Comments on: Handspring to Eventually Stop Making the Visor

I'd like to wish them luck with the Treo line....... well as much luck as them copying the Newton OS anyways.

If the announcment turns out to be true, it would be a very dumb thing to say. "Gosh, we are going to discontinue our Visors... and by the way, the thing we are replacing them with are backordered!" This would have the effect of scaring away potential customers.

Lets hope this is not true.

Guess I shouldn't hold out for a new hi-res reflective TFT screen Visor. Seems like everytime I buy a handheld, a year or so later they discontinue it. Then if I buy something new, I have to buy new accessories to go with it. I'm about ready to switch back to my dayrunner and shuck the entire electronic thing.

It saddens me to see the once proud name of Handspring disappear from the shelves, but it's not surprising. Handspring will be bankrupt before the color Treo model ever hits the market.

RIP

I really liked the Visor line. mp3 players, PresenterToGO, adapters for all sorts of memory cards, Palm OS, cheap prices. It's sad they'll go.

If Handspring really focusses only on the Treo, I'll bet they'll be dead at least in two years. A combination of PDA and cell phone sucks. It's heavy nadf bulky, or has a way to small screen. genuine PDAs and genuine cell phones are still much more powerfull (small m505 with all it's advantages, ericsson t39 with voice dialing, vioce commands for answeriung/rejecting calls and so on), and if I loose one device or one battery runs out, the other is still good. WIth bluetooth built in in all future PDAs and cell phones, no one needs a LAME combination, because you can use the two in a much more conveniant way (cell phone to your ear, pda in your hand) or like a combo device (cell phone in the briefcase, but use the PDA like it was a combo).

The Siemens SX45 was the one I thougth to be a good combination, but it's really LAME. It has the old PPC system, not upgradeable to PPC2002 (I like Palm OS better, but that's not the point here), has less phone features than the cheapest Siemens cell phone two years ago. It really sucks.

The Nokia communicator is a real brick and very ugly. It's a good device only for few people, and most people buying it are dump asses in my opinion "Wow, PDA and phjone, I have to get it" - despite the fact it costs more than two good separate devices and it has many weaknesses. The succes is mainly because it has "Nokia" written on it, I think. And Handspring will have a hard time competing with them, and surely be dead if they concentrate just on wireless PDAs. At least they'll loose what tehy started to built in europe, because:
- wireless data prices are much higher
-almost no cell phone user knows the name Handspring here, and people in general know much less about PDAs than in the US

I can only hope that Handspring doesn't make such a stupid descision. Otherwise it would be a very sad day and I too could only say: RIP, it was nice to have had you with us for some months, Handspring.

zap!

Well, good luck to Handspring as the mobile phone companies will destroy them. It's obvious their business model didn't work out as most people don't want to pay more than $100 for a black & white PDA and $300 tops for a color PDA unless it's a Sony.

So high margins it is.
By only entering the mobile and wireless arena, they will be pummeled by Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola. If GSM is the best they can offer, they're in deep doo doo.

Most people DO NOT want a phone that is larger than what they have. ONLY the geeks or the gadget freaks want phones that look like PDAs.

Well, good luck and I'm sure the armchair marketing "geniuses" here will claim that everyone wants a PDA-phone. Well, that's why you work a day job in the backroom as opposed to running the marketing for Nokia.

I guess if anyone is making a Springboard, it's time to kill that project.

The way I interpret the comment about stopping Visor's and only selling communicators is not that bad. Another way to say the same thing, by my interpretation is, "Eventually all of our organizers are going to have wireless communication built-in. When that happens, what is now known as the Visor will not be sold anymore, and we will call our organizers communicators instead."

I just placed an order for the Clie T615 this morning!

I wish them the best of luck. hopefully the Treo won't be such a terrible product that the VisorPhone was, and Handspring will keep on living.

Reminds me that I should do a writeup about that SMS bug in the VP I found that they refused to acknowledge. So little time...

I would summarize Donna's comments as follows...

...Well basically, all of you nice people who supported us as a company are screwed. Sorry, but thats life!"

I would suggest that all HS users Email HS and let them know how displeased you are if in fact these comments are true.

