SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2006-- Medtronic Deploys Thousands of Palm Treo Smartphones With Medtronic Customized Applications

Fortune 500 company Medtronic (Nasdaq:MDT), a global leader in medical technology, standardized its mobile sales force on Palm(R) Treo(TM) smartphones. Employees are using more than 2,000 Treo smartphones as a wireless reference, communication and selling tool to increase sales force productivity and to improve inventory management.(1) As a result, Medtronic reduced sales services expenses despite increasing the sales team by more than several hundred people, and reduced sales services call volume. To meet its business-critical needs, Medtronic built two customized applications -- "SalesWire" and award-winning "Field Inventory" -- on Palm, Inc.'s (Nasdaq:PALM) open-platform system.

Medtronic employs approximately 34,000 people in 120 countries and was recently named to Fortune's annual list of "America's Most Admired Companies" for the ninth consecutive year as well as "The 100 Best Companies to Work For." As a company with high standards, Medtronic turned to Treo smartphones to drive its mobile-computing needs.

"Wireless access has and will continue to improve our field sales force productivity. Our representatives can respond quickly to customer inquiries and do their jobs faster and better," said Jim Adams, program manager, cardiac rhythm disease-management sales technology applications for Medtronic. "Now, I can run monthly reports based on the number of sales representatives who wirelessly connect, sync, make transactions and more. New monitoring and reporting capabilities all boil down to savings."

Medtronic's sales force needs on-the-go, easy access to large amounts of vital customer, product and administrative information. With Medtronic's Field Inventory application on Treo smartphones, sales representatives can remotely perform the following:

• Search an entire sales district for products;
• View inventory;
• Record sales;
• Create purchase orders;
• Transfer product from one location to another;
• Request product delivery dates; and
• Send questions to customer service.

"We build on open standards, embraced by world-class partners," said John Hartnett, senior vice president of worldwide sales and customer relations for Palm. "Palm delivers a superior mobile-computing experience that is customizable, intuitive and delivers fast access to information."

Medtronic's SalesWire application lets sales representatives make wireless queries, view purchase orders and check assigned schedules. The sales force uses an additional three business-critical applications -- including DataViz(R) Documents To Go(R) for viewing and editing documents; GoodLink from Good Technology for email and calendaring; and the Pacing Encyclopedia, which provides specs for implantable pacing devices, including those of Medtronic's competitors -- turning Treo smartphones into valuable reference tools. Medtronic employees choose from the three major U.S. carriers for network service and data connection.

"We didn't even look at other devices because when these applications were originally deployed several years ago, we knew other devices couldn't support these kinds of applications," said Adams. "We also chose the Treo because the Palm OS(R) platform is simply easier to use for our sales force."

Medtronic sends regular surveys to its sales teams via SMS to the Treo smartphone. When sales people retrieve the survey, it is automatically downloaded and ready to be completed and wirelessly submitted. Employee response rates rose 30 to 40 percent, and executives are brainstorming ideas to better serve the sales force, including ways to take advantage of the Treo smartphone's video capabilities.

"Palm delivers an enterprise-class mobile solution that appeals to technical and business decision-makers," said Tara Griffin, vice president of enterprise markets for Palm, Inc. "More mobile professionals like those at Medtronic are turning to Treo smartphones to automate processes, reference data and share information. As a result, companies save time and money."

More than 10,000 companies have deployed the Treo/GoodLink solution to take advantage of Palm's expanding product portfolio and business solutions for mobile professionals. Palm's flexible, standards-based approach and customer-centric model meets the needs of mobile professionals at small, medium and large global businesses.

More information on Palm in the enterprise can be found at http://www.palm.com/us/solutions/it-enterprise/.

About Medtronic

Medtronic, Inc. (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Minneapolis, is the global leader in medical technology -- alleviating pain, restoring health, and extending life for millions of people around the world.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc., a leader in mobile computing, strives to put the power of computing in people's hands so they can access and share their most important information. The company's products for consumers, mobile professionals and businesses include Palm(R) handheld computers, Palm Treo(TM) smartphones, Palm LifeDrive(TM) mobile managers, as well as software, services and accessories.

Palm products are sold through select Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels throughout the world, and at Palm Retail Stores and Palm online stores (http://www.palm.com/store).

More information about Palm, Inc. is available at http://www.palm.com.

(1) Within wireless service coverage area only. Availability and coverage depends upon carrier and the geographic scope of international roaming agreements. Email, messaging and web access requires data services from a mobile service provider at an additional cost.

Palm, Palm OS, Treo and LifeDrive are among the trademarks or registered trademarks owned by or licensed to Palm, Inc. All other brand and product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.

CONTACT: Palm, Inc.
Jim Christensen, 408-617-7455
jim.christensen@palm.com
or
A&R Partners for Palm, Inc.
Dolleen Casey, 650-762-2811
dcasey@arpartners.com

SOURCE: Palm, Inc.