American History 1988
Chapter 334 - 323 Palm

Chapter 334: Chapter 323 Palm

Palm actually was established in 1992, at that time Go was facing a series of business crises.

Nevertheless, the latter’s operating system-centric business strategy still gave Jeff Hawkins significant inspiration.

When Jeff Hawkins was working at GRiD Systems Corporation, he was the most creative member there.

This company was one of the pioneers in developing computers with handwriting recognition; the famous Grid Compass emerged in 1982.

Jeff Hawkins, who worked as a developer within the company, had proposed a theory on how to recognize text several years earlier.

Based on these findings, he developed a relatively mature handwriting recognition system, PalamPrint.

This was different from the approach of Microsoft and others, which involved comparing whole words with a dictionary of common words.

PalamPrint compared each character against four or five different forms of that single character.

This method greatly saved system resources and yielded relatively accurate results.

With this handwriting recognition system, GRiD naturally introduced the GRiDPad.

It is considered the first real handwriting computer and gained popularity among many corporate and government customers.

They were very eager to have a device that could access databases at any time, and personal memos were also a pressing need for these government and corporate clients.

Thanks to the performance of the PalamPrint recognition system, GRiDPad sold quite well.

In 1988, it was even acquired by Tandy, one of the giants in the personal computer industry.

Unfortunately, GRiD did not have its own operating system and there was no ambition internally to monopolize the market.

They were content with bulk government purchases, which brought in substantial profits for the company.

If you can win lying down, who would want to spend money on R&D?

Thus, since its introduction, the GRiDPad has been using DOS as its operating system.

As for PalamPrint, it was just a handwriting recognition system.

If one were to make a comparison, PalamPrint would be akin to an input method.

Its emergence was similar to the transition from the ancient stroke-based input directly to Sogou Intelligent Input Method.

Also, because of the excellent performance of PalamPrint, GRiD was able to rely on its established foundation for several years.

Then, entering the 1990s, Microsoft, Go, IBM, Apple, and other companies began to enter this field.

Moreover, all these newcomers were ambitious, each developing their own operating systems.

And GRiD? They continued to live off their past success.

Jeff Hawkins had proposed developing their own operating system, but the board felt the current product profits were high enough and thus shelved the investment-heavy system development project.

Later, Go shifted its strategy and began selling the Penpoint operating system.

GRiD saw this as someone offering a pillow just as they were dozing off.

There was no need to create when buying was an option.

They directly procured the Penpoint license from Go to serve as the operating system for their new generation of products.

Jeff Hawkins, who had always been committed to in-house development, was greatly disappointed; it was around that time that he began to consider leaving.

His manager tried to persuade Hawkins to stay with Tandy to develop new products, but Hawkins had his own plans.

He believed that Tandy, being a large enterprise with many branches, would struggle to provide him with the independence he desired.

Moreover, his projects were never a priority for Tandy; staying there, he was bound to be overlooked.

So, in 1992, he left GRiD and founded what is now Palm.

Inspired by Go, Hawkins positioned Palm as a software development company.

Lacking enough funds to develop hardware, providing applications for his former employer GRiD was the best choice.

His previous manager, John, even invested $300,000 in this newly established company.

Additionally, he promised to release a new generation of handwriting computers under the brand new label Zoomer, a project exclusive to Tandy.

Palm would participate in the design of the Zoomer and provide an enhanced version of PalamPrint, personal information management software, and other applications.

The responsibility for the operating system would be on another company, Geoworks.

Despite this, Hawkins’s longstanding desire to develop an operating system remained unfulfilled, but Palm nevertheless managed to receive some orders.

He recruited four partners to help run Palm, one of whom was Donna Dubinsky.

She had been the head of the Software Sales department at Apple, familiar with the application software market, and had cultivated a huge network of contacts.

With these people, the framework of Palm was essentially built.

However, just as they were about to start developing the relevant applications, Geoworks fell behind.

In a matter of months, there was almost no progress on their operating system, let alone the Palm applications that depended on it.

Without a system development kit from Geoworks, Palm had almost nothing to do.

As expected, the development of Zoomer hit an impasse.

This was not only due to system issues but also because Tandy kept revising product features.

The product was contracted to Casio for manufacturing, but as a Neon enterprise, they were quite difficult to work with.

Casio’s own products were primarily watches, calculators, and low-cost electronic notepads.

They lacked experience in developing handwriting computers and were obsessively intolerant of any software imperfections.

No matter how insignificant these imperfections were, and almost regardless of whether they would affect the customer experience.

For example, they hoped that the Zoomer, even when powered on, would have a 100-hour battery life.

