Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 206

Um, have you guys never noticed that Handspring seems to like to announce their new products a little after 12 noon?

- Burns

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cincinnati, OH USA
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Is that 12:00 Noon EDST or PDST?

Which time zone?

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Michael W. Cristiani
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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Topeka, KS
Posts: 6

News Conference?

James or anyone else at Visorcentral have you heard anything from Handspring about a newsconference or conference call or something like that today or this week?

I would imagine that if HS was to announce a new product they would be scheduling some sort of a press event to do it.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: I'm not sure, but I see lots of lights everywhere.
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quote:

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Originally posted by Burns
Um, have you guys never noticed that Handspring seems to like to announce their new products a little after 12 noon?

- Burns

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Registered: Aug 1999
Location: Inverness, FL
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Re: News Conference?

quote:

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Originally posted by jebahr
James or anyone else at Visorcentral have you heard anything from Handspring about a newsconference or conference call or something like that today or this week?

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<B>Marcus Adolfsson</B>
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Registered: Oct 1999
Location: I'm not sure, but I see lots of lights everywhere.
Posts: 1287

Re: Re: News Conference?

quote:

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Originally posted by marcus
No one at VC has received any information regarding a news conference today.

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Registered: Aug 1999
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Posts: 428

We did receive notification before the Edge release, and for the Prism and Platinum introduction we had advance units before their official release.

Handspring might be trying a new introduction method this time, or has removed us from their mailing list

However, James and I believe the price drops were too recent, and they need to get rid of any existing inventory before they announce and start selling new models.

That said, it will be a much more interesting day if we are wrong

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<B>Marcus Adolfsson</B>
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Registered: Apr 2001
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if handspring did announce some new models today how long does it take for visorcentral to make the new forums? or do you already have them ready, if so, did you pre make new forums for the snap and twist?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location:
Posts: 2

PalmInfoCenter says Handspring says no announcement today:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_...1&MODE=FLAT

Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 137

We all have to remember that these discussions boards are infamous for RUMORS and FAKE NEWS.

Someone must have started a rumor that Handspring was making an announcement today. They might be making an announcement, but so far they have kept it very secret. Don't be disappointed if there is no news from HS today.

From a business standpoint, it's my opinion that HS will not announce new products for a few weeks. They just announced the price drops on current models to spur sales. They won't follow in Palm's mistake in announcing the M500 series early that discouraged people from buying the older models.

I know we're all exciting about learning about new models (I'm psyched!), but we just might have to wait a few more days or weeks. Just have patience....I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Mike

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Spring Lake Park, MN (45min from minneapolis)
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dont any of you ever wish that handspring would actually announce their models before they release it, like a week before? expecially if they know the rumurs are true. if they read visorcentral at all.

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Registered: Aug 2000
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I'm sure HS gets a big kick out of reading all the rumors that circulate on the Internet about new products and all. In fact, I bet someone from HS is reading this right now.

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all handspring employes most take an oath to never reveal their products:

i swear to never tell the truth, the opposite truth, and always not reveal the truth. and if i do tell the the truth i will be fined $5,000 and setenced to the dungeon where i will work 20 hours a day with one restroom/food break. with the exeption if your Jeff Hawkins or Donna Dubinsky

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Here is the "most logical" reason for the price cuts:

clipped from http://www.pmn.co.uk/

Handspring cuts handheld prices
20 August 2001 -- Handspring has reduced the price of a number of its handheld computers in preparation for the 'back to school' selling season in the US.

Its entry level Handspring Visor will sell for $129 and the Visor Deluxe for $169, a reduction of $30. The Visor Platinum drops $50 to $199 and the Visor Edge, Handspring's latest product, will be reduced by $100 to $299. The price of the Visor Prism, which has a colour screen, remains unchanged. Handspring is targeting the reductions at the youth and educational markets, and will also cut the price of its GameFace joystick adapter to $24.95. The handheld market has come under increasing price pressure since Palm announced that it had accumalated $300m of excess inventory earlier this year. Since then both Handspring and Palm have cut prices across their ranges. The reductions have also fuelled speculation that Handspring is planning to introduce one or more new devices in the near future.

"Handspring continues to provide quality handheld computing products to a broad range of consumers, and these new prices on our line of handhelds make it more attractive for people to own a Visor handheld," said Greg Woock, Vice President of North American sales for Handspring, Inc. "With the end of summer nearing we are offering consumers one of the most featured-packed, expandable handheld computers on the market today." Further information from the Handspring web-site.

This isn't rumor either

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 76

Platinum-compatible cables

Actually, there are 2 other cables which are Platinum compatible as well. That would be:

PDCH-M9D-6 : Device powered 6" cable. The key thing is that the device which is plugged into must provide power on one of 4 pins - see the pinouts page on www.pcables.com

PDCH-H9 : That's the same electrically as a Serial Cradle, but it is in a travel cable format (much more compact!)

These items can also be obtained from www.pcables.com (email to [email protected].)

