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Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring, and the Birth of the Billion-Dollar Handheld Industry
The definitive behind-the-scenes story of the visionary team that launched the handheld industry.
Palm insider Andrea Butter and New York Times columnist David Pogue -- with full, exclusive cooperation of the company's founders and more than fifty key Palm and Handspring executives -- tell the riveting tale of the start of an industry constantly in the headlines. The origins of this volatile industry began with the tiny team who beat staggering odds to turn the PalmPilot into a billion-dollar market and later took their ultimate vision to Handspring, now Palm's most powerful rival.
Many of today's current events relating to the competition in this industry are forecasted in this important business drama. The authors take an unprecedented look at how the visionary founders of the industry led one of the most successful startups in history to succeed against all odds-including a shoestring budget, shortsighted corporate partners, and competition from Microsoft. The roller-coaster ride is full of insight into the bungles of venture capitalists, the allure and pitfalls of partnerships with giant corporations, and the steely determination needed to maintain entrepreneurial and visionary independence. With gripping accounts of the last-minute crises that almost torpedoed the PalmPilot on the eve of its unveiling, and the triumphant, unprecedented reception of Palm in the marketplace, as well as the glimpses into the future of this industry, this book is as entertaining as it is instructional. Key revelations
* The principles of business, economy, and product design that led Palm to succeed where billion-dollar corporations like Apple, Motorola, and Casio had failed.
* Important moments in technological development of the handheld such as the secret "Easter egg," a software surprise planted in the Palm software that nearly sank launch plans.
* Unique insight into the showdown with Microsoft, and 3Com's tragic decision not to make Palm independent that led Palm's founder Jeff Hanwkins and CEO Donna Dubinsky to take their vision elsewhere.
* The ongoing competition between Palm and Handspring. The new rivals to contend with including Sony.
Palm insider Andrea Butter and New York Times columnist David Pogue -- with full, exclusive cooperation of the company's founders and more than fifty key Palm and Handspring executives -- tell the riveting tale of the start of an industry constantly in the headlines. The origins of this volatile industry began with the tiny team who beat staggering odds to turn the PalmPilot into a billion-dollar market and later took their ultimate vision to Handspring, now Palm's most powerful rival.
Many of today's current events relating to the competition in this industry are forecasted in this important business drama. The authors take an unprecedented look at how the visionary founders of the industry led one of the most successful startups in history to succeed against all odds-including a shoestring budget, shortsighted corporate partners, and competition from Microsoft. The roller-coaster ride is full of insight into the bungles of venture capitalists, the allure and pitfalls of partnerships with giant corporations, and the steely determination needed to maintain entrepreneurial and visionary independence. With gripping accounts of the last-minute crises that almost torpedoed the PalmPilot on the eve of its unveiling, and the triumphant, unprecedented reception of Palm in the marketplace, as well as the glimpses into the future of this industry, this book is as entertaining as it is instructional. Key revelations
* The principles of business, economy, and product design that led Palm to succeed where billion-dollar corporations like Apple, Motorola, and Casio had failed.
* Important moments in technological development of the handheld such as the secret "Easter egg," a software surprise planted in the Palm software that nearly sank launch plans.
* Unique insight into the showdown with Microsoft, and 3Com's tragic decision not to make Palm independent that led Palm's founder Jeff Hanwkins and CEO Donna Dubinsky to take their vision elsewhere.
* The ongoing competition between Palm and Handspring. The new rivals to contend with including Sony.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published February 8, 2002
4 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 31, 2017
Great read, edited so they can still work in Silicon Valley
For those of us in Silicon Valley who only knew Palm from the outside this book is a great read. The true hero of the story is Donna Dubinsky; her travails makes the Perils of Pauline seem tame.
However, the book was obviously written by people who still care to work in the computer industry. It pulls so many punches that the story reads like light fiction.
Too polite and politically correct the authors simply dance around some issues that were clearly crying out to be discussed.
1. Palm's first venture capitalists essentially bailed on the company by not leading a second round of funding. This forced the company to sell itself to US Robotics. There is a lot of "happy talk" about why the VC's did not want to lead the round, but if they truly believed in the company they could have, and would have. How did Donna Dubinsky really feel? What was really said when they turned their back on the company?
2. Before there ever was a Cisco, 3Com (Palm's second owners) owned the networking market. (I'm sure there's a great book in someone on how 3Com managed to blow this huge lead.) While never quite coming out and directly saying it, Eric Benhamou's (3Com's CEO) constant dithering about whether to spin-off Palm seems to be indicative of his management style in running the rest of 3Com. How did Donna Dubinsky and Palm really feel?