Gregg

So much for that.

In face of competition from a gaint like Sony, I think Handspring made a wise move to the communication sector.

Sony has already put out enough handhelds that if Handspring wants to compete they will likely drain most of their resources just trying to compete with one of Sony's handhelds.

Palm Inc. has better make some decisions soon. With Handspring already a leg up in the communication market and Sony's emerging dominance in the PDA organizer/entertainment market, Palm's hardware division may find it hard just to find scraps.

One thing's for sure: Handspring is definitely looking to put all its eggs in one basket. On one hand, it looks quite dangerous--going up against the Nokias and Ericcsons of the the world. But if you're a company that is still PREDICTING a move toward profitability, you might not be able to justify a very diverse product line. What's more, Hawkins clearly seems to believe he's got a "magic" device in development. If TREO is everything they claim it is, it will be far superior to the Nokia Communicator and any PPC smartphone. Hawkins worked his magic before--footnote: see Pilot 1000/5000/Professional and Palm V--but he's also seen his magic fail miserably--footnote: see Visor Edge.

I don't have a definitive opinion as to what will happen with Handspring, except to say that it'll be interesting to watch. I hope they succeed.

Everyone climbed all over me when I predicted that Handspring would dump the Springboard. Well, HS went one better than my prediction and are dumping the entire Visor line! If I had stated that, I would have been hung in effigy (not that I'm not amyway!).

Boy this sucks! I was actually waiting to see the next generation of visor. Hi resolution screen, more memory (try 64mb guys!), audio capabilities. Now it seems as though they are abandoning the entire market that created them. DUH!

For Sale: Visor Prism with memory card.

DUH!

This is quite a shocking announcement for Handspring to make. Donna effectively just killed several smaller companies whose sole products are springboards. How would you feel if you were CEO of XYZ corporation that derives 80% of their revenue from springboard accessories that you manufacture? Handspring basically just handed you your own head.

Having seen and used a Treo in person, I can tell you that it is a good phone and (IMHO) will do well in the market, regardless of the fact that it is on GSM. Look at VoiceStream - they're signing up customers left and right on GSM *without* having a phone as cool as the Treo. And according to the stats I've seen, GSM networks actually have the largest percentage of global cellular customers. While I would have preferred CDMA initially, I personally don't think Handspring is making any mistakes at all.

The VisorPhone interface is very intuitive and well done - and that's what they've used on the Treo (with some enhancements). I actually love my Samsung I300 as far as size and functionality, but I hate the interface. You can tell they slapped together something pretty quickly in that department. I actually tried to use a Prism+AirPrime for a while so that I could have the best of both worlds ... but the size was just too difficult to manage.

The Treo will do well, but it's unfortunate to see Handspring turning their backs on so many other small companies that made Springboards ... the thing that made Handspring a better choice than Palm. Guess it goes to show you that when it comes to the bottom line ($$$) there really is no loyalty in business these days.

It is 99% true that Handspring is forced to stop selling Visors not because of any strategic reasons. It is just simply because these guys will not have enough cash turn around for manufacturing Treos if they still continue to make the Visors.

They have only around $115 mil cash. And they anticipated Treo will be a big hit so that they will manufacture many units to meet demand. These $115 mil cash is used for building B/W and Color Treos.

Without any accidents or incidents, Handspring will go bankrupt or totally under the umbrella of Qualcomm before the end of the year. Qualcomm may try to use another $20 mil to acquire the rest of the company, or may not.

Handspring's corporate executives have no ideas of which customers is Treo goin to target. No enteprise partners right now and priced too high for consumers. These CEOs have no experience on selling and marketing a product. All they learnt in the past year is like what MS generally does - ask and pay a bunch of media jerks to hype your device and the product will sell. Indeed, PPCs sales are in the dark hole or somewhere out of the universe. If Compaq or MS relies their revenue primarly on PPCs, they go out of business last year.

It is sad Handspring's CEOs to follow suit of what the PPCs manufacturers just did. However, Handspring's revenue totally relies on their products. They do not have free cash to hype, unlike MS or Compaq.

