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-- Rumor: 3Com Palm shortage (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=722)

I came across this article today:
http://www.palmlounge.com//displaynews.cfm?NewsID=5037

According to the article, online dealers are saying 3Com has placed all Palm units except the IIIx and V on "restrictive hold", and they will be in short supply. They guess the shortage will last until January 2000. The speculation is that the shortage is because 3Com recently sold one of their manufacturing plants, where Palm machines are made.

So, let me get this straight. During this holiday season when Handspring drops the ball and leaves the market wide open, 3Com creates their own shortage of product. What a bonehead maneuver.

Yes you are correct. With the market wide open and fuming becuase of the Handspring crisis. Many eveb wanting to buy Palm's just in spite o habdspring. If they advertised Palm 7 a little better it would've been huge. It is a far better machine than the Visor, Excluding the Springboard slot expansion. If it was me in Palms shoe's I would increase prroductivity.

[This message has been edited by D ev R ay 4Real (edited 12-01-1999).]

>>>>It is a far better machine than the Visor, Excluding the Springboard slot expansion.<<<<

That's a pretty big exclusion. Isn't the Springboard slot what makes the Visor superior? You also forgot to mention the price.

Buck

To me, you cannot even compare the P7and the Visor. They serve two completely different purposes. The Visor has the ability to be 8MB, something the P7 does not. The P7 is a P3 with wireless capability. I haven't personally used one, but I do think that one day any PDA you purchase will have wireless out of the box.

If you want a wireless POS deviceOOTB, obviously (for now) the P7 is the best choice. Once Wireless is standard and/or Bluetooth takes off, things will change.

------------------
James Hromadka
VisorCentral.com
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/jehromadka

I thought everyone knew this, but . . . if you check out the Palmlounge link above, you'll see that the retailer - an online seller - says the IIIe, Vx, and VII are the ones in short supply. Go to CompUSA and you'll find the shelves packed with these items. They're only in short supply to online retailers - Palm decided several months ago that the Vx and VII were exclusive to brick and mortar stores because they're the top of the line. Moreover, Palm figures that the IIIe is cheap enough (at $180) that they aren't going to allow online sellers to undercut the brick and mortar stores, which are their bread and butter. This is not a policy change - it's been this way for months. The few online sellers who have these units for sale (as opposed to merely advertising that they have them, and then telling you after you buy that they're out of stock) have back-doored them from brick and mortar stores.

I considered the VII when it was released. It doesn't really seem to be a very good solution for wireless connectivity - limited access and not cheap. I'd rather own a Vx and a connector to a GSM phone anyday, or even just a Vx with modem. I bought a GSM phone specifically for PDA or laptop wireless connectivity, but it's been well over a year and I haven't really been able to use it for that yet.

So, I disagree. I don't really think the VII is really the best choice for anything, except for a very small group of people. I don't think better advertising really would made a huge difference. The hype engine was running at full tilt when the VII was released. But then people realized it required subscribing to palm.net and decided it wasn't worth it.

By the way, it took me a while to figure out what you meant by "POS". The most common usage around where I am is "Piece of ..."


[This message has been edited by Eug (edited 12-02-1999).]

"I thought everyone knew this, but . . ."

No, I didn't. Thanks for the insightful message. I'm still trying to decide between trusting Handspring with my order, or just going with a Palm, so this info is important to me.

mportuesi - sorry, didn't mean to sound rude. I guess I knew it, but that's because I spent several weeks looking for a good deal on the IIIe (while trying to decide whether the Visor basic was a better deal) and never could find one. (I eventually went with the IIIx from Value America, so that question has long since been answered). As of my latest look around shopper.com, things do not seem to have changed. Good luck.

alanf - I didn't think you were being rude at all! Sorry if I gave that impression. thanks also for the pointer to shopper.com.

m.

Another thing you will notice if you look at Sunday ads or go to Best Buy to look at Palm devices is that they are heavily marketing the Palm VII. Best Buy in Lincoln, NE where technology is slow to be adopted, has 50 VII's in stock!! They are convinced that everyone should spend $500 for the device. I am of the opinion to wait until wireless standard pan out and prices on acess drop. $24 a month for limited bandwidth is just a waste if you ask me.

As soon as a Springboard module comes out that gives the Visor the same wireless capability as the P-VII, this debate will be moot.

I considered the VII briefly after it was pre-announced, but once I heard about the monthly costs, I decided against it.

The Palm VII looks very cool on paper...when they first came out I sat in a plane with a bunch of corporate types who had just been issued VIIs for intracompany use, and seeing them send and receive emails while the plane was on the ground was impressive.

However, as far as I can tell, the VII does not allow you to choose your own ISP...I wouldn't want to be stuck with palmnet at a time when wireless internetting is clearly a booming and highly competitive market (there was a story on internet phones on NPR this morning)...of course, it's an easy sour grapes thing for me to say, since the palm network doesn't cover my home in College Station Texas (only the site of a 40,000+ major state university and a presidential library).

If you look at the coverage map for the Palm VII, there's an awful lot of blank space still.

http://www.palm.net/coverage/index.html

Interesting that the Best Buy in Lincoln, NE is pushing it...it looks like it works in Lincoln wouldn't work just about anywhere else in the state. Driving from Lincoln to Denver on a business trip? You'd have connectivity at both ends, but not in the middle. I assume that your cell phone would work the whole way.

I think it is true there is a Palm shortage. Some online stores I sent email to told me that they weren't even going to GET their Vx inventory in until mid-to late Dec