3. Carl Yankowski comes off as if someone wrote a whole chapter on how he personally sank Palm, and then removed it for legal liability issues.
4. Did Jeff Hawkins use Xerox PARC the same way as Steve Jobs did? Xerox had demo'd two of the unique Palm innovations; a constrained handwriting recognizer, and the keen observation that the PDA would be a PC attachment, not a standalone device, well before Palm. Give Hawkins credit, he was the only one to read or see the Xerox PDA stuff and get it, but there is zero acknowledgement in the book that these ideas did not spring full blown out of Hawkin's head. (Probably a good reason, since Xerox finally sued Palm for patent infringement. Given the Xerox track record for belated cluelessness, it's doubtful they'll collect.) The deification of Hawkin's at the expense of the truth might maintain the authors personal relationships, but not mentioning these issues as at least the current hot topics in Silicon Valley, is disingenuous at least.
5. Handspring's success is still predicated on Palm's ability to innovate in its operating system. Palm's glacial speed was fine when Palm was the only game in town, but Microsoft's inexorable progress should be nightmarish. Handspring and the other licensees are known to be pulling their collective hair out as Palm painfully updates their operating system. Not a word on this issue.
6. Now Palm has split into two parts. An operating system group and a hardware group. The new head of the Palm Operating System group is Eric Nagel, best known at Apple as the head of research for 10 years who let Microsoft catch up and leave them in the dust. How do Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins really feel about being dependent on Palm?
Overall, still a great book.
For those of us in Silicon Valley who only knew Palm from the outside this book is a great read. The true hero of the story is Donna Dubinsky; her travails makes the Perils of Pauline seem tame.
However, the book was obviously written by people who still care to work in the computer industry. It pulls so many punches that the story reads like light fiction.
Too polite and politically correct the authors simply dance around some issues that were clearly crying out to be discussed.
1. Palm's first venture capitalists essentially bailed on the company by not leading a second round of funding. This forced the company to sell itself to US Robotics. There is a lot of "happy talk" about why the VC's did not want to lead the round, but if they truly believed in the company they could have, and would have. How did Donna Dubinsky really feel? What was really said when they turned their back on the company?
2. Before there ever was a Cisco, 3Com (Palm's second owners) owned the networking market. (I'm sure there's a great book in someone on how 3Com managed to blow this huge lead.) While never quite coming out and directly saying it, Eric Benhamou's (3Com's CEO) constant dithering about whether to spin-off Palm seems to be indicative of his management style in running the rest of 3Com. How did Donna Dubinsky and Palm really feel?
3. Carl Yankowski comes off as if someone wrote a whole chapter on how he personally sank Palm, and then removed it for legal liability issues.
4. Did Jeff Hawkins use Xerox PARC the same way as Steve Jobs did? Xerox had demo'd two of the unique Palm innovations; a constrained handwriting recognizer, and the keen observation that the PDA would be a PC attachment, not a standalone device, well before Palm. Give Hawkins credit, he was the only one to read or see the Xerox PDA stuff and get it, but there is zero acknowledgement in the book that these ideas did not spring full blown out of Hawkin's head. (Probably a good reason, since Xerox finally sued Palm for patent infringement. Given the Xerox track record for belated cluelessness, it's doubtful they'll collect.) The deification of Hawkin's at the expense of the truth might maintain the authors personal relationships, but not mentioning these issues as at least the current hot topics in Silicon Valley, is disingenuous at least.
5. Handspring's success is still predicated on Palm's ability to innovate in its operating system. Palm's glacial speed was fine when Palm was the only game in town, but Microsoft's inexorable progress should be nightmarish. Handspring and the other licensees are known to be pulling their collective hair out as Palm painfully updates their operating system. Not a word on this issue.
6. Now Palm has split into two parts. An operating system group and a hardware group. The new head of the Palm Operating System group is Eric Nagel, best known at Apple as the head of research for 10 years who let Microsoft catch up and leave them in the dust. How do Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins really feel about being dependent on Palm?
Overall, still a great book.
June 1, 2018
Piloting Palm tells the story of Palm over the course of about one decade, from its founding in the early 1990s through 2002 when the book was written. It does so well—the pacing is just about perfect, the business situations are well explained, and the writing is high quality. It falls short in its clear bias, a lack of focus on the technology, and in unavoidably (due to when it was written) missing the end of the story. While it is flawed, it is still wonderfully executed and well written.