I will love to see SBoard on Palm with additional SD card slot..that'll be a perfect combination. palm might as well merge with Hspring since sony will take over soon.

First off, I am lead programmer for Shine Micro, maker of the SM2496 module for the Handspring Visor. Our company has a strong interest in what happens to the Visor and the Springboard interface.

We are in beta test with the SM2496 right now, and if these statements are true then it looks like we will have to do a redesign. It really irritates me that HS would move away from Springboard devices after so many people have invested time and effort into developing modules to expand and enhance their Visor products.

Brian Lane

---
Lead Programmer, Shine Micro http://www.shinemicr.com

I can't figure out why handspring would announce this. They have effectively obsoleted their entire inventory. What are they going to do with their warehouses full of neos, prisms, and pros? I go to fry's and there are still deluxes piled up everywhere. They're not going anywhere after this. Why not announce a price cut, clear the inventory and THEN announce a product's obsolence. This current strategy places them atop piles of unsellable inventory.

I just listened to the conference call audio available from Yahoo, and the statements are true. And when she was asked to clarify when they would be phased out her response was that they are "Transitioning out of the organizer business, but not today". She wouldn't comment on any future products and said that there was "No time frame, but not today."

I don't find that very reassuring. It looks to me like they just destroyed the entire Visor and Springboard market in one fell swoop. Noone is going to want to invest their money (and time in my case) in a product line that is obviously near its end, or is going to be perceived that way by the consumers.

Brian Lane
Lead Programmer
Shine Micro
http://www.shinemicro.com

---
Lead Programmer, Shine Micro http://www.shinemicr.com

I just bought a HandEra 330 (www.handera.com), after considering a Visor, one of the new Palm models and some of the WinCE devices. I didn't think the springboard "standard" was very viable, and I didn't like the bulkiness of the add-ons. The newest Palm models are not much of an improvement over my current PDA. The WinCE devices, well, I just winced when they kept crashing on me (nevermind the battery life and interopablity issues as well).

The HandEra 330 is hands down the best, you get a CompactFlash slot, and a MMC/SD slot. I can add 64MB of memory to this thing, and still have room to plug in my GPS, 802.11 wireless NIC, cell modem, or landline modem (all based off of the miniature PCMCIA standard that CompactFlash uses) all while using the built-in microphone to record things. Plus I can use equipment that was originally designed to work with the Palm III line of products. I'm going to purchase the Lithium battery pack and charger, which will eliminate the need for the 4 AAAs it currently uses. I'm in PDA heaven...

And no, I dont work for them...

All of the low end PDA's are being discontinued, left and right. Too bad these are the ONLY ones I want. I don't want a PocketPC, or a color screen, or a cell-phone-pda. I want a simply Palm IIIx or a Handspring Visor.

Oh well. They don't want my money, they can't have it.

Springboards have not caught on. They never will.
Even most people who have VISORS never use them for anything other than memory. Spingboards sold the kind of person who hangs here, but you are a minority.
THEY ARE JUST TOO BIG FOR SIMPLE MEMORY. You cannot do a slim model with a springboard properly. The "Edge" with a spingboard is just lame, the reason why it has not sold well. Give it the tiny alternatives for memory expansion (sd) and it would work. Handspring is second to Palm for 1 reason. They were a cheaper alterative to Palm. Sony is coming on strong in this space. If they stayed there Sony would crush it out of existence.

PEOPLE, even if Handspring stuck to non connected devices they would have abandoned your beloved springboards.

I say take advantage of this blunder, (I agree the early anouncement will hurt visor sales during the transition.) If you keep your device you will get your spingboards at a reasonable price for the first time ever. (I do feel for beta spingboard dude, bummer for you.)If you upgrade you can make an educated decision knowing the Visor line is dying. They did you a favor.

Let me tell you about the Treo. It is so much better than current phone/PDA combos it aint funny. I've seen it, I've fondled it in my own hands. I saw it a comdex. EVERYONE who tries it LOVES it. I have YET to see a negative post by someone who has actually handled it.
That is why EVERY reviewer is fawning over it.
Soon enough they will release one with an SD slot, and cdma. It will be even sweeter.

