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Interview With Handspring
Fri Apr 20, 2001 - 1:06 PM EDT - By Alan Graham
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VC: Now that Palm has announced the m500 series and Sony has also shown
a new Clie model, Handspring will no longer be the only handheld that
can differentiate themselves with an expansion slot. How will Handspring
set themselves apart from the competition?
MD/HS: I think we already have. The Springboard slot is everything the
other expansion technologies out there are and then some. We've been
seeing for a long time now that Springboard is really a superset of
other technologies. We're starting to see modules come out now that
validate that story. We're starting to see modules come out that are
memory stick adaptors, MMC adaptors showing that you can encapsulate all
those technologies in Springboard and still have the flexibility to
build other devices. You know we have yet to see any validation stories
of the other expansion slot technologies that can do anything other than
content. We know they are great at storing music, we know they are great
at storing images, and documents, but we have yet to see any kind of proof
whatsoever that they can do things like I/O, wireless Internet access
for example.
VC: Well one of the issues people are talking about in regards to the
m50x is that with the SD slot the form factor is smaller than Sprinboard.
What do you think about that?
MD/HS: Well my personal feel on this is as they try to build some of
these modules, they're going to actually have some physical form factor
problems. You look at something like memory stick or Flash SD, and
though the module itself is very small, when you hang a larger module
off the top you start to submit the "tongue depressor" part of it, that
fits into the handheld, to some pretty severe torsional forces, and I
can see one of those breaking off.
VC: One thing that I found interesting about the m50x was Palm
touting the use of the Universal Connector [the bottom connector] of the
device. If you look at the Kodak digital camera for the m50x, for
example, it connects to the bottom of the Palm. It drastically changes
the form factor of the device, almost doubling the size of the m50x. It
seems a little backwards to be attaching to the bottom versus the top.
What are your thoughts?
MD/HS: You know it is kind of interesting too, that when we first
shipped the Visor and some of the modules, one of the things people
really liked about it was that you could use the modem, for example, and
the keyboard at the same time. That is not going to be possible with the
universal connector.
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