Last July, Dubinsky and Hawkins left 3Com, licensed the Palm operating system and said they were going to start a new company that would build on the Palm platform. They've been mum, though, on exactly what they would do. Much is expected of them. There are about 2 million Palm computers in use. There are 150 Web sites devoted to Palms and Palm software.
Users tend to be fanatics.
When Dubinsky and Hawkins speak at tech venues, people line up for autographs on their Palm computers. So the industry is fascinated by their effort to repeat that success. Venture capitalists elbowed each other to give them money. Kleiner's lead partner on the deal is Silicon Valley godfather John Doerr, who also took a seat on Handspring's board. Sitting on used office furniture, Dubinsky and Hawkins start off talking vaguely about the future of Palm-style computers.