Term Paper on "Palm Computing, Inc"

Term Paper 5 pages (1821 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Palm Computing Inc.

Palm Computing is today a veritable pioneer in mobile and in wireless Internet Solutions, and it is also the acknowledged world leader in handheld computing. The Company Palm Computing Inc. was founded in the year 1992, and within a few years, that is, in 1996, the company was able to launch its two innovative and completely new solutions, entitled Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000. These were the two products that heralded the hand held computing revolution all around the world. (Company Information, about Palm Inc.)

In general, it must be noted that all companies and organizations have a corporate culture that is uniquely their own. While some companies are traditional and conservative, some are more informal in their culture. Whereas in a traditional and conservative atmosphere all the employees of the company are expected to wear a certain type of dress, and also have a certain specific organizational structure, and also operate mostly in a manner that would keep in step with their corporate culture, the informal companies of today let their employees decide exactly how many hours they would want to work, and at times, they are even allowed to work from their own homes. (Corporate Culture and Communication, clues you can use)

However, it must be remembered that most companies fall somewhere in between the two corporate cultures described above. (Corporate Culture and Communication, clues you can use) In Palm Computing Inc., the company's visionary founder Jeff Hawkins and its CEO Donna Dubinsky, with their visionary thinking and analysis and the corporate culture that they believed n, managed to create the company's most famous and well-known product, the Palm Computer which has revolutionized the way in which the world uses a computer today. (Piloting Palm)

Corporate culture must never be confused with corporate mission, and as far as an employee is concerned, he would be wise to, at the very outset, check the philosophy and the leadership style and the method of functioning of the company's CEO, and this would give a better indication of the corporate culture of the company than any other material available. This is because of the basic fact that a CEO's beliefs and his values and his philosophies would naturally pervade and permeate the entire company, and the employees of the organization would all follow what the CEO has mapped out for them. (What is Corporate Culture?)

In a case study that was conducted by Brad Stone on the company Palm Computing Inc., the corporate culture of the company becomes very evident. The author of the case study describes a scene where twelve of the company's top executives were in a meeting in the Board Room of the organization. All twelve of these people had already taken out their laptops, unsheathed their respective PDA's, and were busily engaged in the attempts to log on to the company's wireless local area network, but to their consternation, the local area network was not working at that particular time. The CEO Todd Bradley and his team of employees were al completely irritated and frustrated as well because of their continued failure in gaining access to the network. Meanwhile, Mike Allison, the Director of Palm Computing global tech infrastructure, was being inundated with telephone calls from each one of these executives, and especially from his CIO Marina Levinson. (Palm Pulls the Plugs)

When Mike Allison set about to discover why there was such a problem, he found that someone had set up a so called 'rogue network', which was in effect an unauthorized Wi- Fi hub, and this was in fact crowding out the network in the corporate network at that particular point to such an extent that all the executives were receiving error messages. The problem was later identified and rectified, but the moral here is that the company never unshackles its numerous employees; rather, it wants to embrace a completely wireless workplace in its ultimate goal of remaking itself into a perfect example of a totally unplugged workplace despite the extremely high costs involved. By this example, the company also desires to demonstrate to the several other 'penny pinching' executives of other organizations that it would be worth their while to bring in high technology into their companies.

As a matter of fact, it is widely acknowledged that the very future of Palm Computing depends on exactly this fact that they must learn to embrace wireless networking in a better manner, so that it can eventually succeed in its mission to convince the world that this company does know better than anybody else in the whole world. In general opinion, like for example, that of Kenneth Berger, the founder of the San Francisco-based consultancy, Log X Technologies, when the company becomes wireless, then the employees of the company would be completely 'unchained', and the basic corporate culture of the company, which is closely inter-linked to the adaptation of wireless, would also be changed in ways that is not as yet fully understood. (Palm Pulls the Plugs)

It must be noted that there is a basic difference between a 'mission statement' made by an organization, and the 'vision statement' made by it. A mission statement, for example, would describe what the company does its business in, and who their customers are. In essence, this statement captures the basic sense of what the company is, and where it is going at that particular point of time, and what type of relationship it has with the customer. Creating the mission statement can be defined as the basic step which would shift the strategic planning process of the company from the present, to the future. In other words, this statement must work not only to define the company as it is in the present, but it must also present a picture of the future, and if the strategic plan was meant for the next five years, for example, then the mission statement would have to explain what the company's plans are for the next five years. A vision statement, on the other hand, would effectively describe for the employees and also for others, a compelling vision of the future, and the reason for this is that a vision statement is not valid or true in the present, but it is valid for the future. The vision statement must be one which the employees of the company would be enthusiastic about, and which they would willingly embrace, because of the fact that it may issue a challenge for their growth in the company. (Strategic Planning, Mission, Values, values)

When Jeff Hawkins Palm Computing's visionary founder developed the 'Grid Pad' at a cost of $2,370, without software, and realized that his vision of smaller hand held computers which would be able to effectively change the lives of computer users would indeed become a reality if he set about creating it, he was able to develop the Palm Top hand held computer. What is important here is that this was an individual who had a deep 'vision', and who managed to act on it, because of the company that he was working for. In other words, the vision of the company was that they would develop a hand held computer that people would be able to carry with them wherever they went, and the users would have a much quicker access to data than before, with which they would be able to empower the management oft their respective companies. However, Hawkins' mission was to change people's lives, through a small computer, and around the middle of the 1990's, he began to realize that pen computing could be used in a computer, and when this was done, its real success would depend on it being utilized in a hand held computer. (Pen Computing, cover story, Jeff Hawkins)

This vision enabled Jeff Hawkins to start designing and creating a pen-based consumer handheld, and at the same time, to investigate the relevant technologies that would enable him to implement the project. He soon came up with the product named 'Zoomer', and attempted to sell the idea to GRiD, which saw it as being too large a risk for them to undertake, because they were, at that particular point of time, focusing on vertical applications of the laptop. Jeff thereafter founded the Palm Computing in 1992, and when the legendary Donna Dubinsky joined him in a partnership, the team, with their similar missions and visions for their company, launched the most successful product to date, the Palm Top computer. It must be stated here that if Jeff Hawkins had the necessary vision, the enthusiasm and the talent and know-how to launch the product, Donna Dubinsky had the perfect sales management and the negotiating skills needed to match the visions of Jeff, and this was why they were so very successful at the very outset. (Pen Computing, cover story, Jeff Hawkins)

It is often stated that it was Jeff Hawkins' determination and his enthusiastic spirit that brought him to where he is today. As… READ MORE

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