Bottom line-
It just works.
It will be a monster.

Handspring surely will have great success with the handspring treo line. But it wont be for long. Whats after that? As I said before, you have more limits to smartphones because it needs to maintain a small size, good batt. life, etc. They surely can't add the spring board! You can only do so much with a handheld. Less with a smartphone. Besides, whats after that? Another Treo with a sd slot? I cannot think of many ways to upgrade in the future. Kyocera seems to be having problems creating a new low cost device WORTH the upgrade. It's hard to have a vaild explaination but I'm trying to say this is a dumb idea. KEEP THE VISORS. They have their own sense of style, and the spring board does NOT suck at all. This should not have happened...
PDANature - http://pdan.has.it - Hourly refreshed pda news, reviews, commentarys, software, software update notices, features, etc. http://pdan.has.it

Go to the transcript of the HS conference call at http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/5/12625.html Fast forward to 44:00, where they talk about future revenue expectations. The CFO? states by around 45:05 that the organizer production will begin to ramp down by March, as they ramp up Treo production. This is a lot sooner than I expected. How do you all interpret that clip from the conference call?

Have you looked at the prices on them? The technology is awesome but the third party vendors who make them let their greed run away with them. The prices are outrageous!

Personally I'd like to see Handspring stay in the PDA industry. I was looking forward to upgrading from my Palm V to a Handspring but now I might wait until they discontinue the product lines and sell them cheap through third parties on eBay.

High and dry Leavin' you High N' dry. I can't believe that I was considering going to the TREO. Maybe PDA companies should act more like Sony. Its sad that MS, with lots of money, could screw up such a good idea. What a waste. I hope they pay.

I can't believe what I'm reading. These guys are just killing off their customer base. The conspiracist in me thinks that someone on Microsoft's team is helping HS make these decisions. I don't think HS has a chance. time to ebay my prism (and springboard modules) and go get a clie. I'm just too pissed off at HS to even consider buying something they produce. So after HS dies, we have Palm and Sony left. Palm is splitting into hardware and software. the hardware side will also die. so now we are left with a Palm OS company and Sony making the hand helds. Pretty soon, Palm/Sony won't be able to keep up with the Pocket PC camp. MS is good at this game, look at what happened to Apple.

- just some pointless ramblings

Mr. Hawkins gave a great speach at Comdex. He explained what Handspring knew through a survey: that people want: 1) to communicate, 2) read email,
3) organize; in that order. So here is where the Treo comes.

Ms. Dubinsky said : "We are a company that is transitioning out of the organizer business and into the communicator business," Dubinsky said. "At some point, we will have transitioned out of the organizer business." This doesn´t mean that they won´t make gadgets that are able to have organizing capabilities.

If you like it, these gadgets will be connected but their primarily function will be TALKING, then RECEIVING/SENDING EMAIL, then WEB SURFING, finally ORGANIZING.

This is what phone makers are trying to do, while succesful they are not perfect products, the Treo is getting near that perfection.

You have to realize (although you don´t like it) that Handspring is going directly to the big market, and not to a bunch of techno freaks like us.

Finally something about the Springboard. It was thought almost four (yes 4 years ago, in 1998).
Technology was bigger, it did great and it´s still does. It set a path. This is a great achievement in electronics.

Again maybe those geeks don´t like some bulky modules but THEY WORK. (And there are not so many substitutes or soon to be...) Stop underestimating the intelligence of inventors, enterprises and consumers.

The Visor line is the SECOND PDA seller in the market. It sold more than all the "Wow!" PPC together...

Change sucks. Innovation stinks. Why doesn't anyone support my 8 tracks and paper punch cards anymore?! Now when I go to Best Buy they tell me those things are obsolete! Where are all the Commodore 64 games? I go to CompUSA and they tell me "they're discontinued!" What! It still works! Progress sucks. We should go back to using pens and paper organizers instead of this geewhiz handheld stuff that gets obsolete every 2 months, I tell ya.

Repeat after me:

No electronic hi-tech product lasts "forever".

