“So far, Palm has won hands-down in the handheld arena,
trouncing primary rival Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) easily in its race
to build a dominant position in the white-hot field of personal
digital assistants (PDAs).”
“But now the company, in spinning off from 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS),
is staging an information-age land grab. It wants to provide
wireless Internet services for both consumers and corporate
customers, build electronic commerce and mobile portal services for
Palm devices and others like it, and expand globally.”
“But Yankowski and Palm also have their sights set
on a Bill Gates-like idea: Establish its operating system as the OS
of choice for any kind of handheld device, from phones to audio
devices and game machines.”
“It’s obvious why Palm wants to crack out of its PDA eggshell:
The market opportunity for handheld organizers is expected to
remain much smaller than for all wireless devices. wireless phones
sold worldwide in 2003, compared with 14 million PDAs.”