Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz's editorial, "The April Fool's article that never was," in April's issue of PalmPower (at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200104/ppeditorial0401001.html) inspired a flood of reader feedback. Read on to see how, again, David managed to stir up controversy, without even trying, in what he thought was a normal editorial.

Real innovation, tangible value
Hi, David. Just want to compliment you on your editorial. Simply brilliant! I was mentioned in Dan Gillmor's column about six weeks ago (at http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/dgillmor/dg021801a.htm) in which he covered some of the same points you raise. I had to lay off people a number of years ago when I was at Apple and swore never to do it again. We have designed our company, Think Outside (at http://www.thinkoutside.com), to use outside resources to leverage its core group, which allows us to maintain stability in a fast growing company. Our first year's revenues were $34 million, over a $1million per employee in a hardware business that everyone said could not be successful. We will continue be a major force in the handheld market, and there's much more to follow our first product, the Stowaway Portable Keyboard.

Best regards,
Phil Baker
President, Think Outside, Inc.

Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz responds
Phil, I just read Gillmor's piece, and I agree. Thanks for your kind comments. I, of course, will be insufferable to my co-workers for days on the "simply brilliant" comment! I had no idea you folks had sold so many keyboards. We've written about the Palm OEM version numerous times, and it's one of the biggest value adds to the Palm experience we've seen. But to do ten times the norm on revenue per employee is astounding.

See, this is what I've been talking about. Real innovation, providing tangible value, and good business management is still where it's at when running a successful business. Very nice job.

Left of center
First let me congradulate you on the success of your magazine. I read it via AvantGo on a daily basis and couldn't get by without it. However, your slight (ha, ha) left of center political leanings can be somewhat of a turnoff, especially when your insinuations are factually false. You said, "When I wrote my last book, The Flexible Enterprise, back in 1994 (right after the last Bush recession)..." The first insinuation is that the economic turnaround happened shortly before 1994, say maybe 1993 when Bill Clinton took office. Well that is factually false, because we were already in a state of economic growth for nearly 20 months before Clinton was in the oval office. Just because your Pagan god, Bill Clinton, said it was the worst economy in 30 years didn't mean it was true (how soon we forget the Carter years!), and just because this Pagan god of yours took office (and gave us the largest tax increase in history) it didn't turn the economy around.