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When a friend introduced Suzanne Swift to the sleek Palm Pilot handheld computer this spring, it was love at first sight. A professional networker, Swift found the Palm Pilot perfect for keeping track of her many contacts, appointments and ideas. A Franklin Planner devotee, Swift had laboriously noted her assignments in the thick book, but found it heavy and cumbersome to use. The Palm Pilot liberated her.
Swift waxes ecstatic about her newfound productivity. She can check off accomplished tasks, and jot down notes even in a darkened movie theater, using the Pilot's backlit screen. And because it is small and light enough to carry in a shirt pocket, Swift took it everywhere — even into the bathroom.
Big mistake. One day in late April, the Pilot slipped out of her pocket and into the commode. The Pilot survived, "but the data did not," Swift laments. Appointments, ideas and numbers all went to that great computer in the sky. Missing the appointments was embarrassing enough, explaining the reason even more so.
After an experience like that, you might think Swift went back to lugging the Franklin. And you'd be wrong. She's just as much in love with her Pilot as ever — but more cautious. Swift's not a big computer gadget fan, but like most busy executives, she’ll use anything that helps get the job done.
Swift is far from alone in San Diego, or the rest of the country, for that matter, in embracing the Palm Pilot. Years after they were scornfully dismissed as expensive paperweights, handheld computers like the Pilot are taking the business world by storm. Sleeker, smaller and more powerful, it seems only natural.
"It’s the first one of these things I’ve really used, and I’ve bought a lot of them," says Craig Andrews, a business and technology partner with the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Andrews uses his Palm Pilot to hold his appointments, contacts and to-do lists. A card scanner imports business cards in seconds; with a single click, his secretary backs up his work to an office computer each morning and night.
Palm Pilots are standard equipment for RCG Management.
Showing their PDAs are Doug Wall, president, bottom
center, and from left, Laura D'Agrosa, executive v.p.;
Catherine Gauthier, COO; and Steve Campbell, executive v.p.
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The Pilots are popular among Brobeck's attorneys. Partner John Denniston has used one for two years and says a friend overcame his fear of having his Pilot conk out by buying a second one. (At about $250, the machines are relatively cheap.)
The Pilots also are standard equipment for the employees at RCG Management. Doug Wall, president of RCG, gets double duty out of his Pilot. He not only stores information for his company, but his kids like to play games on it. At work, Wall uses the Pilot to keep up with the many requests of his clients. Wall especially likes the ability to take out the Pilot wherever he is, and put any free moments to use.
"I start a to-do list for every client, and I refer to it when they call. I’m juggling (the needs of) 15 companies," Wall says. "There's no way I could do that on a piece of paper or by carrying around a laptop."
Like Swift, Wall once lost data from his Pilot.
"That kind of bummed me out, but it was no big deal, because I back it up every day," Wall says.
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Andy and Tina Rathbone have long been aficionados of another handheld, the Sharp Zaurus. They use it to store names, numbers, appointments and texts of restaurant and theater reviews they write for newspapers.
But the Ocean Beach computer book couple are currently enamored of the Rex, a business card-sized electronic Rolodex. The Rex can contain hundreds of names and phone numbers, appointments and text files. The one drawback is you must pipe the information in via a standard computer. But in most cases, say the Rathbones, the biggest need is to look something up.
The Rex is "unconsciously portable" Andy says, meaning that one doesn’t have to think about taking it anywhere. At the beach, the Rex is wrapped in a clear plastic bag to protect it against the elements. And the estimated battery life of about six months blows away the six to eight hours reported for the Mobilon, the new color handheld computer from Zaurus manufacturer Sharp Electronics.
The Rathbones still use their Zauri: Tina likes to use its sketch function to draw pictures.
The Other Side
Not every executive is in love with the mini computer. Computer-savvy Stephen Silverman, a principal project planner with Rick Planning Group, insists using an old-fashioned planner is faster.