Authors Andrea Butter and David Pogue had superb access to all of the key players. Unfortunately, the reason they had such superb access also creates a great deal of bias. Butter worked at Palm in a fairly high level position during the period in question, and Pogue is a talented veteran tech writer. As a result of their respective positions, neither had a great incentive to point out major flaws in the execution of the executives who still held powerful industry positions at the time of writing. Sometimes, as other reviewers have pointed out, Piloting Palm can seem like too much of a hagiography. Never the less, the fact that the writers did have tremendous access, enabled them to tell a mostly complete and compelling story, even if some negative details were likely left out and certain characterizations are somewhat one-sided.
Like many tech business books, there’s an unfortunate lack of focus on the actual tech. Perhaps this is due to a desire to appeal to a general audience. However, it’s unfortunate as a historical artifact. Important software developers on the team are mentioned throughout, but the book provides no understanding of why their technical achievements were meaningful, or even what those technical achievements were.
Finally, while Piloting Palm does a generally great job telling the story of Palm through 2002, there was of course still a lot more to tell. Palm would continue to be a major player in the mobile industry for another half a decade, and ultimately the two companies founded by Hawkins & Dubinsky (Palm & Handspring) would recombine into one company shortly after the book was published. I’m sure there was much interesting drama in that recombination, the changes in the mobile industry that occurred as Blackberry, and then iOS & Android emerged, and in telling the story of the too little too late webOS (Palm’s last ditch effort to compete with iOS & Android that now exists on LG smart TVs). An updated version of the book that finishes the story would be awesome (but is very unlikely).
Piloting Palm is a book worth reading. While it has some flaws, it’s also inspiring, historically important for those interested in the mobile industry, and enjoyable.
Authors Andrea Butter and David Pogue had superb access to all of the key players. Unfortunately, the reason they had such superb access also creates a great deal of bias. Butter worked at Palm in a fairly high level position during the period in question, and Pogue is a talented veteran tech writer. As a result of their respective positions, neither had a great incentive to point out major flaws in the execution of the executives who still held powerful industry positions at the time of writing. Sometimes, as other reviewers have pointed out, Piloting Palm can seem like too much of a hagiography. Never the less, the fact that the writers did have tremendous access, enabled them to tell a mostly complete and compelling story, even if some negative details were likely left out and certain characterizations are somewhat one-sided.
Like many tech business books, there’s an unfortunate lack of focus on the actual tech. Perhaps this is due to a desire to appeal to a general audience. However, it’s unfortunate as a historical artifact. Important software developers on the team are mentioned throughout, but the book provides no understanding of why their technical achievements were meaningful, or even what those technical achievements were.
Finally, while Piloting Palm does a generally great job telling the story of Palm through 2002, there was of course still a lot more to tell. Palm would continue to be a major player in the mobile industry for another half a decade, and ultimately the two companies founded by Hawkins & Dubinsky (Palm & Handspring) would recombine into one company shortly after the book was published. I’m sure there was much interesting drama in that recombination, the changes in the mobile industry that occurred as Blackberry, and then iOS & Android emerged, and in telling the story of the too little too late webOS (Palm’s last ditch effort to compete with iOS & Android that now exists on LG smart TVs). An updated version of the book that finishes the story would be awesome (but is very unlikely).
Piloting Palm is a book worth reading. While it has some flaws, it’s also inspiring, historically important for those interested in the mobile industry, and enjoyable.
May 19, 2018
I had a Palm m100 many years ago when they came out. I never really got the hang of the Graffiti writing it required and always preferred mini keyboards - but it was a cool little piece of technology. The funny thing is, you just assume these companies appear from nowhere and launch a range of devices which become popular.
Reading this book you learn about how difficult it was to build the business, how they struggled for finance, how their vision for the perfect device was always under compromise from investors, and how Handspring appeared through all this struggle. It certainly makes you appreciate what they created, and gives insight into the decisions made on the product design.
More than anything though - this book is about people. The founders and CEO. They really were remarkable people and their drive to see their vision through when against so much adversary is a lesson for us all.
The book unfortunately concludes around the year 2000/2001 when the Handspring and Palm smartphones were about to be launched. I would love to see this book extended and reissued to cover the following years as there must have been a huge amount of turmoil for both companies as they struggled and eventually lost to Blackberry and the Apple iPhone.