The closest to lasting forever is software. If you choose to build on a closed software platform, do not cry when the owner of the platform packs up and goes away.

The closest today are ISA bus, VME bus and S-100, and that is in order of popularity/exinction/that you can still get parts.

In the case of a handheld with a data bus, you can choose springboard or PCMCIA. (there may be some other I don't know of, but these are 'mass market' versions) If you pick springboard, you have, err, well one vendor. If you picked a Compaq, you have a standard interface. And if compaq goes away, picking PCMCIA means you can upsize to a laptop, etc la.

Not to mention with a Compaq/Laptop solution you can even choose to dump windows and run BSD or one of the many different linux versions.

But both of these assume that the need to portablly gather data is worth the extra expense.

I just obtained a handspring and have a visorphone on order. Is it big? Yes. My last cell phone was a 3 watt bag phone, so this is an improvement. When the phone dies/lost/no longer aviable, I'll pick something else. I've opted to move my remote data entry to a web site....so the phone is the 'data entry of last resort' system, and I'm rather sure the 'web access on phone' is here to stay, like the VME bus.

Thats bull ****,i just invested in the product and their going to end it. They just lost this cutomer and many 1000's others. They will be out of business soon with that move. Bill Cash mad customer

I work for a company that derives a majority of its revenue from making a springboard module and I can tell you that we were not pleased that Donna decided to announce this in such a haphazard fashion.

It reminds me of that CEO at Palm who pre-announced a new version of the Palm which instantly froze all existing sales. And then the new product was late, so they totally missed their quarterly numbers. What an idiot. This is the problem with public companies. If they don't grow fast enough, the investors are not happy. So, management takes big risks which more often than not, don't pay off.

I believe their is a viable market, albeit not as large as the consumer market, for the Visor product line. In the vertical industries, like bar code scanners, magnetic card readers, smart card readers, contactless smart card readers, and many others. In fact, Symbol technology licensed the Springboard slot from Handspring for their line of ruggedized PDAs.
http://www.handspring.com/company/pr17.jhtml

There is some value in the product line, just not enough to sustain a publically traded company that needs to grow at 50% a year.

Perhaps a collation of Module Manufacturers should license the design from Handspring and pay them a royalty. The collation would support manufacturer but not high paided CEOs (like Donna) and Handspring would get a royalty stream which would please their investors (high margin, drops right to the bottom line, etc.).

Of course, Symbol might buy the product line and kill it so that only their ruggedized version would be available.

Only time will tell.

Now that I've had a chance to sleep on it... think about it - OS 5 is completely changing the hardware component of the platform. So Hawkins, Dubinsky, et al, were faced with a gut-wrenching decision - find a partner and market (i.e., Qualcomm) to leverage a new strategy if not new market in an attempt to recover engineering investment, or wipe the slate clean and pour millions into a new platform design.

The Springboard, as much as I like the concept for smaller manufacturers of custom product, never did get true mass-market acceptance. When you're making product that has to see 500K unit sales for break-even, you bias strategy towards satisfying the larger market.

Bottom line - Handspring PDA's were going to be toast anyway with Palm OS 5. This announcement is actually doing the community a small favor by not becoming "news" at Palm Source, either by Handspring not being there or an outright announcement that they won't be supporting OS 5.

Still depressing - ah, heck, I lost half a dozen product development opportunities yesterday - but becoming increasingly understandable.

...mike musick

http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/techtest/ml011702.htm

"Handspring will quit making organizers..." With that much, I agree. I don't want "just an organizer," which is why I purchased my first PalmOS unit only recently. Prior to purchasing my Visor Prism I owned 2 WinCE units, because they were the best (for me) pocket computers at that time. PalmOS handhelds and third-party software have made advances; for instance WordSmith is currently superior to Pocket Word. But, I don't want a combination phone/pager/PDA either. Many other posters have previously stated many good reasons why this combination is a bad idea.

What I want is a pocket computer, able to take over as many tasks from my notebook and desktop computers as possible. Not the "less is more/PC companion" vision, I'm looking for better displays, more internal memory, more powerful processors, improved third-party software, removable expansion memory, etc. Wireless connectivity is a must, but data access (Internet, e-mail, and fax) is very different from voice capability!

