Thursday, April 1, 2010

HP buys Palm, a Palm retrospective

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

By David Gewirtz

Today, Hewlett-Packard announced that it is buying Palm, Inc. for a whopping $1.2 billion. We've been covering Palm since Computing Unplugged was PalmPower Magazine and it's been a strange and wild ride.

From the sale of the company to U.S. Robotics to the sale of the company to 3Com, to the renaming of PalmPilot to Palm, to the founders leaving, forming a competitor, rejoining the company, merging in the competitor, to the company selling off its operating system, to now, where Palm will become part of HP.

It's too early to tell the future, but here's probably the most complete retrospective you'll find -- a series of articles going back to 1998, looking at the continuing mystery that is (or was) Palm, Inc.

Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot

PalmPower Magazine - January 1998

It seemed fitting to kick off our first issue of PalmPower by having a candid conversation with Jeff Hawkins, the man who started Palm Computing and created the PalmPilot (as Palm handhelds were known, before Pilot Pens sued them and the company changed it's name). Prior to my chat with Hawkins, PR people gave me some interesting background on Hawkins' success: over a million PalmPilots shipped in 18 months, a 66% market share, and the fastest growth of any computing product in history, faster than the TV and the VCR.

Part 2: Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot

PalmPower Magazine - February 1998

I continued my fascinating discussion with the the father of the PalmPilot in Part 2 of The PalmPower Interview with Jeff Hawkins. Jeff shared with us interesting insights into the design and execution of the PalmPilot, along with some ideas for the future.

Exit Interview: Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the PalmPilot

PalmPower Magazine - August 1998

When I'd last spoken to Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the PalmPilot and lead visionary, 3Com had shipped just over a million PalmPilots, and it was PalmPower's first issue. Eight months later, PalmPower had grown to more than 300,000 regular readers and 3Com had shipped nearly two million Palm devices.

Jeff Hawkins and Palm Computing general manager Donna Dubinsky left the company they founded, in the first of many shake-ups that were to come. To learn more about these big changes, I spoke to Jeff on his first day of his new life, in this exclusive PalmPower Interview.

Jeff & Donna's excellent adventure

PalmPower Magazine - August 1998

We were as surprised as everyone else when Palm creator Jeff Hawkins announced his resignation from 3Com. When I got the news, I set up an exclusive interview with Jeff to get the whole story. The interview was fascinating, but what did it all mean? How did we think the departure of 3Com's visionary inventor impact the future of the Palm platform? How did we think it would it impact users? That's what this editorial explored.