cards can be for the enterprise, I’m going to quote myself for a moment. As I said in my article on the m500 line of handhelds:
.QUOTE Things will get really interesting when companies begin developing proprietary software and placing it on SD cards. You can use your personal digital assistant to store all of your personal data, and when you need to, you can pop in your company’s proprietary SD card to access your corporate data without taking up valuable space on your device. This may even turn into a security feature for companies, as they can require sensitive information to be stored on an SD card that you’d then check at the door before leaving the office at night.
.H1 Universal Connector
The Universal Connector was another innovation introduced as part of the m500 line, with the promise that it would become the standard across all future Palm products. With the release of the Palm m125, the doubters can now be silenced. A universal standard for connecting Palm handhelds to cradles and accessories is a major innovation. No longer will you have to start from scratch, buying a whole new set of accessories when you upgrade to a newer model of Palm handheld.
This is a valuable change when it comes to enterprise deployment as well. The various cradles positioned at PCs throughout the office will soon be interchangeable. For example, suppose you’re in charge of a factory floor and you’ve assigned Palm handhelds to your floor workers who are moving about collecting data. You have a central PC in a back office where you intend for them to download the information they collect. If you have a cradle with a Universal Connector hooked up to that PC, all your staff members will be able to perform their HotSync operations with that computer, whether they carry high-end Palm m500 series computers or more rugged Palm m125s.
The Universal Connector not only provides USB (Universal Serial Bus) or serial synchronization, but also enables users to attach add-on products, such as Kodak’s PalmPix camera (at http://www.kodak.com/cgi-bin/webCatalog.pl?product=KODAK+PalmPix+Camera+for+the+m100+Handheld+Series) and Novatel’s Minstrel wireless modem (at http://www.novatelwireless.com/palmtop/index.html).
The Palm m125 handheld comes with a USB cradle to allow you to easily back up and transfer your data via HotSync operation to a PC or Mac. However, a HotSync cable, pictured in Figure E, is also available, which business travelers might find extremely handy for synchronizing their Palm m125s to their laptops while on the go.
.FIGPAIR E Travelers will love the HotSync cable for the Palm m125.
.H1 Bundled software solutions
Nine applications have been bundled with the Palm m125 handheld. They’re stored on disk in the box, making it your option to install them or not. Read on for more information about the applications.
.H2 DataViz Documents To Go 3.0
With DataViz Documents To Go 3.0 (at http://www.dataviz.com), you can view and edit most documents and spreadsheets, including Microsoft Word and Excel. Palm announced that customers who purchase a Palm m125 handheld can download Dataviz’s Documents To Go 4.0 with support for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint free of charge up to 30 days from the date of purchase.
Documents To Go is the final major piece of the puzzle I outlined above, making the Palm m125 a perfect tool for the enterprise. With Documents To Go and the Palm Portable Keyboard pictured in Figure F, you’ll have a powerful, compact word processing solution.
.FIGPAIR F Let your fingers do the talking with the Palm Portable Keyboard.
.H2 PocketMirror 3.0.2
PocketMirror 3.0.2 software from Chapura, Inc. (at http://www.chapura.com/html/products/pocketmirror/pocketmirrorfeatures.html) enables synchronization with Microsoft Outlook calendar, contacts, tasks and notes. Considering the wide use of Outlook in most offices, this was a wise choice to include.
.H2 Palm Reader 1.0
With Palm Reader 1.0 you can read ebooks on your handheld. Mystery and sci-fi fans will be glad to know two ebooks are included on the disk: Star Trek: S.C.E. #4: Interphase: Book One by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, and a suspense novel titled The Empty Chair: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffery Deaver. You can find other ebooks for your Palm handheld at http://www.palm.com/ebooks.
.H2 Palm Mobile Connectivity Kit
The Palm Mobile Connectivity Kit (at http://www.palm.com/software/mik/) allows you to connect wirelessly to your Internet account to access your email and instant-messaging features via a compatible mobile phone or modem.
.H2 MultiMail SE and HotSync Mail
With MultiMail SE and HotSync Mail (at http://www.palm.com/software/multimail/) you can download and read email from POP3, IMAP4, and NNTP services.
.H2 MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition 2.21
MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition 2.21 (at http://www.mgisoft.com/products/mobile/index.asp) allows you to view, manage, and share photos and video clips.
.H2 AvantGo Mobile Internet Service
AvantGo Mobile Internet Service (at https://avantgo.com) enables you to download applications and content from the Internet, including news, movie listings, maps, stock quotes, weather, and more.
.H2 Vindigo
Vindigo (at http://www.vindigo.com) enables you to find the best and closest places to eat, shop, and play in major U.S. cities. As a Vindigo user, you get automatic updates over the Internet whenever you synchronize your device.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 Conclusion
According to Palm, there are three key reasons customers will like the Palm m125. For one, it’s expandable and connectable, two, it’s simple and elegant in design and function, and three, it’s a great value.
At $249, it’s affordable, which will appeal to young people and other fans of the Palm m100 series. However, this also makes it even easier for companies trying to decide whether or not to invest in Palm handhelds to make their decisions. With the powerful functionality of higher-end devices in a rugged, less expensive shell, this is one offer you can’t refuse.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For the article, "The Palm m100: tougher, sleeker, cheaper," by Steve Niles in the August 2000 issue of PalmPower , visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200008/m100001.html.
For the article, "Why the Palm m500 series is ideal for the enterprise," in the April 2001 issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, visit http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200104/newdevice001.html.
For more information on FranklinCovey, visit http://www.franklincovey.com.
For more information on Franklin Electronic Publishers, visit http://www.franklin.com.
For more information on Handmark, visit http://www.handmark.com.
For more information on Purple Software, visit http://www.purplesoft.com.
For more information on Kodak’s PalmPix camera, visit http://www.kodak.com/cgi-bin/webCatalog.pl?product=KODAK+PalmPix+Camera+for+the+m100+Handheld+Series.
For more information on Novatel’s Minstrel wireless modem, visit http://www.novatelwireless.com/palmtop/index.html.
For more information on DataViz Documents To Go 3.0, visit http://www.dataviz.com.
For more information on PocketMirror 3.0.2 software from Chapura, Inc., visit http://www.chapura.com/html/products/pocketmirror/pocketmirrorfeatures.html.
For more information on Palm Reader 1.0, visit http://www.palm.com/ebooks.
For more information on the Palm Mobile Connectivity Kit, visit http://www.palm.com/software/mik/.
For more information on MultiMail SE and HotSync Mail, visit http://www.palm.com/software/multimail/.
For more information on MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition 2.21, visit http://www.mgisoft.com/products/mobile/index.asp.
For more information on AvantGo Mobile Internet Service, visit https://avantgo.com.
For more information on Vindigo, visit http://www.vindigo.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
ZATZ now offers a quick, easy, flexible, and inexpensive way to use article reprints in your marketing and promotion efforts. You can now get article reprints for a one-time fee of only $200. For details, visit http://mediakit.zatz.com/reprints.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Contributing Editor Steve Niles is a freelance writer and videographer. He can be reached at sniles@zatz.com.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f94e
.END_KEEP
