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New Palm Pilot intensifies handheld PC competition

By Richard Morochove

First published March 5, 1998

How small can a computer get? I once believed there was a lower size limit. You needed one sufficiently large to accommodate a keyboard and a screen you could read.

Yet the lack of a keyboard hasn't stymied the success of shirt pocket-sized devices such as 3Com's Palm Pilot. Market researcher International Data Corp. estimates 1.1 million Palm Pilots were shipped last year, more than any other hand held computer.

The next version of the Palm Pilot, code-named Rocky, should be available in just a few weeks. Rocky's enhancements are rumoured to include more memory (2 MB), an infrared communications port and an upgraded version 3.0 of the Palm operating system.

A pager card will let Rocky users receive short text and numeric messages. Numeric pages will be compared to telephone numbers stored in Rocky's address database. If there's a match, the pager's name, company name and telephone number will appear on the Palm Pilot's display.

Current Palm Pilot owners will be able to purchase Rocky upgrade cards.

With the upcoming launch of Rocky and Microsoft's recently-announced Palm PC, the handheld computer market is red hot. However, not everyone's a winner. Last week, Apple Computer announced it would discontinue future development of the Newton operating system and products that use it, such as the MessagePad 2100 and the eMate 300.

Apple says it will return to this market in 1999 with a product based upon the Macintosh operating system. The company still isn't on a firm financial footing, so it can't afford the luxury of continuing to develop the Newton operating system and needs to concentrate on its core products.

Apple's much-hyped Newton was a pet project of former CEO John Sculley. While I'm sorry to see the pioneering Newton fade to black, I believe its fate was sealed by the infamously bad handwriting recognition software in its initial release. Although the latest version of the recognition software is much improved, Newton couldn't overcome its badly tarnished reputation.

Yet part of Sculley's creation may live on. There are promising developments for the ARM (Advanced RISC Machines) chip at the heart of the Newton.

Recently, Intel concluded a deal with the ARM chip designer, so it gains access to future versions of this processor, which is well suited for battery-powered devices. Earlier, Intel offered to purchase a plant from Digital Equipment that manufactures ARM chips.

I suspect this is a prelude to Intel designing a handheld PC around the ARM chip. Almost none of the leading handheld computers use a processor made by the world's largest processor manufacturer, so the ARM chip would fill this rather embarrassing gap in Intel's product line.

We haven't seen the last of computer downsizing. Later this year, we'll see devices about the size of a man's wristwatch from companies like 3Com. Following in the footsteps of the Timex Data Link watch and REX (Rolodex Express) from Starfish Software, these watch-like devices will store information about your contacts and appointments and let you receive pages. There's no room in something that small for a keyboard, so you'll enter the contact information in your PC and then transfer it to the smaller computing device.

In comparison with the fast-breaking developments in handheld PCs, improvements in notebook computers have slowed to a glacial pace. The race to bigger liquid crystal displays has stalled, since a screen any larger than 14 inches makes for a larger, less portable notebook. Portable displays won't get any larger until the technical issues associated with folding screens are resolved.

Notebook manufacturers are now concentrating on the standardization of notebook components and accessories. For example, both Compaq Computer and Toshiba are designing new notebook models to be compatible with existing docking stations. A device bay standard will allow industry standard components, such as hard drives and CD drives, to be swapped among different computer makes.

Years ago, when desktop computer components were standardized, prices plummeted. As notebook makers move to standard designs, I expect a notebook computer price war will develop. This will reduce the current high premium you pay for a portable computer, when compared to a desktop PC of similar specifications.

Compaq Canada may have fired the first volley. Earlier this week, the company slashed list prices of its Armada notebooks by up to 24 per cent. The effective price cut is even larger at the high-end. Until March 31, buyers of Compaq's Armada 7300 and 7700 models will receive an expansion base with a list price of $1,332 at no extra charge. CW

Richard Morochove, FCA, is a Toronto-based computer consultant.

Copyright ©1998 by Morochove & Associates Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be copied or distributed by any means without our prior written permission.

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