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Palm Solutions Group Completes Management Team


Bradley Names Cross to Lead Americas Sales; Manser to Lead Engineering

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 8, 2001 -- Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced that Todd Bradley, Palm executive vice president and Solutions Group chief operating officer, has completed his Solutions Group management team. With the hiring of Glenn Cross to head America's Sales and Service efforts and Steve Manser to lead Palm engineering, Bradley has assembled a strong executive team to ensure Palm's continued leadership in the handheld market.

The Solutions Group is responsible for designing and delivering the popular Palm(TM) family of products, including the Palm m100 and Palm m500 handheld families and the Palm VIIx handheld, the industry's only fully featured handheld with integrated wireless capability. The Solutions Group also manages Palm branded hardware add-ons and software, and accessories. Those products are sold to consumers, mobile professionals and enterprises. A sister organisation -- the Platform Solutions Group, a soon-to-be wholly owned subsidiary of Palm led by David C. Nagel - develops Palm's operating system and licenses it to other makers of handheld products.

"Assembling the right team of proven leaders to build on Palm's handheld-computing leadership has been a Palm priority, and I'm delighted to announce we've recruited an outstanding set of experienced people who are committed to win," said Bradley, who himself joined Palm only five months ago. "I'm confident our new team is aligned on common goals, excited about the potential for innovative Palm branded solutions, and eager to deliver to customers, partners and shareholders."

The new executives are as follows:

* Glenn Cross, 44, Palm vice president and senior vice president, Americas Sales and Enterprise Business Development, Solutions Group. Cross joined Palm in late September from Sun Microsystems, where he was vice president, Worldwide Partners, Business Development and Sales Operations for iPlanet. He was responsible for growing the iPlanet business, ensuring its success in global organisations seeking scalable and complex Internet infrastructure and e-commerce software solutions, and building collaborative partnerships. Cross has more than 20 years experience in the computer industry and has held executive positions at Adobe, Lotus, General Magic and Penergy.

Cross will build on Palm's strong channel relationships and leverage the popularity of Palm branded handhelds among consumers and mobile individual professionals to increase the company's leadership among enterprise decision-makers. Cross also will strengthen Palm's presence with traditional value-added resellers, systems integrators and application partners to take advantage of handheld deployments at companies large and small.

He holds a bachelor of science degree in marketing and economics from Florida Southern College (Lakeland, Fla.).

* Steve Manser, 43, Palm vice president and senior vice president, Worldwide Product Engineering, Solutions Group. Manser joined Palm last month, bringing more than 20 years' experience in managing product development for consumer hardware and enterprise software products. He was a founder, chief operating officer and board member at a venture capital-funded start-up, Propel Software. He also was vice president, Cadence Design Systems, where he managed a software engineering team that drove product development and technical marketing for enterprise-class software used in the design of complex integrated circuits, and established the next-generation product roadmap and architecture for an integrated physical design suite of products.

Manser also has held key roles in Apple's Macintosh engineering organisation, culminating in his appointment as vice president, Macintosh Desktop Systems and Servers.

At Palm, Manser is responsible for the design, development and delivery of compelling Palm products and solutions that address the needs of consumers, mobile individual professionals and enterprises. One area of focus will be modular designs for integrated wireless devices that will address different communications infrastructures around the world.

He has bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Other executives on Bradley's team include the following:

* Kevin Hell, 37, Palm vice president and senior vice president, Product Management and Planning, Solutions Group. Hell joined Palm in July following a role as vice president of Gateway's emerging products business, where he introduced the company's first Internet appliance, a joint product with America OnLine that won Best Consumer Product at COMDEX and was recognised as a pioneer in its category. He also served as head of corporate strategy for Gateway.

Hell holds a master's degree in business administration from The Wharton School, and a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.

Hell already has revamped Palm's product roadmap and implemented new product-planning processes to ensure better execution against product timeline and financial objectives.

* Angel L. Mendez, 41, Palm vice president and senior vice president, Global Supply Chain Operations, Solutions Group. Mendez joined Palm in July, bringing to Palm more than 20 years' experience in developing and implementing complex strategies to improve supply-chain performance. He has held supply-chain leadership roles at Citigroup, Allied Signal, Martin Marietta and General Electric, and has extensive international experience in Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia.

Most recently, as vice president for Global Supply Chain Management at Gateway, Mendez drove programs to improve the management of more than $7.5 billion in direct and indirect company spending and also launched an e-Supply Chain strategy.

Since his arrival at Palm, Mendez and his team have been focused on improving Palm's inventory management, cost productivity and reverse logistics.

Angel holds a master's degree in business administration from Rollins College and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Lafayette College.

* Ken Wirt, 50, Palm vice president and senior vice president, Product Marketing, Solutions Group. Wirt joined Palm in July and was the founder and chief executive officer of Riffage.com, a VC-funded music media company backed by Mayfield Fund, Bertelsmann, and AOL. He also was vice president of corporate marketing for Diamond Multimedia Systems, a leading PC peripherals company, where he managed all worldwide marketing functions, customer service and Internet marketing. Wirt also led the introduction of the Rio portable MP3 player, which established the MP3 market.

Previously, Wirt headed Marketing for Apple Computer's PIE (personal interactive electronics) division, overseeing all Newton marketing programs. Ken also has held key marketing roles at NEC Technologies, Cognitive Systems and Atari.

Wirt's objectives are to improve the effectiveness of marketing Solutions Group products. Wirt already has consolidated marketing activities, revamped the Palm website and online store, created new holiday merchandising and promotions, and readied a new holiday advertising campaign.

He holds a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Bradley, 42, joined Palm in June. He had been executive vice president of global operations at Gateway Inc. where he was responsible for its multibillion-dollar consumer business. During his three years there, Bradley streamlined business and manufacturing processes. He also held executive positions at GE Capital Corp., Dunn and Bradstreet Corp., and Federal Express Corp.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, according to IDC (December 2000). Based on the Palm OS® platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow people to carry and access their most critical information with them wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions through thousands of application solutions.

The Palm OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey, HandEra (formerly TRG), Handspring, IBM, Kyocera, Sony, and Symbol Technologies. Platform licensees also include Acer, Garmin, Nokia and Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading licensees, world-class OEM customers, and more than 160,000 innovative developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at www.palm.com

Palm OS is a registered trademark, and Palm is a trademark of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries.





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