Comments on: No Palm for Christmas

The world-wide shortage in components Palm needs to makes its products continues and Palm executives are already getting nervous about the Christmas buying season. "We're in backlog on literally every single product in the line," Palm chief competitive officer Michael Mace said.

However, in a recent online Q&A session, Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Handspring, pointed out that they are having much fewer problems. He said, "we don't use flash memory, which is the most affected components. Another reason is we maintain very close relationships with our vendors and have forecasted our needs accurately. " TRG also has managed to keep up with the demand for their products.

 Commodity shortage

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/1/2000 11:24:20 AM #

In manufacturing, sometimes you contract with vendors on a guaranteed supply basis (a little more spendy); other times, your contract just fixes the price (or sets it at x% of market) with no guarantee of supply (cheap).

Looks like Palm had a case of the stupids and did the latter to try to save pennies.

Interesting when an 'industry leader' does not have the faith in their product adequate to guarantee supplies adequate to build with.

Is it any wonder that the M100 has a smaller screen?