One reason many people purchase Visors is the Springboard slot. I prefer the size and weight of the M505, but decided there would be more useful "stuff" released that would fit the Springboard slot. The Springboard form factor is unwieldy when you're trying to make handhelds smaller and lighter, but the answer is to adopt "something" that's smaller, not to eliminate expansion!

The Treo has no SD, MMC, CF Card, or other memory expansion. Dumb, dumb, dumb! It’s obsolete before it’s released! They could bump the internal memory up to 32 or 64K, but there goes the battery life. It didn’t take long for me to fill up the Visor’s 8 megs. Fortunately, a Matchbook Drive CF Card adapter along with great VFS software from Kopsis Engineering means I'll never run out of expansion room.

It’s ironic - Handspring doesn’t want to sell “just organizers,” but the limitations built into the Treo relegate it to just that: “an organizer with built-in phone.” It's not a powerful pocket computer since there’s limited storage for programs and documents. Another thing, how do you hold the Treo to your ear and talk, when you’re discussing and looking at a document stored on the Treo?

When Handspring announced free VisorPhones with activation, I visited my local GSM provider (VoiceStream). There is no data-only plan, you pay by the minute for access plus your ISP charges, and VoiceStream isn’t competitive with other carriers on voice. Sprint plans cost about .01 per minute including long distance, and Cricket offers unlimited local-area calling for $32.95 a month. This means the Treo is aimed at ONLY those individuals and companies who can afford very costly per-minute charges. My OmniSky plan costs a dollar a day for unlimited CDPD coverage, which isn’t as widespread but is affordable.

If Handspring believes the Treo is their future, I'm afraid Handspring will disappear into the same Black Hole that’s about to devour K-Mart.

Published on CNET/news.com on November 13, 2001!

While Handspring is clearly focused on wireless, Hawkins offered no timetable for when the company might exit the traditional handheld business.

"The PDA as we know it will become the middle and low end of the market," he said. However, he added that the company might still be selling handhelds 15 years from now. "Hewlett-Packard still sells calculators," he noted.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-7865649.html

I don't get it. Anyone and everyone who owns a handspring product will most likely own a VISOR of some sort. Now the company is letting all of us VISOR owners that our VISOR will be obsolete in the near future.
Perhaps this will be the same situation for their stock.

Many of the people commenting here seem to be from the us. I'm from ireland, and the one thing i can say is that people who have lived with wireless communications in the us don't understand the world market. In ireland we have a penetration ratio of over 70%. This means nearly everyone has a mobile phone. Every single person i know, excuding children under the age of 10 and old people over 70 has a phone. The execptions are very sparse. Coverage here has been virtually 100% for the last 5 years or so, you just dont loose coverage here at all. I never thought of this as a big deal it seemed the way it should be until my uncle from america was amazed at me recieving many phone calles while were were atop a mountain. Romeing also works perfectally. I can literally go almost anywhere in the world with any cheep phone and i will have a connection, no hassle. The whole world uses GSM except america (who are also one of the only countries yet to convert to the metric system... what the hell does 5/8 of an inch look like come on). SMS (sending 160 character messages) is amazingly popular in europe, in ireland alone with it's 4 million people there was colse on 500 million text messages ent over the christmas period, this shows what a potential market for this type of text communcation there is. All of these messages were sent using a numerical keypad. From what i've heard on this site the us is still a child wirelessly, the market if fragmented and you only have bill-pay systems. The majority of people i know recieve no bill, we buy top up units for out phones in shops or online. When we buy a phone it works straight from the box, it's even charged. Phones are truly a commodity yo can buy them in a corner shop. All phones sold now have wap, which sucks. The treo will have a deacent web browser. It will have the support of the palm application base (wich also include many internet enabled apps). It will be the same size as a phone. When you seem concerned as to why handspring are thinking of sending the first shipments of treo's to europ it's because the market is huge and the infra structure is there to support it. is $400 much for a phone, well no many teenagers ahve very expensive phones in the $300 range, So $400 isnt expensive for the set of features the treo offers.