Reading this book you learn about how difficult it was to build the business, how they struggled for finance, how their vision for the perfect device was always under compromise from investors, and how Handspring appeared through all this struggle. It certainly makes you appreciate what they created, and gives insight into the decisions made on the product design.
More than anything though - this book is about people. The founders and CEO. They really were remarkable people and their drive to see their vision through when against so much adversary is a lesson for us all.
The book unfortunately concludes around the year 2000/2001 when the Handspring and Palm smartphones were about to be launched. I would love to see this book extended and reissued to cover the following years as there must have been a huge amount of turmoil for both companies as they struggled and eventually lost to Blackberry and the Apple iPhone.
September 2, 2017
Very readable, interesting story of the birth of handheld computing and the rise of mobile computing. We think of the iPhone and Steve Jobs as the pioneer who shaped this medium and the creation of the App Economy but so much had already been done before by Jeff Hawkings and his colleagues during the early days of Palm Inc, long before Apps and Apple became synonymous.
A fascinating read!
A fascinating read!
Read
September 29, 2023This is probably one of the nerdiest book I have ever read. It was alright. I've been reading books on old rec lists of some VCs I like and this was one of them. Didn't really teach me anything I didn't know but interesting story.
And I learned something new about my dad! he had a palm pilot and was obsessed. He made them mandatory for all the U Chicago med school residents hahah
And I learned something new about my dad! he had a palm pilot and was obsessed. He made them mandatory for all the U Chicago med school residents hahah
July 28, 2017
Excellent. Le livre m’a donné envie d’en savoir davantage sur Jeff Hawkins. Vraiment stupéfiant comme monsieur. Dommage que le livre date un peu, ainsi tout la période à partir de la fusion Handspring et Palm n’est pas traitée.
December 20, 2024
First book I have read that really brings you into the POV of a hardware founder in the earlier days of Silicon Valley, somewhat inspirational and relatable to the engineer in the age of pure-software-saturated founders
Read
September 13, 2022A very political review os the history of Palm,
An the founders who then went to create Handspring,
Who is another manufaturer of Palm OS Devices.
An the founders who then went to create Handspring,
Who is another manufaturer of Palm OS Devices.
June 9, 2015
If you're planning to start a company to create a new mobile devices (including OS and apps) to compete head-to-head against Apple and Microsoft, this is the perfect book for you.
Items;
* There's a crazy series of investments, acquisitions, and spinouts on their way to making a device that at one time had 70% of the mobile market.
* The Apple Newton proved do be a double foil for the early Palm. First, when everyone assumed Apple would crush Palm; and second, when the Newton turned out to be a spectacular failure and caused everyone to assume that mobile computing was a pipe dream.
* According to this telling, the thing Palm knew that others didn't was that mobile devices in the 90s were an accessory to PCs, not a replacement. They started the business assuming the product they wanted to make was a pocket computer, and only through some semi-accidental customer discovery did they make this pivot into success.
* Jeff Hawkins is an interesting archetype for tech creators. His strengths are technology (knowing what's possible) and product design (driving for simplicity and small size, for example) but he's reluctant on the business side.
I recommend the book. It's not well-written, and it leaves off just before Palm/Handspring were about to sink and then be made forever irrelevant by the iPhone. But if you care about the business of computing platforms, it's hard to beat this insider perspective.
Items;
* There's a crazy series of investments, acquisitions, and spinouts on their way to making a device that at one time had 70% of the mobile market.
* The Apple Newton proved do be a double foil for the early Palm. First, when everyone assumed Apple would crush Palm; and second, when the Newton turned out to be a spectacular failure and caused everyone to assume that mobile computing was a pipe dream.
* According to this telling, the thing Palm knew that others didn't was that mobile devices in the 90s were an accessory to PCs, not a replacement. They started the business assuming the product they wanted to make was a pocket computer, and only through some semi-accidental customer discovery did they make this pivot into success.
* Jeff Hawkins is an interesting archetype for tech creators. His strengths are technology (knowing what's possible) and product design (driving for simplicity and small size, for example) but he's reluctant on the business side.
I recommend the book. It's not well-written, and it leaves off just before Palm/Handspring were about to sink and then be made forever irrelevant by the iPhone. But if you care about the business of computing platforms, it's hard to beat this insider perspective.
August 20, 2009
Great read of the uphill battle that Palm founders faced...eventually meeting with success in the fastest selling tech device to date, until the iPhone of course.
June 28, 2010
The little company that got the PDA movement rolling, and grandfather to all of our smart little pocket devices. An interesting chronicle of the evolution of a tech company in the 90s.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews