The History of Palm

I thought I'll take one last sip of water before I start to talk, and of course Jonathan tried to sabotage me. Okay, So before we get into this, we have a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from Zaid, who says, Hello, I'm a big fan and I just finished listening to your episode about iPods, and I was wondering if you could do one on the history of Palm or BlackBerry, two of the older smartphone companies that are still running but are being hidden in popularity by

the iPhone or Android. I hope you can do an episode on one of these big fans. I had, well, so I had We're gonna tackle one of those two. Today we're gonna actually talk about Palm. Yes, indeed, now, um, I uh, I have a little bit of a history with Palm. UM. We'll talk about that in a moment, but I certainly I had a few years where I was actually using um A one of their U p d a's or um uh PD as personal digital assistance. Yeah, that's what it was. I always think of public display

of affection when I hear pd A. I did. I did a lot of those. I did a lot of those in the nineties. Alright, not the personal digital assistant but the other one. Okay, yeah, well yeah, ladies, Palm Palm actually has I'm sorry to use this pun changed hands several times, but it was founded as an independent company. UM back with when Jeff Hawkins started the company in and got um Ed Colligan and Donna Dubinski to work

with him. And I should I should point out that I got a lot of my information from a really great concise timeline UM that I found by by James Nikolay and Nancy Garring of I d G. Yes, same here, um yeah. So if you really want to see the concise straightforward, you know, this is when it began. This is when it ended, and here's all the stuff in between.

They have an awesome time frame, but I think we could put a lot of context around this because at the time, there wasn't really a whole lot out there like the Palm handheld computer. And in fact, it would be a little while before Palm actually came out with a device. Right. In fact, when the company first launched in two, there really there really were no consumer personal

digital assistance on the market. If you if you had a p d A, you were either an early adopter or you were some executive who had invested in this and uh, and they were few and far between. So originally Hawkins and Company, we're working with other companies to try and produce some some p d A s UH. And in point of fact, they were working specifically with Tandy and Cassio. But those initial efforts proved unsuccessful. They just they the hardware they produced did not take off

of the market. Now, UM, don't get the idea that this was the first h p DA of any kind, the one that pot relast I mean, UH. People will be quick to point out that the Apple Newton was announced in ninety two as well and came out in UH. Plus you know, there were there were many other companies. My father actually worked for as a mechanical engineer. He worked for an electronics manufacturer that came up with a very specialized handheld device that ended up being used by

um shipping companies. Um. So you know this is specific just talking specifically about Palms. So we're not saying this is the first one, but the first one actually happened to launched after the company got acquired the very first time. Yeah, we should point out before we get really involved in this Palms history. You know, you mentioned it changed hands

several times, the whole pun thing. Um, it gets really complex there there, because we're talking about acquisitions, spinoffs, re acquisitions, uh, failures. It really it's a dramatic story. Um. And you may not seem so just on the offset because you're thinking, oh, that's just a technology company. It like any other it builds these products and but no, the story really is one of beyond. It goes beyond technology into the whole politics of of how corporations deal with one another with

mergers and acquisitions. So, yeah, the first acquisition happened in n We're talking just three years after the founding of the company. And keep in mind the company at this point had not produced a successful p d A, but but the people behind it were very well versed in building the kind of infrastructure you need. We're talking like programming infrastructure you need to create a successful p DA.

They weren't necessarily building hardware, but they were building kind of the firmware that exists on the hardware that allows a PDA to be possible. So that's when US Robotics came along. U. S Robotics was a computer modem company and they purchased Palm forty four million dollars yep, yep. Around this time, US Robotics was one of the leading, I would say arguably leading modem manufacturers. UM. They were one of the first to market with UM fifty six

kilobyte per second. I know, stop laughing, UM modem. As a matter of fact, that the company I work for, the Internet service provider I used to work for UH used US Robotics technology and its points of presence basically your local dial up motor pool and UM yeah, US Robotics acquired Palm in an attempt to diversify somewhat. Yeah. I I also want to point out so the four million dollar price point. Uh, this is gonna come a running theme in this show too, because I did this

for everything except this first one. UM, and I just did it now adjusted for inflation in two thousand and ten, because that's the latest I can get. It would be sixty two million, nine thousand, five leven bucks. So that's a that's a good chunk of change for a company that had yet to produce a really successful or really any successful hardware. So yeah. A year later in US Robotics introduces the palm Pilot one thousand. Yes, I remember that. UM.

Executives everywhere, at least the United States really liked this thing. UM. It was the first, the first p d A that I really saw a lot of in uh, in offices. I joined that technology company I just mentioned in and uh, you know, by early I noticed a lot of the company directors had these palm pilots and they were just they were just really popular, mainly because of the software. The software behind it is Jonathan mentioned earlier. UM was

a great package of software. It allowed you to do all kinds of things, keep track of your calendar, UM it would sync with your computer. UM maybe not necessarily, I don't know. If they Palm Pilot one thousand allowed you to do that. To be honest, I think so. But but yeah, so, I mean you could keep track of everything. You didn't have to carry that big old paper planner with you everywhere. You had this small handheld device that you could, um, you know, throw in your

bag or throw in your pocket. It was much more for one thing, it was much more convenient for another thing. It just looked cool. Yeah, and you could have like a virtual rolodex on there, so you could keep a list of all your context Now this might sound very familiar to a lot of our listeners. It sounds a lot like a smartphone, and in in many ways it's sort of the predecessor for smartphones. It's just you've got to leave one minor component out, the phone part. So

it was just as smart. Yeah, it was just smart, which obviously that's why Palm was so successful early on, because it was smart. But now the the the idea here is of course, that you've got a device that manages your information in a very portable way. So also remember in the mid nineties, it's not that laptop computers were didn't exist. They did, but they were heavy, heavy, divide. They were not what you would consider easily portable for

the most part. I mean, I remember I my wife had a laptop computer which actually was built a few years before this, because she had it when um uh, when we were first dating, which was a few years before of this. I'm not going to date it too much, but anyway, I remember that the laptop was so heavy it would hurt your lap to put it on. It was not really a laptop, it was a It was a desktop. It was just a portable desktop. So yeah,

and this time you needed something. If you were someone who was going to be traveling a lot and you wanted to be able to look at your calendar and you didn't want to have to deal with lots of paper, this was a great solution. So that was in inven we get another change in ownership. Yes, three Calm the makers of well they made all kinds of different technology goodies.

Um My. One of my favorites was after the Palm acquisition, was a internet appliance called the Audrey, which lasted about fifteen twenty minutes on the market place before three comm decided to discontinue. But it's pretty neat, at least pretty neat looking. That just makes me think of a little shop of hors. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, the three com was a pretty savvy company and they said, well, you know this, this is obviously going to take off. They got in at the right time because Palm had started

to make its ascent into popularity. Um and as a matter of fact, they um they went ahead and had its the first developer conference for people to develop software. Now, I I feel compelled to point out too that like today's smartphones, Palm, the Palm operating system allowed you to uh install software from third parties. So it's not you don't You weren't limited to just the uh software that

was on the phone. You could buy stuff from other people. Yeah, and and really we we hear developer conference all the time now, but back then it was pretty much it was a pretty novel idea. Uh. You know. Now you'll hear developer conferences from especially like Google, Microsoft and Apple. They they are known for them in particular, although other companies,

of course also do developer conferences, including Facebook. You know, all sorts of platforms do them now because of course, applications run on pretty much anything you can think of, you know, refrigerators, in microwaves pretty soon ovens as well. And I'm not I'm not even exaggerating because it c s. I saw a lot of that. We might, uh we might should do an podcast on the Internet of Things

at some point, yeah, because that's interesting too. So when three Comms acquisition was not just for Palm, Three Calm actually acquired US Robotics, which was Palm's parent company at that time. So that's right. So so you think of Palm as a little fish and US Robotics was a slightly bigger fish, and three Calm was an even bigger fish. That's true. That's true. And um, again, it acted at the right time. It saw an ascending company. US Robotics

at that point had uh, pretty sophisticated modem technology. We weren't really in the broadband era at that point. A good acquisition for them, or at least that's way of appeared at the time, right, right, So in uh, this was a very eventful year and a very dramatic year

