Palm Chief Gets Down to Business

NEW YORK -- Palm may have some competition in the handheld marketplace, but the company is not afraid. Carl Yankowski, the company's chief executive officer, used his keynote speech at PC Expo to poke some fun at the company's rivals and to highlight its strides into the business landscape.

One of Yankowski's prime targets was Microsoft's rival PocketPC PDA. Congratulating Microsoft on the sale of its millionth PocketPC unit, he flashed a slide with a candle-bearing cake--before flashing another slide with 15 cakes.

Palm has sold 15 million units, Yankowski said, asking, "Who do you want to party with?"

Later, without specifically naming the PocketPC, Yankowski commented that "[fast] processor speed means little when a handheld has to plow through a massive operating system and lots of big software."

However, he didn't joke about Compaq Computer, another key Palm rival. Last week, research firm Dataquest released a report suggesting that Compaq will soon dethrone Palm from its position at the top of the handheld market.

Yankowski cited Palm's extensive developer network as a key advantage over competitors. "Applications are king," he said, noting that Palm has more than 160,000 registered developers who have created more than 10,000 widely available applications, with 500 new applications for Palm devices appearing each month.

Getting Down to Business

Yankowski also used his keynote address to emphasize that Palm handhelds are no longer just consumer gadgets--they are becoming critical business tools.

"Palm was a grassroots phenomenon, which is now rapidly evolving to a new computing standard in enterprises of all sizes," Yankowski said.

To prove the point, he peppered his speech with testimonials from executives representing a variety of industries.

Jeff Sutherland, chief technical officer of medical software developer PatientKeeper, took the stage to announce that Palm PDAs are saving lives.

Medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the United States, Sutherland said. He maintained that rapid mobile access to critical patient data, made possible by handheld computers, will reduce physician mistakes and ensure that doctors are kept apprised of their most urgent cases.

Representatives of Wharton Business School and Webcor Builders spoke, in prepared video segments, of how Palm devices can streamline communications in the education and construction sectors.

Let's Make a Deal

Yankowski also announced a flurry of enterprise-focused deals and alliances.

Palm will begin reselling Extended Systems' XtndConnect Server Software for wireless synchronization of corporate data by the fourth quarter of this calendar year--a sign that the two companies intend to remain friendly despite the cancellation last month of Palm's planned $264 million acquisition of Extended Systems.

Other deals announced during the speech include an arrangement with PricewaterhouseCoopers, which will market Palms to its consultancy clients and work with Palm to develop mobile e-business applications.

Also announced was a marketing-focused alliance with Panasonic, the best-known brand name of Matsushita Electric Industrial. Panasonic and Palm will work together to "accelerate consumer and enterprise acceptance" of SD (Secure Digital) memory and SDIO (Secure Digital Input/Output) card standards. Palm's new m500-series handhelds feature SD expansion slots.

Yankowski highlighted SD technology as the pragmatic way to handle data storage and transfer. SD cards will be like floppy disks for handhelds, he suggested, offering corporate users a way to carry and access catalogs, databases of customer information and reference manuals.

"Memory capability is growing much faster than wireless bandwidth," Yankowski said.