The inventors of the PalmPilot handheld computer who quit 3Com Corp in July have bounced back with a new company called Handspring Inc; a slew of investor funding; and a plan to attack the PalmPilot market with their own device. Handspring is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and has secured backing from venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Benchmark Capital. In a statement issued yesterday, Donna Dubinsky, one of the Palm’s inventors didn’t waste any time positioning the new venture. We are pleased to get all the start-up issues like naming and funding behind us so we can focus on developing world-class products for the exploding handheld computing market, she said, now the real work begins to build the team and create another success on the scale of the PalmPilot. In a further blow to 3Com, Dubinsky has poached Ed Colligan, former VP of marketing for Palm Computing. Colligan will join Handspring as VP of development and marketing. Speaking to ComputerWire yesterday, he admitted the aim is to make a product, or series of products, that will directly compete with 3Com’s Palm Pilot. We will be licensing the operating system from 3Com, he confirmed, and we want those products to be compatible with all the existing software out there, that’s the whole point. But Colligan added that the market for handheld computer devices has so much space that it would be easy for Handspring to differentiate its products. The current Palm PC model is aimed at professional businesses and enterprise workers who are on the move and want to keep track of content and email and so on, he said, but there are lots of other segments to exploit. Although Colligan refused to be drawn on any specific segments, he named kids, students and soccer moms as potential users of its devices, adding that Handspring intends to develop hardware, system software and applications. Handspring has 10 staff, five of whom have defected from 3Com. Colligan would not name names. They may not be the last. Our sources say 3Com’s Palm Computing unit is in even more management disarray than it was in July and that 3Com simply doesn’t know what to do with it. In the meantime, Dubinsky’s partner and co-founder Jeff Hawkins will assume the role of chairman of the board and chief product officer while Dubinsky herself will serve as president and CEO. Even though Handspring doesn’t intend to have products ready until the end of next year, the challenge is nonetheless a formidable one for 3Com, particularly as its arch rival, Microsoft Corp’s rival Windows CE operating system gains momentum. Touted as the first real information appliance, PalmPilot is due to get a rev next year which might see it incorporate color. It badly needs a better interface. Presumably Handspring will aim to better this.