The plain fact is the treo works as a communicator, it could do with an sd slot but hey. I cant for the life of me see why anyone would buy any other handheld (apart from the handera 330 which is an exectelentally engeneered device) The sonly line is a joke with no style (sony's products are flashy but few have style. . . i can only think of the mzr90, that has style) I lament the dropping of the springboard but it was too big and too small to compete with sd cards/cf cards/memory stick. Althought it did produce some apsoloutly brilliant products. Jeff hawkins is right when he supposes the palmtop is dead. It is the only reason i'd buy an palmtop now is to read books on, and id' buy a handera - wide screen. But if i can do that on my treo... One thing i would like to see is the saveing of wireless content. This would be a godsend. Btw wireless prices are dropping fast in ireland in a few years a net connection call will be the same price as landline. :) Can't wait for a treo

Sent on 1/18/02 to all Handspring Developers via their Developers Email List.

Dear Handspring Developer,

There has been some confusion over Handspring's commitment to the organizer business as a result of comments we made in our recent conference call with financial analysts. We are sorry for any confusion we may have caused. I am writing to clarify our position.

Handspring remains committed to producing and supporting our organizer products. We believe that there will be a market for organizers for some time to come. What we intended in our earnings call is that because of our strong belief in the value of wireless communications, we are putting more and more of our development resources into our communicator products. This is true. We are very excited about the Treo communicator and are investing heavily in future communicator products.

The Visor product line has been an incredible success and the Springboard expansion slot supports many great solutions thanks to you. As the Visor product line matures we are consolidating the line into a few key products, Visor Pro, Visor Neo and Visor Edge. Going forward we will continue to support Springboard developers. We will continue to manufacture and sell Visor products as long as there is sufficient demand and we are able to build them. It is natural that as demand dictates we may reduce the number of SKUs and the geographies and channels in which they are available.

Again, I hope this clarifies any confusion we may have caused. Thank you for your support of Handspring in the past and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.

Jeff Hawkins

Whoever let this one out of the bag at Handspring should be sacked! Stateside people may not be aware that Psion (UK) said almost exactly the same thing a few months ago - you try buying a psion in the high street retailers now! Secondhand prices have plummeted, software development has just ground to a halt.
This could quite easily kill handspring stone dead. The ONE THING that handspring have done since the start was to keep the same connector (unlike Palm) and the same Springboard Slot, meaning you could upgrade your Visor and keep all your addons - which frequently cost more than the Visor !
They must be STUPID BEYOND BELIEF to let this information leek out. Don't they know that palmtop owners get fanatical about their machines, that we want to feel secure in the future use of them, that we can buy add ons, get them repaired, continue to use our favourite applications?
I have no problem with the communicator concept (I have a Visorphone module), but for heavens sake KEEP THE SPRINGBOARD YOU IDIOTS!

i have little hope for treo and handspring with this service contract model. now do i have a service contract for my web host, my cell phone, my Tivo, my land line phone, DSL, my new napster...etc.

forget about it, i want an organizer not another bill. this is a 180 from the open source life style. you can't really say the organizer is going to replace the cell phone when the cell phone gets so small and the pda is useless with a smaller screen.

next we're going to get a publishers clearing house web services sticker book-order two subscriptions and get eight for free?

hahah!

i just bought my 2 nd 300 dollor visor, not good news,
give me some better news.
steve

Sure the Treo is a great device. But it is only good because it is the first mainstream device to take steps toward CDMA and 3G. Pretty soon, when all pda/phone devices make advancements and drop prices, there won't be anything special about the Treo, especially without a springboard. So how does Handspring, being such a small company with tight recourses plan to compete with Nokia and Qlcm? With the visor dead and the Treo in the dumps, Handspring won't have enough money to develope a new product, forcing them to liquidate. It's sad to see Handspring go. In a way, I see it as the end of an era. The springboard expansion slot was a great idea, and so was the simplicity of the Visor. I look forward to the day when people will see an all-in-one "super device" with Bluetooth, 3G, Color, Voice, Data, SD, lightweight, elegance, and ease of use all in one. One thing is for sure, Handspring won't be the one to make it.