Start-Up to Debut Rival to 3Com’s Palm Computer

The hot-selling Palm hand-held computer may be about to get its hand slapped.

A secretive Mountain View, Calif., start-up called Handspring Inc.--begun in November by renegade PalmPilot developers Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins--is expected to unveil an electronic organizer that is cheaper and better than the lower-end Palm III model.

Handspring, backed by blue-chip venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, declined to comment. But analysts briefed by Handspring said three versions of the organizer, called Visor, will be made public Tuesday.

“It’s arguably better and certainly cheaper than the Palm III,” Rob Enderle, vice president of Giga Information Group, said after word of Visor leaked to the trade press. “The Handspring folks will probably take the core of the new [Palm] customer base.”

Palm is owned by 3Com Corp., which acquired the line when it bought US Robotics.

Handspring’s Visor will be priced as low as $149, about $50 less than Palm III. Because it is based on the same operating system, Visor will appear similar to consumers, who have generally spurned rival systems driven by Microsoft Windows CE software.

3Com sold $570 million worth of Palms in its latest fiscal year, or about 80% of the market.

The big difference from Palm is that Visors have slots where other gadgets can be snapped into place. Those gadgets are likely to include pagers and, in short order, wireless phones, analysts said.

“The socket makes it easy,” said Dataquest analyst Van Baker. “As a developer, it makes sense to work with these guys instead of Palm.” Applications on Palm will also run on Visor.

Mark Bercow, Palm’s vice president of strategic alliances, said the firm will release its own improved hardware. “The long-term survival of . . . Palm is based on getting as much share as we can,” he said. “The good news is [Handspring’s] founders are doing it on our platform instead of Windows CE.”