[georgeecollins]

Startup is a really good book. People should be very wary of power of monopolies, MSFT also really messed with GO and General Magic.

The example of Palm vs Newton is great because it shows how clear goals trump excellent technology. Newton had this amazing OS where you could turn it on or off at any moment and preserve state. All data was available to all apps. And with that technology -- and probably some other choices-- and a great processor at the time (relative to Palm) it was useless because it was so slow. A handheld device cannot ever be slow. Palm did very little well and survived up until smart phones.

[jhbadger]

And Palm's "Graffiti" actually existed as a software package for the Newton by Palm before the Palm Pilot! It was popular in the early days of the Newton because the handwriting recognition in the first versions of the Newton OS were pretty bad (Remember Doonesbury's "Egg Freckles" comic, or The Simpsons' "Eat up Martha" when the bullies were trying to write "Beat up Martin"?)

[AlbertCory]

There is another really good book that's sadly out of print: Piloting Palm by Andrea Butter & David Pogue (yes, that David Pogue, from the Nature PBS shows).

tip: don't pay the $80 for a new one. I got a used one for $8, and it came within 3-4 days.

[CharlesW]

> Startup is a really good book.

A Google search is surprisingly unhelpful at a finding the book you mean. Who is the author?

[chongli]

Jerry Kaplan.