Jan/Feb 2009

Will Palm's new Pre smartphone and WebOS mobile operating system figure in your corporate buying plans in the near future? Although the new product is being pushed for its consumer appeal, some or all of the features will no doubt filter through to the business market.

There's certainly plenty to get your mind round, including a touch screen with 'gesture-based' navigation reminiscent of Apple's iPhone, and a separate pull-out QWERTY keyboard. Among other features are Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g wireless networking, Bluetooth 2.1, a USB 2.0 high-speed micro-connector, and a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field.

And the shape of the phone with keyboard extended has an ergonomic 'curve'. Sound familiar?

Palm is touting its new WebOS as a breakthrough in connected computing. While it stops short of introducing true 'cloud computing' (consolidated remote data storage), in some ways it is even cleverer than that, attempting to synchronise various existing data repositories likely to be used by customers.

These include personal e-mail on Google and social networking on Facebook, as well as Microsoft exchange email accounts and similar. WebOS attempts to present consolidated, de-duplicated lists of stored data. A neat idea if it works.

Prices and availability were still unclear when we closed for press. The Pre is being launched in the US later this year, initially on the Sprint network.