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"It seems to me the issue has to do with immediacy and accessibility," Silverman says. "I think when you use these personal digital assistants it is kind of like waiting in line at the gas station before you pump. Everyone has to open them up, tip them properly to see the screen and then go into the right subroutine before they start working. There is no question in my mind they serve a useful function. It is the accessibility issue that I think keeps me from getting one. I can pull out my calendar, I just flip to the sectioned lettered "S" and I can find anyone's phone number or address in seconds. It seems it takes a minute with the personal digital assistants. It’s not just the minute; it has to do with the concentration and focus you have to place on the use of this piece of equipment. It is not something you can do mindlessly. One day if they are voice activated and can come up with names and addresses, I might get one."
John Campbell, general manager of the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, uses his office computer for scheduling. Yet he also has an aversion to carrying the tiny computers, preferring instead to carry around and jot notes on the paper schedule he prints out daily. Like Silverman, Campbell says the handhelds demand too much focus. More importantly, he says, they prevent him from making eye contact with the person he is engaging in conversation.
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Sticking to tradition: John Campbell, general
manager of the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club,
still relies on pen and paper for scheduling. He
feels that PDAs prevent making eye contact in
conversation.
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Onto The Internet
Still, the phenomenon of the Pilot and its peers cannot be denied. And there is certainly more to come in their future, especially as handhelds are getting hooked up to the Internet through telephone and wireless modems. With a wireless-enabled handheld, users can send and receive messages anywhere in the world and tap into personal and corporate databases. The information will follow them everywhere.
San Diego is playing a major role in this new digital Renaissance. Earlier this year, Sony Electronics introduced a concept mobile phone, the COSM, that delivers e-mail, gets on the Web, works as a wireless modem for a laptop computer and can send photographs with an optional digital camera. Sprint PCS is testing the COSM this summer.
Qualcomm recently signed a deal with 3Com, maker of the Pilot, that could lead to Qualcomm making its own handheld-like devices. Qualcomm, pioneer of the digital wireless technology known as Code Division Multiple Access, wants to make CDMA a standard for wireless data transmission as well as voice. The COSM works on CDMA, not surprising, since Sony and Qualcomm make mobile phones under a joint venture. Sprint, meanwhile, is building the only nationwide wireless network on the PBS band that uses CDMA.
Palm Pilot devotees can get on the Net right now. Novatel Wireless, which recently moved its headquarters here from Phoenix, recently began shipping its own wireless modem, the Minstrel. This snap-on battery-powered device comes with Web and e-mail software, and costs $399. The Minstrel sends and receives information through Cellular Digital Packet Data, a new type of wireless service that piggybacks over the existing cellular infrastructure. Subscribers in San Diego can get unlimited use for $49.95 a month, through a company called GoAmerica.
I recently tested the Minstrel/Pilot around the county, and found it performed adequately in most areas. Impressively, the Minstrel worked in the middle of a building in Escondido, a location where my wireless and PCS phones work spottily. It’s necessary to "sign on" before getting on the Net or exchanging e-mail, but this only takes a few seconds. Signal strength was low inside buildings in Ocean Beach, however; I had to hold it near a window to connect.
To make the Pilot/Minstrel combo even more useful, Novatel has teamed up with WaveWare Communications, Inc, a San Diego start-up. WaveWare is testing software to turn the Palm Pilot into two-way messaging and data delivery devices for corporations. This means industrial-strength reliability and data security, lest a competitor tap into information streaming between corporate headquarters and Pilot users in the field.
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"The Palm Pilot was designed as a personal product, but is being bought as a corporate product," says Martha Dennis, WaveWare's president.
"One of the problems is that corporate data is significantly larger than personal data," says Matt Dukleth, Novatel product manager. "You may have 200 personal numbers, and your company may have 4,000 business contacts, but you may really need to have access to these if you’re a vice president or a traveling salesman."