in Palm's history. Uh. For one thing, the Bomb Computing sued Microsoft because Microsoft was marketing the Palm PC right and and of course Palm was saying this creates confusion in the marketplace because our company name is Palm and you've called your product the Palm PC. We're in the same sphere of of devices, right, So they made the argument that that was brand confusion, it was infringing on

their trademarks. So Microsoft kind of backed off and changed the name to be Palm Size PC as opposed to just Palm PC. But that same year I saw some dramatic shake ups in the company because the founders, uh Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dobinski, and A Colligan, they decided to leave the company and found another company called Handspring, Yes, because they they were not comfortable in the direction the

company was going in. Under three Colms got leadership, so they so you've got the founders of the company who are no longer happy with the way the company is going. We've actually seen this story before too. There's a very famous example with Steve Jobs, who he was. You know, Steve Jobs was a founder of Apple, and in the during the course of Apple's existence, when it got bigger and bigger, Steve Jobs was at some point kind of

shuffled to the side and and almost ignored. In fact, saying ignored is probably not being too It does not really hyper believe, and so Steve Jobs left Apple only to return later. Um. But you know, so the story is not uncommon, it has happened before, but it's it's a pretty big event in any company's life when the founders you know, jump shup and and create a new company because they don't like the direction of their original company. So Handspring begins to produce PDAs and uh and smartphones

that are operating on the Palm's system. So they're still working with Palm, but they are not working for Palm, right. Um. Yeah, that that actually is is my introduction to the the Palm world. Because I didn't actually have a Palm product. I bought a Handspring Visor Deluxe, which is one of two, uh two original models of the Handspring. You had the Visor and the Visor Deluxe. The Deluxe was cool because you had, um something that the Palm machines didn't have,

which was a slot, a hardware slot. Um if you think of it like an old style cartridge video game console.

The Visor Deluxe allowed you to there was there was basically a dummy thing in there to keep dust and dirt from getting out there, so you you know, pop out the little piece of plastic and you can snap in a cartridge that would allow you to uh run software from that that cartridge and you wouldn't would give you access to do things that you couldn't do with the software that you would load, um by connecting it

and sinking it with your computer. And of course we're not talking we're not in the days of WiFi yet, so this is every time you sink information with your computer, you're doing it with a cable uh plugged in directly to your your computer or through a doc which you know, very popular with the executives because you have that on the side of the computer and it was um you know, but yeah, it was certainly a cool accessory to have on your you know, cool looking accessory to have on

your desk and you would sink that information. Well, the this slot was really cool and it's something that's set hands Spring apart. And of course, although the three founders left palm they it wasn't completely acrimonious because they didn't say, well, we're leaving, we're taking our football with us and we're going home and doing our own thing. They actually licensed the palm os to run on the Handspring, so they were still sort of cousins. They were different, completely different

corporate organizations. They still had a working relationship with each other. Yeah, they're the cousin you don't like so much, but come on, they're still family. Um. And the Visor was just one of two big lines of products that Handspring produced. The other one is arguably much more famous. It's considerably more famous. But that wasn't what happened to media. No. But but not that long after they they founded Handspring, they started

to produce the Trio. Trio that's t R EO. Yeah, the Trio line of products, which if you if you pay attention to tech journalists who have been in the business for you know, a decade or more. Um, actually, I guess it's got to be longer than that now. But but you'll you'll hear the word Trio thrown around a lot, as like I know that, say Rafe Needelman of st Yes, he hung on to his Trio for far longer than most of us would would hold onto a piece of technology, you know, using it every day

because he loved that device. He loved the hardware and the software integration. And Trio of course, will play another part of the story a little further down. So we've got Handspring operating more or less outside the realm of Palm, and it's still licensing the operating system, but otherwise it's its own thing. So in nineteen we have another interesting development. Three Calm decides to spin off Palm Computing and make

it a subsidiary company. It's essentially its own standalone company now. Yes, and and this is the company that UM that is essentially creating the operating system. Right, So you've got the one company creating the operating system, and then you've got Handspring, which is doing hardware and using that operating system. Well, of course three comm had still been making the Palm hardware. They introduced the Palm seven also in which was the first with with a wireless antenna built in, right, and

