Palm Computing Expands Service Offerings For Supporting Large-Scale Deployment of Handhelds in the Enterprise

New Programs to Enable Enterprises to Confidently Deploy Mission-Critical Applications with New Palm™ HotSync® Server, Palm Ethernet Cradle and All Palm Devices

Santa Clara, Calif., October 18, 1999 - Palm Computing, a 3Com company (Nadsaq: COMS) today announced that it has expanded its enterprise service and support offerings to make it easier, safer and more cost-effective for an enterprise to deploy, manage and support mission-critical handheld solutions. The new service and support offerings include the Palm Help Desk Training Program, resources for troubleshooting via phone and the Internet, access to the secured Palm Enterprise Support web site, on-site service exchange ("hot-swap") units and an extended hardware warranty program.

The new offerings support all Palm Computing® branded handhelds, Palm OS™ software and the two new enterprise products announced separately today, the Palm™ HotSync® Server and Palm Ethernet Cradle. The new services are available for U.S. and Canadian customers through Palm's traditional service and support channels. Palm intends to aggressively broaden this offering to include more international support packages, with programs scheduled to be rolled out by region beginning early next year.

"Palm's goal is to aid IT departments in deploying, managing, supporting and servicing handhelds in their organizations," said Greg Rhine, vice president of worldwide sales at Palm Computing. "Our new service and support offerings represent a significant step forward for Palm in enabling enterprises to deploy Palm Computing products with a new level of confidence."

Training Classes and On-Going Troubleshooting The comprehensive Palm Help Desk Training Program is the backbone of Palm's new service and support solutions. With this program, Palm provides interactive, on-site classes for staff that manage the enterprise help desk. Topics covered in the class currently include Palm OS training and Palm branded device training. Content on the Palm HotSync Server and Ethernet Cradle and other new products will be added as the products become available. Depending on the type of deployment, classes will take up to two days and are designed for a maximum of 12 students at a time. Training for both Windows and Macintosh platforms is available. The participants in this training are eligible for Palm authorization.

With Palm authorization, designated participants will be eligible to call Palm's Help Desk-to-Help Desk Hotline. This hotline provides enterprise help desk staff with a single point of contact at Palm to resolve all technical customer service and support escalations. Through the hotline, enterprise help desk staff have direct access to high level Palm support engineers for prompt resolution of complex problems. This hotline is staffed Monday through Friday, 12 hours daily. After-hours support is available for an additional cost.

Additionally, authorized participants have access to the new Enterprise Support web site. A password-protected site, it is dedicated to providing help desk staff with information, repair and exchange order placement and status reporting. This secure site will include troubleshooting and resolution information for Palm hardware and software products. At the site, users can send messages requesting support to Palm second-level technical support engineers, with a live e-mail response guaranteed within one business day. Further, this web site allows enterprises to place repair and exchange orders on the web and check on the status of orders in progress. The web site will debut later this month, with e-mail and order placement features to be fully integrated by January 2000.

Interested companies can register for this training and on-going troubleshooting program now by through Palm's traditional service and support channels. Classes will begin in November.

For all training programs, staff will need to attend Help Desk update classes annually, to renew their authorization.

Hot-Swap Units
To assist enterprises in eliminating any hardware down time, Palm now offers hot-swap units for currently-manufactured Palm Computing branded hardware devices to companies that have completed Palm's Help Desk Training Program. This new offering provides reduced-cost, service-designated units, sold in packages of ten devices. The spare devices can be housed and managed by the company or the reseller. When multiple units need to be sent in for warranty repair, Palm will facilitate the bulk product repair shipments.

The hot-swap offering simplifies the delivery of a replacement product to users. Instead of going through Palm's standard customer care program, which requires individuals to provide their credit card information, corporate users would receive replacement product directly from their company's allotment.

Extended Warranty Program
To further aid enterprises in controlling maintenance costs for the handheld devices in their organization, beginning in the first quarter of 2000, enterprises will be able to extend the standard one-year warranty by one year for all Palm Computing branded hardware products. For these enterprise hardware warranty extensions on the handheld devices, Palm will include a provision for broken screen coverage, which is not a part of Palm's standard warranty. Once the program is available, the extended warranty must be purchased at the same time as a new device.

Palm will extend the eligibility for this hardware protection to include all devices purchased beginning today. When Palm announces the pricing of the hardware extended warranty, companies will have 60 days to purchase the extension for all eligible devices in their organization. All warranties will be sold through Palm's traditional service and support channels.

For government customers, Palm will be offering a special extended warranty package that meets necessary government regulations. This warranty package will also be available through Palm's traditional service and support channels.

Pricing and Additional Information
These new programs are the first Palm offerings specifically tailored to the needs of enterprise customers. Suggested price of Palm's comprehensive bundled program begins at $25,000, and depends on the nature of deployment. The warranty program will be available for additional cost. Additional information on the program is also available on Palm's web site at www.palm.com/enterprise.

Enterprise customers may continue to take advantage of Palm's standard customer care and repair programs, which are open to all Palm Computing consumers. For more information about Palm's enterprise solutions and business alliances, please visit www.palm.com/enterprise.

About Palm Computing
Palm Computing, Inc., a 3Com company, is the leading provider of personal companion products*, including the best-selling Palm III™, Palm V™ and Palm VII™ series of connected organizers. The Palm Computing platform is the premiere handheld development environment and is the foundation for the market-leading connected organizers from Palm Computing as well as products from Palm Computing's strategic partners such as IBM, QUALCOMM, Franklin Covey and Symbol Technologies. Designed to support the increasingly mobile and geographically dispersed nature of information management, the company's handheld solutions allow people to carry their most critical information in their pockets. For additional information, please visit www.palm.com.

About 3Com Corporation
With over 300 million customers worldwide, 3Com Corporation connects more people to information in more ways than any other networking company. 3Com delivers innovative information access products, and residential connectivity and network system solutions to customers including enterprises, small businesses, carriers and network service providers. 3Com - More connected.™ For further information, visit 3Com's World Wide Web site at http://www.3com.com/ or the press site at http://www.3com.com/pressbox/.

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*IDC, May 1999

3Com, Palm Computing, Palm OS and HotSync are registered trademarks and More Connected, Palm, Palm III, Palm V and Palm VII are trademarks of 3Com Corporation or its subsidiaries. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.