WaveWare's solution is to use the company’s heavy-duty "server" computers as a central repository for this information. Each individual Pilot user can send or receive information through the Minstrel or a regular wire line connection. The software is scheduled for commercial release this summer.
This June, Novatel is launching an all-in-one handheld computer with built-in wireless modem and standard telephone jack and PC card slot. Called the Contact, it runs on the Windows CE operating system, and includes e-mail, Pocket Internet Explorer and other software.
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Although PDAs were designed as personal products,
WaveWare president Martha Dennis observes they
have been purchased for corporate use.
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"Carriers are promoting unlimited pricing plans, manufacturers are developing products that are small and portable, and software developers are making great solutions for end users as well as vertical markets," says Mona Thomas, manager of marketing and media relations for Novatel. "It’s all kind of coming together now."
Peril And Promises
But not if you were unlucky enough to be a software developer for Apple's deceased MessagePad, née Newton. Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO, ignored the pleadings of thousands of loyal MessagePad users and killed the MessagePad.
Dr. Steven Gabaeff, a physician-programmer, was busy writing medical software for the MessagePad in his Del Mar office when word came of the MessagePad's demise. He was not pleased with Job's action: Gabaeff wanted to make the MessagePad the cornerstone of PointCare, a medical information system that put patient records in computerized form from the beginning. In his vision, doctors would use the MessagePad like a clipboard, entering pertinent information as they make their rounds.
Alternative handhelds such as the Palm Pilot aren’t powerful enough to run PointCare, Gabaeff says.
Now, he's "porting" his PointCare software over to a new generation of ultra-small Windows-based computers soon to hit the market. He's not the first software developer to come to grief at the hands of Jobs, whom he describes as a petulant autocrat.
David Perez, president of COM2001, envisions a near future
in which the computer's graphic user interface, keyboard and
monitor will be replaced by a small microphone and a speaker.
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Even aside from such perils, there will always be times when handheld computers aren’t available. Carlsbad-based COM2001 gets around this hurdle by employing two universals: voice and a dial tone. The company puts all the smarts of its NTX system into software running on Windows NT and loads it onto specially configured computers.
With only a standard wire line or wireless telephone, the user can command the NTX system to play back voice mail messages, read or compose e-mail messages, or read and send faxes. The system also stores in memory a directory of frequently called numbers, which are dialed simply by speaking the person's name.
"I don’t even carry my laptop any more," says David Perez, COM2001 president. "Using your voice is so much easier. We believe the graphic user interface, the keyboard and the monitor will be replaced in the next 10 years by a little microphone and a speaker."
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The NTX system allows customers to directly communicate with companies without landing in the dreaded voice mail jail, says Harry Newton, an editor of Computer Telephony magazine.
"Consumers are not stupid. They will deal with businesses that communicate," Newton says. "Information, information, all the time! That's what the world seems to want."
Picking A PDA
Palm Pilot:
Price Range: $199-$399
Upside: Fits into shirt pocket, easily exchanges data with desktop or laptop computer, lots of add-on software available for Web and e-mail access, games and much more. Wireless and wire-line modems available. The single most popular handheld computer on the planet.
Downside: No keyboard, handwriting recognition requires some training.
Franklin Rex
Price Range: $129 - $179
Upside: Ultra-small (business card size), ultra-light, easily readable screen, extremely long battery life (est. 6 months). The only true "unconsciously portable" handheld. A beauty to behold.
Downside: Strictly a read-only device — information is piped into it from a desktop or laptop computer.
Sharp Zaurus 3500 FX
Price Range: $399
Upside: Nice, solid keyboard, extremely reliable operating system, loads of nifty features, battery life of about 60 hours plus. The Zaurus 5800 costs and weighs more, but has more memory, a better keyboard and a PC card slot. (Many PC card modems will work in the slot).
Downside: Bulkier than the first two PDAs, "clamshell" design makes it hard to use unit on spur of the moment.
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