On the other hand, they tried to revive these somewhat out-dated products. The result was Palm V, released in the beginning of the year. It was a flat miniature device with a significantly improved screen, although still capable of displaying only four shades of gray. As for bad news, the memory amount remained at the same, 2MB, level (although the Vx model soon fixed this problem). The cradle changed once again (as it did during the shift from PalmPilot to Palm III) and it was not compatible with the Palm III any more. The real good news was the transition from AAA batteries to lithium-ion rechargeable accumulator-batteries that would charge up when the PDA was installed into the cradle.

As for the difference between the two versions of PalmOS – 3.0 and 3.1 – it was quite negligible. Well, the user was now able to adjust the screen contrast. There was a program for training in graffiti and there were better icons… Recalling the past, the difference between Windows 3.0 and 3.1 was much more evident. The new processor had a doubled speed – 33MHz against 16MHz, which was fine already. However, the available programs didn’t run much faster – there were no programs that really required such a speed.

There was also a third direction, such as the implementation of 3Com’s vision – Palm VII. It was actually the same Palm III with an integrated radio module that allowed to seep in information via special sluices. This solution had two drawbacks. Firstly, information could only be received from the sluice, in the coverage area. Thus, non-USA users couldn’t use this feature at all, while in the USA there was no coverage for the entire country. Secondly, the small screen and narrow bandwidth imposed their restraints. Palm VII worked well with e-mail and some other Web services, but was not designed for efficient Web surfing. You could only visit sites from the Palm.net network, which were adapted (sometimes, very severely) versions of fully-fledged sites.

Costing $599 and having such limitations, the device didn’t become a sales hit. Palm.net turned out even less popular. Running a little ahead, I can mention a few numbers. Although the fee for using the network was soon reduced to $45 and the price for Palm VII – to $199 by May of 2000 (and people who bought it with registration at Palm.net paid only $99!), there were only 300 thousand units of Palm VII and Palm VIIx (8MB memory) sold by the beginning of 2001. And the number of Palm.net subscribers was even smaller – 190 thousand.

But that was later. For now, Donna and Jeff lost all what was left of their patience. Having released three new families of Palms, they approached Eric Benhamou once again in July. This time they came to announce their departure. They didn’t want high salaries or options – they needed freedom. At the same time, they didn’t want to wage a war against Palm. They came to Benhamou offering cooperation, with them being outside 3Com. First of all, they meant licensing the OS. Otherwise, Donna & Jeff might license it to Pocket PC or someone else. 3Com would have been the first to suffer from this move.