However, such a requirement was nearly impossible to achieve for a handwriting computer device.

Casio, as the OEM, could intervene in the product’s development precisely because the Zoomer’s design would also be adopted by Casio and released under its own brand.

Because too many people interfered, the Zoomer encountered problems everywhere from software to hardware.

Then, when it launched in ’93, its sales were even more dismal than Apple’s Newton Assistant, totaling less than 20,000 units across the board.

Media reviews called the product "hopeless," noting that it had many features, but all performed mediocrely.

For the sake of battery life, it sacrificed processor performance and screen readability.

Besides, it was loaded with a bunch of unnecessary features, such as Intuit’s personal finance software Quicken, an AOL mobile client.

It also included an astrology database and a dictionary with a hundred thousand words, proving that no one would buy a Zoomer just for its database.

Hawkins had a premonition of its failure because he had already lost control over the product development in its later stages.

From its launch last August until today, after more than half a year, the Zoomer has basically ceased to be a contender.

Now, Palm needed a new source of income, and Hawkins tried developing applications for other handwriting computers.

Like Sharp’s Wizard 9600, but that business was only barely enough to sustain Palm’s operations.

Hawkins’s vision was to develop a real handwriting computer operating system—and even the hardware itself.

Yes, he wanted to make a real product, and his grand ambition was to turn Palm into a one billion US Dollar unicorn company.

So now the question was, they needed to find a partner or seek acquisition.

They had considered a series of candidates, such as Motorola, Compaq, and Nokia, but no one was willing to give Palm the autonomy to develop products.

Nor was anyone willing to offer Palm sufficient shares as compensation; Compaq even suggested they sell their new PDA via mail order.

Just then, an unexpected option appeared before them.

Partner Donna Dubinsky mentioned the issue casually while chatting with Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit.

The latter immediately said that he might be able to find a suitable investor for Palm.

Donna Dubinsky quickly pressed him on who this potential investor might be.

Then she heard a name that was a regular fixture on Forbes list.

What happened next goes without saying, after internal discussion at Palm, they were inclined to choose the wealthiest person in Silicon Valley.

This was not only because of the potential investor’s financial strength, but also because he had a technical background.

Hawkins and the others believed that as a fellow technologist, he would understand Palm’s pursuit in product design.

So through Donna Dubinsky, Palm expressed interest in accepting an investment to Bill, the CEO of Intuit.

As for why Donna Dubinsky knew Bill Campbell, it was thanks to the Intuit software loaded on the Zoomer.

Of course, most importantly, Bill once was Donna’s boss, and they had known each other for many years.

In the end, through various connections, Bill got in touch with Dean through Durell.

You see, Silicon Valley isn’t really that large.

Everyone is in the same circle, and though they may not have met, there could be invisible links between them.

Now Dean had responded to them and was about to visit here.

At this moment, Hawkins and the others were sitting in the conference room, awaiting the arrival of the angel investor.

"Do you think he’ll be interested in Palm?" a somewhat nervous Rob Haitani, the lead developer, asked.

"I think so," Hawkins nodded uncertainly, "Otherwise, he wouldn’t be coming today."

"Given his fortune, investing in Palm is trivial," said Colligan, the Vice President of Marketing, very optimistically.

"Donna, what do you think?" Hawkins turned to ask Dubinsky, who had unexpectedly played the role of intermediary this time.

"I’m wondering what kind of car he’ll show up in. Could it be the legendary Rolls-Royce Phantom?" Donna humorously replied.

Everyone shared a smile, but before they could continue, an assistant came in to announce that the visitor was about to arrive.

The group quickly got up and went to Palm’s front door to greet their angel.

"It’s actually a Cadillac~" Donna muttered.

"Clearly, he’s here for business." Colligan shrugged.

The black Cadillac came to a halt, and Caitlin was the first to step out.

Although Dean had told her it wasn’t necessary, Caitlin still followed the routine of opening the car door for him.

"Hey~ guys, no need for such formality," said Dean, looking rejuvenated after a Hollywood tune-up.

"We’re just..." Hawkins spread his hands, "very welcoming~"

"Yes, indeed," Colligan and others echoed.

Alright, they hadn’t expected a super-rich individual like Dean to be so down to earth.

"I’ve learned about Palm from Bill. You guys want to make a brand new PDA, right?" Dean went straight to the point as he had already read the materials in advance.

"Exactly, I guarantee it will be different from any other similar product on the market; we have that confidence," Hawkins replied, having prepared for a long time, from system to hardware, even having a design scheme ready.

"Well then, let’s go inside and talk," Dean said, stepping into the company, as if he were already the owner.