Fortune 1000 Firms and Palm Partners Test the Palm i705 Handheld-Based

End-to-end, Integrated Wireless Solution
Please Note: This News Release Is the Second of Three Complementary News Releases Palm, Inc. Is Issuing Today Relative to Wireless Handhelds for Mobile

Professionals and Enterprises

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today introduced an enterprise-class, end-to-end, behind-the-firewall, wireless messaging solution, based on the new Palm(TM) i705 wireless handheld, also announced today. The Palm i705 Wireless Messaging Solution directly addresses the manageability, support and security concerns of IT managers who are deploying handhelds to large numbers of mobile workers.

This move directly addresses Palm's corporate goal to aggressively provide wireless products and services that meet the specific needs of large businesses and institutions. To accelerate their business prospects, large organizations are eager to maximize the productivity of their workers by equipping them with mobile and wireless tools.

Palm believes its Palm Wireless Messaging Solution offers a lower total cost of ownership and faster return on investment for enterprises than similar, competitive products. The total functionality -- including manageability, flexibility, setup/activation, and support and service plans -- is unlike any other solution in the industry. All these capabilities help IT departments streamline deployment. For example, IT departments need only contact one support center to handle any questions on the entire enterprise solution.

The Palm i705 Wireless Messaging Solution will begin beta testing at Fortune 1000 companies in the United States next month, and will be commercially available in the summer. The new enterprise solution comprises the following components:

"Palm is setting the standard of excellence for enterprises to deploy and realize the benefits that wireless handheld solutions can deliver," said Todd Bradley, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Palm's Solutions Group. "As the industry leader, we're delighted to deliver the first truly secure, end-to-end enterprise solution with the best ROI the industry can offer."

"The Palm i705 will be an extremely effective solution for putting all types of enterprise messaging, collaboration and information resources into the hands of users, anytime," said Jeff Gartner, vice president of marketing for emerging eBusiness solutions at Computer Associates. "CA solutions will benefit from the availability of this new, secure handheld. CleverPath Portal gives Palm users a common customizable access point for the diverse types of information they need to do their jobs every day, and Unicenter Service Desk empowers corporate IT staff to use their Palm devices to quickly discover and resolve problems regardless of where they happen to be within the coverage area."

The new solution's enterprise-oriented security has end-to-end encryption behind the firewall, which directly protects enterprises' valuable information and resources. Enterprise users can also take advantage of the handheld's dual expansion -- the Palm Expansion Card Slot (for use with SD Card and MultiMediaCard media), to reference large programs or files they don't want stored on the device, and the Palm Universal Connector, to attach hardware add-ons, such as keyboards.

"Palm's i705 enterprise solution addresses many of the challenges that CIOs face in extending the enterprise infrastructure out into the field," said Christopher Fletcher, vice president and research director with Aberdeen Group. "The product is the first from Palm to focus entirely on corporate requirements for integration, security, usability, and compatibility with both the major critical software programs and legacy applications, and shows that Palm is taking the enterprise handheld market very seriously."

Many Palm independent software vendors also are testing the new Palm enterprise solution and believe it can help their customers.

"By using a Palm i705 handheld, mobile sales professionals can now be even more effective in the sales process," said Mercedes Ellison, vice president, Alliances, Siebel Systems. "Not only does it provide the always-on (1) access to email, but Siebel Systems sees the i705 handheld as a cornerstone of application deployments for the Sales Force Automation market. Siebel Systems' market-leading sales application, on Palm handheld devices, provides a powerful combination that leverages the flexibility of the Palm handheld device and the power of Siebel Sales to enable more effective selling and increased customer satisfaction."

IT departments now can deliver a handheld email solution that will be very attractive to their employees because they can receive their business email and their personal email, enhance workgroup productivity using AOL's Instant Messenger(TM) service, and access the Internet, all on one handheld solution. AOL Instant Messaging is included in the solution, but companies can choose whether or not to deploy it to their users.

Pricing and Availability

The Palm i705 Wireless Messaging Solution will be sold through selected Palm authorized channel partners. It will be available this summer. Customers who purchase the Palm i705 handheld for individual use can integrate their devices into a later company-wide deployment of the Palm i705 Wireless Messaging Solution.

The server -- at $2,499 (estimated U.S. street price) -- accommodates 25 client licenses, and additional client licenses can be added for $49 each. Volume discounts will be available, which reduce the cost-per-seat. Annual support and maintenance are priced at 17.5 percent of the total license fee.

