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[Symbol Not Transcribed] VANCOUVER - At the recent Treo launch by Handspring/Rogers AT&T (see www.cbiz-mag.com/Content/03-13-02/week2News.htm), CBiz enjoyed a brew with Jim Mandala, director of sales for Handspring Canada, and the conversation turned to Palm, Microsoft and, of course, VAR opportunities. What follows is an excerpt of the conversation. For more, see this week's on-line news.
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Channel Business: The Treo's obviously part of your strategy to evolve the garden variety organizer into a communicator, but mobile phone sales have fallen for the first time ever in 2001, according to Gartner. Is this the right time to move into this kind of environment?
Jim Mandala: Mobile phone sales fell from 450 million one year to about 400 million the next, [but the] Palm OS market is maybe about 14 million devices. We really think Treo is the first product as an integrated phone and data device.
CBIZ: Many suggest that the Treo's going to pit you against the powerful cell phone makers, and the major mobile handset manufacturers are said to be adding organizational capabilities to their own systems.
JM: It's a lot easier to make an organizer that has voice capabilities than it is to have a voice device or phone that does data well. We are going to have some tough competition, but we don't believe we're the end-all and be-all in this category. We're just trying to be a strong player in it.
CBIZ: Some suggest that the Treo's going to pit you against the powerful cell phone makers: Nokia will now have you on their radar screen, as will Ericsson and Samsung. They're powerful companies.
JM: What Handspring does well is make simple products and I don't think we're too afraid about getting into with people that are overly powerful. We've been competing against Palm, who's a real big company; we're also now competing against big companies like Compaq and HP and...