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Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry
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Author: Andrea Butter, David Pogue
List Price: $27.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0471089656
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (08 February, 2002)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 85,395
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
Definitive Chronology
From Hawkins initial vision until early 2002, Piloting Palm chronicles the birth of the handheld industry's first real success story: Palm. The triumphs and set-backs are re-lived in detail in this page-turner that is augmented by numerous quotes from Hawkins and the others who lived it. The book is more of a chronology, and with the exception of evidencing a very pro-Palm and later pro-Handspring bias (one of the authors worked for Palm's marketing division previously), the book avoids drawing any conclusions about the companies and their successes and failures.Insight, however, abounds from the quotes which appear on literally almost every page. The authors' access to the managers of the two companies is quite impressive; however, the book is little more than a narrative of what happened and doesn't really comment on how the principals felt that they could have improved on their performance or what lessons can be applied from their struggles to other businesses. In fact, the book talks more about how to build a PDA than a business. The book will probably be regarded as the definitive history of the companies, but it really doesn't go far beyond that, and forces the reader who is looking to apply the lessons to search deeply within to extract the gold nuggets that are hidden throughout.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Piloting Palm Pulls Punches
This is the story of the handheld PDA and its development. Originally an idea of
Jeff Hawkins, he brought Donna Dubinsky on board as CEO to start a company to develop what became the Palm Pilot. Along the way both struggle to get enough capital to continue to make the product a success. They eventually get backing from
3 Com and while the capital is available, dealing with 3Com management becomes a major issue. Both eventually leave to from Handspring, and the story stops about a year into the new company, with Palm the dominant supplier of PDAs, but seemingly mismanaged, and Handspring's future uncertain.The punches are surely pulled when describing the investors of capital in the business (there were many) - why would the story be so torturous if there had been more belief among the major investors in either the product and/or the management?
Another issue which I read into the story, is the sheer difficulty of working with the vision team that is Hawkins/Dubinsky - each non-Palm manger who is brought in by
3 com to develop the product seems to be confused, visionless or plain wrong. I began to have sympathy for the folks who had to manage Palm during the long-running dispute that led to their departure. From this book's viewpoint it looks as if only the original team of true believers could deliver the product, the process and the profits. I was not convinced. Hawkins seems to have developed the operating systems and handprint recognition software that was the basis of the original product. He and Dubinsky argued against licensing this software while at Palm and yet were the primary beneficiaries of such a license when they formed Handspring. Hawkins in particular seems obsessed with the product rather than the system, and this I feel must limit the
Proliferation of the PDA concept - surely the reason that the PC overcame Apples' first mover advantage was the decision by IBM to license the operating system. Most of the early Palm personnel were ex-Apple, so maybe the lesson was not well learned.
[There is, incidentally, a deliciously vicious description of the failure of the Apple Newton, the first attempt at a mass market PDA]
I came away from the book feeling that Hawkins/Dubinsky were an excellent, driven duo, who can inspire fierce loyalty and overcome challenges to develop a product, but their vision may not be wide enough to make the PDA a ubiquitous system, as opposed to a handy device for technophiles.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pleasant page-turner with interesting business insights
This book represents a powerful collaboration between industry veteran Andrea Butter and well-liked technology journalist David Pogue. I really enjoyed the book's engaging, fun, yet substantive style. It doesn't shy away from describing technical issues in detail without getting overly abtruse. The only possible blemishes are: 1) as others have pointed out, the ending is a little abrupt, but then, any ongoing printed history runs that risk; and 2) the book steers clear of passing any judgments on the various controversies surrounding Palm, Handspring, and the handheld industry. It bends over backward trying not to offend anybody, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. All in all, a good-natured, well-researched book that definitely makes you look at your PDA with more respect and curiosity.
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