Palm.Net service will be available for the enterprise, on a flat-rate monthly plan for $39.99/month. Discounts will be available with annual service contracts, and volume service discounts also will be available.

Palm Wireless Messaging Server

The Palm Wireless Messaging Server is the infrastructure that connects to the Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino groupware server, located behind the corporate firewall, and securely sends and receives encrypted emails to and from the Palm i705 handheld. The end-to-end encryption is based on industry-standard symmetric key algorithms. The server scales to host large volumes of mobile users. It also is designed to fit seamlessly into an enterprise infrastructure without requiring significant changes to security policies or existing groupware servers.

Additional server security is provided by password-protected access, leveraging native enterprise authentication services supported by Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino. Administrators use a graphical administrative tool to manage the users, monitor usage via SNMP, and view activity and event logs.

The Palm MultiMail(R) Deluxe email client lets users send and receive email (both pushed to the device and pulled) to and from both their business and personal accounts using the same email client. Palm lets users manage which emails they want sent to their handheld through the use of filters. For user convenience, and unlike other remote-access email products, filters are configured on the handheld and then wirelessly sent to the server, where they are executed. Users may also synchronize their email onto the handheld from their desktop PC. The MultiMail client works in both online and offline modes, so users can work seamlessly at all times, even when out of wireless coverage.

Enterprise Software Suite

Bundled with the solution, this software suite transforms the handheld from a standalone device to be part of an enterprise-wide solution. To provision and set up each device, IT managers insert the Palm expansion card into the handheld, and the card automatically launches a utility that flashes ROM with new applications and copies additional software into RAM. A menu is then displayed, which facilitates the configuration of the device to use the messaging server. An added benefit is that IT departments can customize this expansion card by adding their companies' standard applications to the card; in this way corporate applications are installed on the devices at the same time they are provisioned for the Palm Wireless Messaging Solution.

Handheld software in the suite includes the MultiMail Deluxe email client, a new activation application, the Palm web browser, and AOL(R) Instant Messenger.

Desktop software includes the MultiMail Deluxe conduit, which synchronizes with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino, and the Palm Desktop software for the Palm i705 handheld.

In addition, hundreds of business, personal, and enterprise-specific applications operate on Palm handhelds, including Computer Associates' CleverPath Portal and Unicenter Service Desk, Peregrine's ServiceCenter Mobilize.It!, Haht Commerce's HAHT Commerce Wireless Solutions, and Siebel Systems' Siebel Sales Handheld 7 for Palm OS(R). The complementary application software from DataViz, Adobe, MGI and Palm that comes with the handheld also is included.

IT Technical Support

Unlike competitors, Palm offers IT managers a single point of contact for all their support questions with the end-to-end phone and email support. Standard support is five days a week, 12 hours a day. A premium option that offers seven days a week, 24 hours a day service, can be purchased separately.

Palm.Net Enterprise Wireless Services

Palm is empowering IT departments through a unique set of services that provides flexibility, manageability and ease of activation for handheld deployment. Flexibility is offered with a range of options for wireless service payments: companies choose to receive one invoice for all their enterprise users, have the individual users pay directly (and be reimbursed by the company later), or use a combination of options.

The manageability of the solution is apparent through the ease with which incidents can be handled, such as lost, stolen or damaged handhelds. An IT manager can "quarantine" a lost or stolen handheld, and easily "lock out" the device from accessing the network. The manager can "unquarantine" it easily if the device is found. If a handheld is damaged, a user returns the device to the IT manager, who "swaps" the network ID of the damaged handheld and applies it to a new handheld. The new device is then given to the user who performs a HotSync(R) operation and is quickly back up and running.

Palm i705 Handheld

(See today's related news release, "Palm i705 Handheld Debuts: Only Secure, Integrated Wireless, Email Solution with Web Access.")

The Palm i705 handheld is the only wireless solution in the marketplace that delivers all of the following benefits:

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 wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions by offering the foundation for thousands of application solutions. Palm stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at http://www.palm.com .

(1) The "always-on" service is paid for by users, is proprietary to Palm, and coverage is limited in the United States.

NOTE: Palm.Net, MultiMail, Palm OS and HotSync are registered trademarks, and Palm is a trademark of Palm, Inc. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Palm, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.palm.com
CONTACT: Yvette Lorenz-Machlan of A&R Partners, +1-650-762-2827, or ylorenz_machlan@arpartners.com, for Palm, Inc.; or Ronni Sarmanian of Palm, Inc., +1-408-878-2547, or Ronni.Sarmanian@corp.palm.com