JH: I think that information overload comes from, borrowing from current terminology, "Push" technology. Things that are pushed at you are things that overload you. That can be magazines in your mailbox...physical magazines, printed magazines piling up. It can be E-mail. It can be people leaving you voice messages. These are all things you can't control very easily. Those are what you get overloaded by.

You tend not to feel overloaded when YOU want to go get something. That's not a problem. The thing about PalmPilot and the technologies we're developing is that they're primarily pull technologies. You get something when you want it. That doesn't mean that there won't be some push parts of it, but in that sense, I don't think it's an overload. It doesn't bother me to carry around tons and tons of stuff in my pocket. If I don't want to look at it, I don't have to look at it.

DG: That makes a lot of sense. Something just came to mind, off topic a little bit. A recent survey done by your company says the number one reason people buy this device is because of the form factor. On top of all the other reasons, on top of what it does, how it works, all the other things. Would you agree with that?

JH: I certainly agree that...well, it's not the reason they buy something, cause there are other things that are small. But it's the reason they like the product. You remember when the Newton came out. People were very, very excited about that too. There was a tremendous amount of interest, not just hype on Apple's part, but real interest from people. But for a variety of reasons, one of them being that the products are too large, people have said "That doesn't work for me."

So the size alone doesn't create demand, but it is a key criteria about people being able to use it for whatever they want to use it for. I hope I'm making myself clear about that. It's a critical part of the equation, although the functionality has to be compelling as well. But if the form factor isn't right, they won't use it.

DG: Do you think that your other competitors are kind of missing the boat in terms of form factor?

JH: Some are, some aren't. I think it's taken a number of people quite awhile to really understand that. It took us at Palm awhile to understand how important it was. But we've clearly set a target for people to go after. They can look at us and say "PalmPilot's been really successful, let me do something just like that." So I think if they've missed this point in the past, they won't continue to miss it forever. On the other hand though, I think there may be some surprises here in the form factor arena. I'm not going to tell you what those are...

DG: As long as it's not a Java Ring, it's fine...

JH: (laughing)...I have yet to see the Java Ring, although I have read about it many times. So, I don't think we've seen the end-all of this. I'd like to say that the current PalmPilot is the biggest thing we'll ever produce. I kinda mean that. But that doesn't mean that's what they're going to look like 5 years from now, even 2 years from now.