Is anybody else as mystified as I am about the moves (or lack thereof) being made by Palm and Handspring? I am a very heavy user of my Palm IIIxe and it is one of the few high-tech gadgets I’ve ever purchased that I actually used on a daily basis. I don’t leave home without it. But when it’s time to buy a new PDA, I’m almost certainly going with a PocketPC model, probably an iPaq.
The problems with the Palm OS models are evident in a recent announcement by Handspring of a couple new models (Don Larson originally pointed this out to me).
Gee whiz — for $299 and $199 respectively I can buy yet another greyscale PDA that uses proprietary technology for expandability.
I’d prefer color and a compact flash slot. There are several Palm PDA models that include one or the other, but none to my knowledge that features both. Which is why I doubt I’ll ever buy another Palm PDA.
Someday there aren’t going to be any Palm PDAs and the usual suspects will claim that Microsoft killed Palm with underhanded tactics. In reality, at the moment Palm and Handspring seem intent on committing suicide.