"But wait," say some of our propeller-crowned friends, "Palm, Inc. does have competition! What about Handspring?" Handspring's Visor PDA has been sold over the Internet since last fall, but it was plagued with shipping and ordering problems. Although it finally arrived in retail stores last month, in my opinion the only people likely to have seen one so far are those running with the pocket protector set.

More importantly, Handspring doesn't compete with Palm, Inc. The Visor runs the Palm OS with nothing more than a few minor tweaks. Although you may have heard that Visors run faster because their "code has been optimized," even a non-technical guy like me can download a tiny application called Cruise Control (see http://www.backupbuddy.com/cc/prod_cruisecontrol_details.html) to get the same minor speed improvements on my Palm device. ("Look, Ma! I optimized my code!") If the Visor had a Palm, Inc. label instead of a Handspring label, only the digitally-overdosed would be able to tell the difference.

Since it uses the Palm OS, Handspring pays Palm, Inc. a royalty on every Visor it sells. Although the digerati rhapsodized last fall over the dawn of competition in the Palm world, in my opinion Handspring didn't bring any. Think of it this way: if there were only two car makers in the world, but one of them had to buy all its engines from the other, how much "competition" would there be? With PDAs, the Palm OS is the engine.

Sure, it's a bit more complex than that. When Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky left what was then Palm Computing to found Handspring, they could credibly threaten to come up with a new operating system. They invented the Palm OS, and they could do it again. Palm must have made them a good deal, but once they decided to use the Palm OS in the Visor, the die was cast. If Handspring were to invent a new OS at this point, it would be like abandoning its child. Cynic that I am, my guess is that Handspring was hoping its patented "Springboard" slot, which allows users to easily plug in expansion modules, would prove so popular that Palm, Inc. would need it too, thereby forcing Palm, Inc. to swap a Palm OS license for a Springboard license.

But, like I said, have you seen any Visors? Meanwhile, there are six million Palm devices in use.

Which brings us back to The End of the World, also known as Windows CE 3.0. The prophecy is that Microsoft will put all its resources behind Windows CE 3.0, making it fast, cheap, and easy to use and along the way, beating the pants off Palm in the process.

Is this a bad thing?
The few preliminary reviews I've seen make the Windows CE 3.0 Pocket PC sound very good indeed. The new OS is far faster than the old version, so there should be few, if any, of those annoying visits from the Windows hourglass. Unit prices look very competitive compared to the Palm organizers, at least for color versions. The basic functions--calendar, address book, to do list, and notepad--look user-friendly and intuitive, much like the Palm OS. They are also a vast improvement over the previous incarnation of Windows CE.

However, Windows CE 3.0 goes a few steps beyond the Palm platform and adds a basic word processor, an ebook reader, an MP3 player with headphone jack, an Internet browser, and support for movie files. (Yes, movies on your handheld. Can Dick Tracy's wrist TV be far behind?) While some of these features were in earlier versions of Windows CE, they look much easier to use now.

One thing Microsoft hasn't changed is the screen, and that's good. Unlike Palm organizers, Pocket PCs (and their predecessors, the Palm-sized PCs) have no fixed input area at the bottom of the screen; instead, the input area pops up when requested. This allows for a somewhat larger viewable screen. However, it also means the screen might be abraded by the stylus, which is one reason Palm, Inc. hasn't gone this route.

A Pocket PC screen also has much higher resolution than a Palm device (320x240 versus 160x160 pixels), and color versions offer up to 64,000 colors. This is in contrast to the paltry 256 colors on the Palm IIIc, which means photos on the screen are much more realistic. The difference should be immediately obvious even to casual buyers.

Healthy competition
This combination of features--ease of use and enhanced capability--will draw both casual users wanting a simple organizer and ardent hobbyists looking for the system that can do it all. If Microsoft really can attract both groups to one unit, it certainly should take market share from Palm, Inc.

And that's a good thing. Two things you don't get from a complacent monopolist are price cuts and innovation. I certainly wouldn't call Palm, Inc.'s current pricing aggressive. The bottom-of-the-line Palm IIIe costs "only" $150, but considering the huge quantities Palm, Inc. is manufacturing, I'm betting their profit margin is very wide indeed, even on that unit. As far as the basic capabilities go, I'm not convinced that even the current top of the line, the Palm IIIc, does all that much more than the original Pilot 1000 (although, admittedly, it's got a lot more RAM). Would it really be that hard, for example, to add rudimentary word processing capability?

Even Palm, Inc. can respond to competition. I suspect Palm, Inc. created the Palm IIIe in response to the Royal DaVinci and Casio Pocket Viewer. When these $99 units first appeared, the cheapest Palm organizers listed for $299. Palm, Inc. quickly realized that there were customers at the very low end of the market, and they trimmed features off the Palm IIIx to get the Palm IIIe.

A successful Windows CE 3.0 Pocket PC would no doubt provoke an even more aggressive response. Picture this: word spreads among non-technical users that Pocket PCs are as easy to use as Palm computers, have better screens, and offer more features.

In contrast to the prophets of doom, I welcome Windows CE 3.0 and hope that it indeed proves to be strong competition for the Palm platform. If the Pocket PCs fulfill their promise, consumers won't be the only ones to notice, and I expect Palm, Inc. will react quickly and aggressively with lower prices and new features, which means that either way, we'll get more bang for our buck.

The Apocalypse sounds better all the time, doesn't it?

Technology skeptic Kevin Quin organizes himself in the PDA wilderness of Washington, D.C. He can be reached at kquin@bellatlantic.net.