how much did that cost? That was five four and to days dollars I wasn't um. So yeah, I mean they're still making stuff. But now you have competition in the marketplace without hardware, and uh, you know, you've you've got three Comms spinning Palm off. It's basically three comms star business at that point. Actually, at that point, Palm, the Palm section of three Comms business was probably the

highest performing as far as revenue generation is concerned. Yeah, yeah, and uh and then again in two thousand, the the separation was complete. They decided to and they went they went off on their own. And uh, a couple of years ago we really do see the separation of hardware and software with the uh the introduction of a group called Palm Source. Again, I remember this pretty well because I wasn't certain how long, how how this was going to work out with my handspring, which I used for

several years. Again it worked great, Um, but yeah, you'd have to instead of going to Palm dot com, you would have to go to the Palm Source website to learn more about the operating system and updates and things

like that. And uh, this might seem a bit surprising, but Sony uh plunked down twenty million dollars twenty four million tun or one thou hundred one dollars in today's currency, which is the first company outside one of the acquiring companies to make an investment in the Palm operating system because uh yeah, for their uh um handheld, Sony also licensed the Palm operating system. UM, so they were they were sort of I guess you would think of them as the windows of the except for the fact that

there was actually a windows. But uh yeah, I mean they were. They were the company licensing operating the operating system for many many different companies handhelds right and and back in two thousand. I know, we we moved on from that, but I just wanted to mention the interesting thing about Palm going public in two thousand is that

was right in the middle of the dot com bubble. Yes, and uh and you know, the dot com bubble and the dot com crash of course played a very important part in many companies, but in Palm it really helped them out because, uh, the I p O, the initial public offering was right there in the middle of the dot com bubble and at the height Palm shares sold for more than a share twenty dollars in today's money. Oh gotten old yet, because I've got a few more

years ago. So in two thousand two, also, um, this is the introduction of our our of our other competitor, which we're not going to get into right this minute, but this is when BlackBerry came out from Research and Motion Research in Motion. So the BlackBerry smartphone hits the market in two thousand two. Keep in mind that at this point the Palm devices, a lot of them are

still p d a's not phones. That that's true. And um, I also want to add, I think that in the late nineties and early two thousand's was when you would start seeing the Palm and Handspring devices at your local electronics store and in some cases discount uh department stores.

So they are they were making their way into consumer hands which is and the reason I thought to say that just now is because of research in motion in the BlackBerry, because the BlackBerry is often thought of as an enterprise gadget basically four business people of corporate business work and Palm had made that Matt crossover. My wife, in fact, had gotten a h Palm p D, a black and white Palm PDA when they were still making those. Um,

because they had gotten to be inexpensive. They they ended up being around us, you know, they were they were pretty affordable. Um. You wouldn't have necessarily a lot of the variety, you wouldn't have the color, you wouldn't have a lot of the functionality, but you'd have the Palm operating system in black and white. And really for a lot of people that's all they needed. Yeah, and I knew quite a few people who had p d A s um, especially uh the folks that with the Atlanta

Radio Theater Company. A lot of them had them. But then again, the Atlanta Radio Theater Company had a lot of people who you think, radio theater, that's an old technology. But it turns out the people who are interested in it, not just the actors but also you know, of course they the engineers and everyone, um, they also tend to fall into the early adopter uh sphere. So quite a few of them had PDAs back when they were fairly

you know, new on the scene. And by this time almost you know, i'd say, i'd say a a sizeable persone of them had them. Okay, Um, So in two thousand three, this is where we start to see the companies come back together again. Yes, well sort of kind of. It's funny because you know, we had Palm on its own, then US Robotics acquired Palm, then three Com and three Comm acquired US Probotics. Then the founders left to start Handspring right then up right and then and then there

was a subsidiary for the operating system. So so now there's a Palm company and a palm Um operating system Palm one, and then hand Spring agreed to be required by Palm. Right, So now we we see the founders essentially returning to the company because Palm besides announces that's going to acquire hand Spring. Uh. And so now you've got a hardware company that's that's Palm One. I'm sorry, I said Palm one when I met Palm Source. Palm one is the hardware company. Uh. And then a officially spinoff,

