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Palm Pilot gets new competitor, the

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

The market for handheld computing devices welcomed a

potentially powerful new contender as

the heavily funded Handspring Silicon Valley start-up launched its

long-awaited "Visor" system that offers users a cheaper and more

expandable hand-held computer than the market-leading Palm Pilot from

3Com.

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The Visor was designed by the same duo of entrepreneurial engineers,

Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins who developed the Palm Pilot, which is

already used by some 4 million people worldwide. Dubinsky and Hawkins left

Palm in 1998 to form Handspring. The Visor lets users plug a variety of

pieces of hardware into a basic unit via a so-called

"springboard" that connects hardware to the Visor.

Among the add-ons are adaptors for playing music, making phone calls,

taking pictures and playing computer games. One add-on to the Visor is a

cartridge that looks like the top of a cellular phone, which combines the

two devices by automatically dialing numbers in a user's phone book. The

Visor has a built-in microphone and the add-on would have an ear piece. A

variety of software applications is

also available and are loaded into the system from credit-card-size memory

cards.

The Visor is about 1.6 cm thick and measures 3-inch by 5-inch. The LCD

screen takes up most of the surface. It has 2 MB of memory -- the same as

the base Palm Pilot ­ and can store about 6,000 addresses, five years of

appointments, 1,500 to-do items, 1,500 memos and 200 e-mail messages. The

Deluxe version has 8 MB of memory. Unlike the Palm Pilot, which has been

popular in the business community, the Handspring is being marketed at the

consumer market. Initially the machine will only be available from

Handspring’s Web site. Next year, the device will be distributed through

traditional retail channels. Well aware of the Visor announcement, 3Com

made its surprise announcement of spinning off the Palm unit less than 24

hours before the Visor launch, taking some attention away from the launch

of the new competitor.

While they will compete, there are strong ties between Handspring and

the Palm unit beyond their common founders. For one, Handspring is using

the Palm operating system and is one of Palm’s "strategic partner.

Palm officials said they welcome the entry of the Visor, which will likely

broaden the overall market of handheld devices, a development from which

Palm also stands to benefit.

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