Just got your Sept/Oct issue. First, thanks many times over for the info and tips in your magazine. It would be really tough to go it alone. But even though I've read every issue, I still don't understand why HP is choosing to let the HP 200LX die on the vine.
I also read with much interest the two letters favoring the HP 320 (James Kendrick) and the HP 200LX (Jeff Cragg). Each side has valid points. But why risk some giant food fight over platforms? HP is obviously not going to integrate them. It thus remains for someone else to do so.
I am therefore seriously proposing that HP should either spin off their palmtop division (or sell a license, whatever...) to a small group of entrepreneurs who have the intelligence, motivation and market savvy to take the HP 320 and the HP 200LX and integrate them.
I refuse to believe and nobody can tell me otherwise, that the best of both platforms can't easily be integrated and even enhanced. Neither one would have to compromise the other. And it still could be sold for less than $700. Memory is just too cheap today and so are processors. You at Thaddeus Computing are halfway there already with your memory upgrades.
Of course, palmtops are a niche product. The profit that HP makes off all the palmtops they ever sold probably wouldn't equal the money they make from just one of their high-end workstations! Yet, for a small and flexible company, the rewards could be substantial, and the risks could be minimized if HP could be persuaded to remain as a partner in some capacity.
They'll have to pry my cold, dead fingers from around my three trusty HP 200LXs before I give them up.
David T. Dixon
Indianapolis, IN