[From Andrew Sheppard] I am now working on a project where I would like my client to offer its customers free international calls, so for testing I have just bought a WiFi "Skype-enabled" handset by Logitec. You can use this anywhere there is a WiFi network that does not require authentication, at home, for example.
Works pretty well, not much setup involved because once you have a Skype account it gets all your details over the internet. Possibly huge financial savings compared with using a conventional phone system, but even so the handset is fairly expensive.
So I was thinking, this is a handset with WiFi, a speaker and microphone. It has a keypad and a really tiny screen when a Palm has a big touch-screen that could show up as a keypad, could connect to the internet, could be running Skype. Palm could have made all this work on a Palm PDA, at little or no cost, some other software developers may have made Skype work with 3rd-party solutions. But they didn't.
So, many people may be spending $200 each on a WiFi "Skype-enabled" handset, because they can save money using it, when they could have purchased a $200 or $300 Palm WiFi "Skype-enabled" handset PDA that did as much or much more, if only Palm had realised the opportunity.
I have been using Palm handhelds for almost a decade, and rely on them for my daily work. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the Palm of today has not advanced as much as it should.