Evan

We're doing a furious evaluation of PalmOS vs CE as we speak.

The CE has a much bigger screen, partly because its character recognition/keyboard segment at the bottom is actually part of the screen rather than a separate panel and you can hide it for more screen real estate. With screens as small as these, that matters heaps.

However, the handspring has far more extension support than any of the CE devices, or Palm. There are now medical textbook cards and a whole host of cool things at reasonable prices, with more all the time. Handspring feels like a winner to me.

I've been looking at development tools myself. PalmOS still wins hands down for rapid app development; there are MS tools for CE but they require a horribly familiar "service pack" sort of preparation, updating and re-registering OS files. IMHO it feels like another round of dll Hell. There are also other tools such as VisualCE and JDesignerPro and we're going to try those as well.

We haven't considered wireless. In our major client environment (hospitals) a proliferation of RF devices may not be such a strong selling point for the forseeable future, and cradles around the place will work. We also need people to be able to keep working in "stand alone" mode if need be so they start to trust the IT solution.

Results so far: if I were spending my own money on 8 December 2000, I'd definitely buy a Handspring. Either a Platinum or a Visor. If I were buying a CE, it would be a Compaq iPAQ. However, people who want a CE with wireless should consider that the Compaq comes with no proper "slots", you need to add an expansion pack which turns the slinky little iPAQ into a big heavy thing. Unlike the Handspring.

Regards

JR