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Alabama, USA
Posts: 92

Feeding the Frenzy

In "My Opinion ONLY" the rumour may have originated through Handspring. Perhaps, an intentional leak using the wrong dates was provided. Why would they do this? It would be a great marketing technique.

HS releases rumours about a month prior to the release of a new product on a consistent basis (new rumours leaked each week prior to a release), perhaps one or two with some really bad photos that vaugely look like a Palm Device to begin with (Say pictures taken from an Eymodule2 with poor lighting). That combined with some spec's to keep the PalmOS nuts (like myself) wondering when it's going to be released. Handspring usually announces new products in September anyways, so a new release would most likely occur then anyways.

By the time the product really arrives you are so excited that it's out, you sell your old device on Ebay and rush out and upgrade to the new one. Ha ha, it would truly be an ingenious plan. Not sure if that's whats happening, but it sure couldn't hurt sales

People start talking, threads like this one boom, people start preparing some extra dough incase it's something worth upgrading to... All in all, feeding the Frenzy.

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 384

The Sony factor

Another possible explanation to Handspring's delay in any new models may be the impact that the Sony Clie's are having on the Palm handheld market. I think that Handspring was fully prepare to compete with Palm and have met every one of Palm's models with one of their own. Then the Sony Clie's came out of no where and blind-sided both Hanndspring and Palm. Now Handspring not only have to compete with Palm, but also have Sony coming strong from behind.

When the first N700C came out in Japan, it was the first Palm OS handheld that has color, high 320x320 resolution, multimedia capabilities. Before the N700C, 160x160 was thought to be the maximum resolution barrier allowable with the current 33 mhz processor, but Sony broke the barrier by including an extra graphic processor chip to increase the resolution and provide color support.

Now that the resolution and color barrier have been broken, Sony has set a new paradigm for future handhelds. I think most customers would agree that future higher-end handhelds must have both color and high resolution.

I think Handspring (before they were aware of Sony) may have been working on an answer to the m505 with a color model with the Edge form factor. Then Sony came with the high resolution color Clie, and Handspring was smart enough to realize to a 160x160 color Edge couldn't compete with both the m505 and the Clie.

Handspring may have decided to pulled the color edge and developed a color model with high resolution using a faster processor.

Well at least that's what I think.

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Fat's

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney Australia
Posts: 1883

About the 'columbia' codename....
I think I found its origin...

http://www.handspring.com/company/execteam.jhtml
Check out the "Gregory Woock
Vice President, North American Sales" section...

quote:

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Woock earned his B.A. from Columbia College in Chicago.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: San Diego, California
Posts: 441

quote:

---

About the 'columbia' codename....
I think I found its origin...

http://www.handspring.com/company/execteam.jhtml
Check out the "Gregory Woock
Vice President, North American Sales" section...


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woock earned his B.A. from Columbia College in Chicago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Coincidence, I think not.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: NJ, USA
Posts: 17

I think both Columbia and Ace are both codenames.

Replacing the Deluxe makes some sense. Palm still sells a unit at that price point, and there are rumors that they will bring out a new unit (M125?) in that range, so Handspring needs to compete at the mid-range price level.

There seems to be 3 price-points that Palm and HS are going after:

$100-150 - Entry Level (2m Mem, basic) - Solo/m100
$150-200 - Mid Level (8m Mem, more features) - Deluxe/Platinum/m105
$250-350 - Top Level (Style & design) - Edge/m500/Vx
$400+ - Color - Prism/m505/IIIc

You can see that the Deluxe has dropped very close to the Entry-level pricing, so it is almost not worth carrying at it's current price. Also, the Platinum is now priced below where the Deluxe first started at ($249). I think HS will redefine the Platinum as the mid-level and possibly introduce a new entry-level unit.

I suspect the entry-level unit will be like the Deluxe, with 8M of memory and possibly color cases. This new entry-level unit is codename "Ace." The new mid-range computer might be a faster and more powerful revision of the Platinum, possibly with color cases like the Deluxe and is codename "Columbia".

My guesses are due to the fact that the Platinum and Deluxe are being most heavily promoted and discounted right now. Both are about $100 off of their original price and both are being bundled with a leather case.

(BTW, I had already figured this out before the Staples info was posted. It's not too much of a stretch)

The bundling with the case is the real clue that they will be retiring these units since they need to reduce the inventory of the cases as well. This also implies that the new units will not work with the new cases. This means that the new units will be redesigned. (Maybe a scroll wheel?)

There are a couple of questions to consider: First is when. I don't think the new units will be introduced until the last week before availability. Doing so sooner will hurt current unit sales. I bet HS is already really annoyed at Staples for letting the cat out of the bag. The second question is how the new units will be colored. Will HS continue to sell units in colors or will they go to skins like Palm? I think skins are easier to sell since retailers don't need to stock 5 different color units. Also, the skins generate additional sales.

Finally, I find the new price of the Edge ($299) to be quite interesting. This is $100 below the m500 and in line with the Vx (which is being phased out). This is the most aggressive pricing by HS that I've seen!

--Alan--

Last edited by Magic_Al on 08-22-2001 at 05:46 PM