Palm Source, which is the Upbring system company. So you've got two companies under the Palm name, one doing hardware, one doing the Upbring system. And uh. They that's when you start seeing the Palm trio's So it's no longer the Handspring trio coming out. The Palm trio starts to come out. So two thousand five, two thousand five, the CEO of Palm One, Todd Bradley, leaves the company and Ed Colligan, one of the founders of Palm takes over in his stead Um and uh, yeah, Palm Source had

the rights to the brand name. So Palm one, the hardware company, bought it, which is really weird. Yeah, you know, but right, you've got subsidiaries by Yeah, this is where it really gets this. Like I said, it really shows you how complicated corporate America can get, or just corporations in general. It's not just limited to America obviously. And

I bet the he's got this one too. Yes. Uh. In the process of acquiring the brand name, uh, the the Palm One acquired of the Palm Trademark Holding Company for thirty million dollars thirty three million dollars fo SORR today and uh and in a pretty significant departure, one which I was completely shocked by at the time, UH, Trio, the Trio running Windows Mobile software was announced, and I

thought that was absolutely strange. After the Palm operating system had such a significant share of the market, that Palm One would release a device with the Windows Mobile operating system. Yeah, this is kind of like to to explain Chris's surprise, think of it like this. Think imagine if Apple were to announce that it was going to release a version of the iPhone for running Android. Yeah, that would be the kind of surprise. You think, what that doesn't make sense.

I mean, it's it's the Apple iPhone. Why isn't it running the Apple operating system. Well, that was kind of reaction that people had when they heard that the Palm devices were going to run Windows Mobile. Because Palm devices ran Palm operating system, it kind of they went together. Yeah. Similarly, I had the same sort of double take when Apple announced that it would allow people to use Bootcamp. So hey, you can you know, load Windows on your Mac right?

Why would Okay? Yeah? And uh and to to let you guys know the there were only I think four smartphones released by Palm that ran Windows Mobile. Yeah, it was a very small sliver of their product lineup, but it was they were. There were versions of the Trio that ran Windows Mobile as opposed to the Palm operating system, which you could argue that could also can cause confusion

within the marketplace. Well, also we should point out to that in this time, this is the mid two thousand's, now we're getting up to very close to the release of some big competitor um, and the Palm OS is getting really dated by this point. Um, it was very very popular. Uh, you soul find support for it in many products. I know that Ubuntu even has a Palm sc client still available. Um, but uh, you know, I mean their clients available for the others too, but I

mean it's baked into the software. The thing is UM. At this point, other competitors are showing starting to show that they've got a grip on smartphone software and p D a functionality that they didn't have before. BlackBerry was certainly giving them a run for their money. Windows Mobile was was starting to take over some market share, and I think that that was a move that said, okay, well, we're going to have to do something about the operating system.

Of course, it also showed the world that they might be considering other options. Yeah. In two thousand seven, that was another big year for Palm, and unfortunately not in a good way. UM. Palm had tried to get into a it was really it was trying to launch a new market. Uh. There was a product called the Folio, which was at the time referred to as a sub notebook. Now later on we would refer to these kind of products as netbooks. Essentially, it was undersized, uh notebook style computer,

you know, clamshell style computer. Uh. And it had a smaller keyboard, smaller screen, UM, more limited operating system and it was kind of ahead of its time and as a result, before it even had a chance to launch. I think within three months of announcing the product, Palm pulled the plug and said, you know what, We're not going to release the Folio after all, which is funny.

I mean I actually read a hands on review of the Folio that because Engadget got ahold of one, so and Gadget ran a review just kind of a minor a really quick review, and they said it wasn't a very compelling device and they would have preferred a new smartphone running a snazzy or operating system to a a

notebook that they felt was underpowered. And um, it even had WiFi and Bluetooth capability, but you know, it just never made it to market after three months of like I said, three months after they announced it, they pulled the plug and uh and instead, um, the Focus was supposed to be put back onto the smartphone market. Well that year two thousand seven was another big year in the smartphone market because a juggernaut hit the scene. That

would be Apple's iPhone. Yes, Apple's iPhone, which we all know has completely redefined the smartphone market. Just as the iPod redefined the MP three market, the iPhone redefined the smartphone market. Whether you think the iPhone is a great device.

Or if you don't, if you just don't get it or whatever, you cannot deny that the iPhone has had a huge impact the The app store alone has totally changed the playing ground for smartphones because everyone has to have an app store now yep, yep, including including Windows and BlackBerry and now Palm. And it's extending also beyond smartphones. But that's neither here nor there. Yep. Yeah. In two

thousand nine and Collegan finally left Palm. He was the last one of the original founders the others that are already left before then. But that was also the year that the Palm PREX came out, and that's the first of the new Palm smartphones. It had it's running on Palm's newest operating system for we boas. But to uh massive critical acclaim, Yeah, I like it. I was at that consumer electronics show in two thousand nine when Palm debuted the Palm pre and it was one of the

biggest buzz generators on the floor. Everyone thought that this was an amazing device. It was such a huge leap from what Palm had been doing before and and it looked like a smooth uh and and sleek operating system and had a really nice user interface. Everyone thought that it was a worthy competitor to other smartphones on the market.

Keep in mind this was just when Google Android was you know, Google Android had only been available for a couple of months when when Palm unveiled this, the iPhone had been out for two years and uh, and people

were saying, this may be a real competitor. But unfortunately the Pre there was no announced date for or there was no announcement for a release date rather for the Palm Pre at c S. By the time Palm did release the Pre, which was uh at the late spring of that year, almost summer um, a lot of the buzz had died down, and that excitement, that initial real excitement of everyone thinking, wow, this is really a compelling device.

By that time it kind of just gone away because you know, people hadn't it was outside out of mind and uh. And so it launched and people still said, you know, this is a good device, it's it's a worthy smartphone. It just did not have the mind share and I hate that term, but no, it's it's appropriate. It just didn't have that kind of level of excitement that had back when they first announced it, and it

did not do well as a result. Yep, yep. As a matter of fact, in March of last year, recording this in UH in the early part of eleven, in March, Palm had to announce as a public company that they had lost twenty two million dollars twenty two million dollars in today's money and in its most recent quarter. And basically it was it was made obvious that things were just not working out and they were going to need

a little help. And in April, late April of Hewlett Packard HP said that it was going to gobble Home up for how much? One point two billion dollars? So, yes, that's amazing. And if you remember, UH, in the winter of two thousand nine, a certain podcaster by the name of Jonathan Strickland made a prediction that Palm would either die or be acquired in the year. I'm trying to save face from recent events that have ruined my predictions

for this year, and I have a small footnote. We need to we need to wrap it up, but I have a small footnote for you. Uh. Did you know who who was considered a semi game changer? Uh? That HP acquired before it acquired Palm and uh and late two thousand nine, HP acquired three Calm, and so I think, wait, somebody acquired three Calm. Who was it? I looked it up. It was a p and and they finally completed the

acquisition in April. So together again, together again at last, and and hopefully now a lot of people are speculating as to what HP is going to really do with that web os. But I don't think any uh tech journalists who has paid any attention to it would say that the web os and Palm are dead. They are still going to do something, but h it takes a while to once an acquisition happens to really digest what's

going on. But were we suspect that we'll probably see the web os appearing on tablets and maybe some netbooks, uh, and maybe smartphones in the future as well. Smartphones are the that's the longest bet for most people right now, just because HP is not really known as a smartphone company.

But um, but it's you know, we've seen products that are running the web os or have said to soon be running the web os kind of appear in rumors and but yeah, there's no thing really concrete yet, Yep, So it'll be Uh, I'm interested to see what will come out since the web os has been so acclaimed. I'm I'm looking forward to the possibility that there's going to be another viable competitor in the marketplace and we're

all going to get cooler gadgets. Yeah, and and other companies need to heed the story of Palm because Palm was very instrumental in shaping the way smartphones launched in the United States. And uh, you know, it's it's a good lesson to learn that you might be the thing, like the central pivotal company of a particular movement, but within a decade time, decades time, you may, you know, find yourself really floundering. So I mean there there are

many lessons to learn from Palm's story. And with that, we're going to wrap this up. If you guys have any comments on Palm, if you are a proud owner of a Palm device, or you have your own predictions for what's going to happen with Palms webbels, you can let us know. You can let us know on Twitter or Facebook are handled there is text stuff hs W or you can shoot us an email and that address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and I we thought to you again really soon.

For moralness and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you