Palm's chief marketing officer, Satjiv Chahil, warned yesterday that demand for his company's products is slowing as consumers reduce spending amid the U.S. economic slowdown. While growth will still be strong, it won't compare with the stellar sales growth in previous years. Today, Greg Rhine, Palm's VP for worldwide sales, made it clear that Mr. Chahil opinions are not shared by Palm Inc.

Samsung has officially announced its hybrid Palm/mobile phone device at CeBit in Germany which it refers to as a "compact wireless intelligent terminal". The SPH-I300 has 8 MB of memory, a 256-color screen, and an infrared port. It is 4.92 x 2.28 x 0.82 inches and weighs around 6 oz. Its antenna is retractable, and it has a vibrating alarm. This smartphone should be available around late summer for an as yet undisclosed price.

While many who use Palm powered handhelds believe in the paperless office, there are still times when it is necessary to print something out. This generally happens when you need to give it to a co-worker or friend who has not yet seen the light and bought a Palm. This is where PrintBoy Deluxe comes in. You can use it to quickly and easily print just about everything on your handheld.

Xircom announced at CeBit today that it will be releasing a Bluetooth Springboard module in the third quarter of this year. It will feature password protected user authentication, frequency hopping technology, and 128-bit data encryption to ensure a secure transfer of information between devices. No pricing is currently available.

It will be part of of the company's line of Bluetooth products, including a PC card and USB versions.

Sunderland Technologies today debuted the WAVEclip, the world’s first clip-on Bluetooth adapter for Palm V handhelds. Because a lone Bluetooth module is pointless, it will be bundled with the BLUEcard, a Bluetooth PC card to facilitate file transfer and HotSync between the Palm and a notebook or PC. Each set will cost about $320 and is scheduled to ship in May.

Though it was only introduced a few months ago, 3Com has already discontinued the Audrey, its countertop Internet appliance with built-in Palm support. The Audrey had an 8 inch, color, touch screen, a wireless keyboard, used a combination of the Palm and QNX Linux OSs and could also sync directly to Palm-based handhelds. It will probably still be available until June.

In March, three different companies released applications that protect Palm handhelds from viruses. The problem is, there aren't very many viruses to protect them from. Several experts have begun to claim that these are at best a waste of people's money and at worst a challenge to virus writers.

Bruce Walton, a managing director of antivirus firm Command, believes that no virus poses a risk to handhelds and claims that the development of security software for them could "pre-warn virus authors or show them a way to do malicious code".

Kodak has introduced a PalmPix camera that works with the new m500 and m505 and offers features not available in previous ones. It folds for easier carrying. It offers SVGA resolution that captures color images at 800 x 600 pixels. It has an adjustable focal range with three settings: macro (4 inches), portrait (2 ft. to 12 ft.) and landscape (8 ft. to infinity). New software lets users convert 320 x 240 images to JPEG files on the handheld. These files are stored on the expansion slot memory card for sharing without the cradle. It will cost $130 and be available before July.

Portsmith, Inc., today announced the Portsmith Ethernet Cradle for the Palm m500 series. It provides a fast connection to the corporate network for single-button synchronization of mission-critical data and recharging of the handheld’s batteries. It will list for $200 and be available in late May to early June 2001.

The number one complaint I've heard about Palm's latest models, the m500 and m505, is that they aren't innovative. They don't break any new ground or offer any features that aren't already in a model put out by one of its licensees. While this is true, what most people don't seem to realize is that this isn't from a lack of vision or nerve on Palm's part; it is a necessity for the Palm platform as a whole to succeed.

The past few weeks have been some of the most interesting in the Palm Platform's history, with handheld releases and new rumors of products coming out almost every day. In all this excitement, a lot of smaller news has gone by the wayside. In an attempt to make up for this, as much of these announcements as possible are available in this article.