I've seen history repeat itself twice, and it is a real shame for everyone involved. In the mid 1980s HP Corvallis engineers created the HP Portable and Portable Plus. These laptops were years ahead of their time. They had Lotus 1-2-3, a time manager, a word processor, and a terminal program built into ROM. At the time, laptop computing was far from the norm -- working on an HP Portable at the airport could create quite a stir. HP Portable users loved the machine, and with the help of our publication, The Portable Paper, they created a whole aftermarket of useful knowledge, software and hardware add-ons.
To the utter amazement of dedicated HP Portable users, HP did not seem to market their wonder. Word of mouth advertising was responsible for most sales. Then inexplicably HP, rather than make several (relatively inexpensive) PC compatibility changes, started from scratch and created something called the Portable Vectra CS. The Portable Vectra had potential, but missed the mark and was not the machine the original HP Portable was. It took years for HP to regroup and get back into the PC laptop market with the OmniBook.
Sound familiar? HP introduced the HP 95LX and then the HP 100LX and 200LX at a time when Palmtop computing was not the norm. Visionary users took advantage of their pocket PC in a variety of ingenious and practical ways. As chronicled in The HP Palmtop Paper, a whole aftermarket of knowledge, software, and hardware emerged to support this tiny wonder. Once again to everyone's amazement HP has seemed to put few resources in marketing and upgrading the 200LX platform. Instead, like the Portable Vectra CS before it, HP started from scratch and created the HP OmniGo 100 organizer. Now in an attempt to be mainstream (similar to the HP OmniBook laptop), HP has created the HP 320LX Palmtop running Windows CE.
Unfortunately, for many users the HP 320LX is not nearly the machine the HP 200LX is. Yet HP 200LX sales have plummeted, thanks to a severe shortage of units in retail stores over the summer, plus the introduction of the HP 320LX. As you will read in my User to User column, the effect of few new users has been difficult on The HP Palmtop Paper and our advertisers.
Despite this drop in sales, we still seem to be in the golden age of HP 200LX computing. As you will see in my User to User column, 8 Megabyte upgraded palmtops are now available. As you will see in Quick Tips, great new palmtop software continues to appear. It is now finally even possible to connect a keyboard to the palmtop, something I've wanted for years, and which we will review next issue.
Our challenge is how to continue The HP Palmtop Paper, given fewer new subscribers. First off, please renew. That will help greatly. In any case, we will be able to continue with even a much smaller subscription base in the same way we managed to continue The Portable Paper. What we will do is make pre-owned palmtops and other palmtop products available to our subscriber base. By doing so we can continue to help keep the palmtop community vibrant. We look forward to fulfilling your palmtop needs for years to come.