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I fear for Palm.

No, I’m not predicting victory for Microsoft in the PDA wars. For that matter, there’s no reason to predict that only one product will survive. This isn’t Highlander, where in the end there can be only one. Any product that can sync with all of the popular e-mail clients, calendar management systems, and contact databases will be viable.

This isn’t really a big worry for you right now, unless you’re trying to establish and enforce a PDA standard in your company, and that would be a very bad idea. You’re far better off letting users choose whatever they want. There just isn’t that much downside to it. In the end there will be only two, anyway: Palm (and its cousin from Handspring) and the PocketPC (or three if someone digs deep enough to discover the Psion).

But I fear for Palm.

Sure, Microsoft blew it big time with the first two versions of Windows CE. They flopped, and many of the hardware vendors who backed versions one and two are off the bandwagon for awhile.

Sure, Palm has the inside track, in the form of a large, loyal customer base, many of whom really want Microsoft to fail.

Sure, the PocketPC has a mountain to climb in the form of the huge, third-party-created catalog of applications available for the Palm.

But …

I fear for Palm, because Palm is displaying the kind of lethargic arrogance that inevitably ends up dBasing a company in the marketplace. When was the last time Palm innovated?

Okay, it has color (and a backgammon game!) on the 3c, and it stuck an antenna on the Palm VII. Whee! Now I can do remote e-mail, so long as pure ASCII will do the job. But even here Palm missed the obvious, like a microphone so you can record thoughts while you drive, coupled with an Internet speech recognition service so you don’t have to transcribe your recordings when you get to your office. That would make the antenna truly useful.

Oh, darn … I probably could have received a patent for that.

In theory, Microsoft has positioned the PocketPC as a consumer device to make an end-run around the Palm’s business focus. In reality, it’s positioned for business travelers. Being able to listen to music, read electronic books, or play video games will be big with road warriors wanting distraction from the long delays and lack of food endemic to modern air travel. And with music and games, can a plug-in DVD player for personal in-flight movies be far behind?

Meanwhile, Palm relies on third party software developers for innovation. The platform itself is moribund. Palm reminds me of nothing so much as Ashton-Tate in the mid-80s. Not only isn’t it providing any technological leadership, it isn’t even mimicking the leadership of others.

So don’t set a standard right now. The impact on IS will be small … making sure your Help Desk can help users whose PDAs won’t sync anymore.

Professional landscape architects don’t plan the sidewalks when they design campuses anymore. They wait until everyone on campus has done a lot of walking. Then they pave the paths that happen naturally.

Make this your PDA strategy – let your users choose the path for you. You can pave it once you know where it should go.

Because I fear for Palm.

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This column is about running IS. The politics it usually covers are corporate politics … the brown-nosing, back-stabbing, hallway persuading, deception, misdirection, and lunch-buying that is basic to business.

Governmental politics I usually leave alone. I’m not a ribbon-wearing actor, so I figure I have no special expertise that warrants your attention. I’m about to make an exception, because a political issue is about to have a big impact on the world of IT.

The issue itself is the ridiculous notion that writing big “soft money” checks to a political party is an expression of free speech. Conservative pundits in particular have adopted this cause, but in all their tortured logic they’ve proved only that they’ve become toadies to those among the ultra-wealthy and influential who will do anything to increase their wealth and influence, regardless of the social consequences.

Let’s be clear about the relationship between wealth and free speech: If you want to use your wealth in the pursuit of free speech, buy as many full-page newspaper (or television, or radio) ads as you want to present your views. Heck, buy as many newspaper companies as you want. That’s free speech. Writing politicians checks to influence votes isn’t free speech. It’s bribery, no matter how hard George Will tries to make it into something noble.

As an IS manager, soft money is about to affect you in a personal way. As evidence, I offer a recent Wall Street Journal article describing meetings between Bill Gates and senior Republican lawmakers, after which the lawmakers called for a probe into the Justice Department’s prosecution of Microsoft.

Did Bill Gates bribe the Republicans? Not hardly. Microsoft pursued the high road, honorably exercising its right of free speech by contributing lots of “unrestricted soft money”. Your stance on DoJ vs Microsoft notwithstanding, if you understand basic civics you should be outraged.

How does this affect you? One word: UCITA (the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act). InfoWorld columnist Ed Foster has fought a lonely battle against UCITA in these pages. All he’s had on his side are facts and logic. But when your state legislature debates UCITA it may hear lots of free speech “rebuttals” in the form of soft money contributions.

So I’m going to make an exception to my policy of avoiding politics, because in this particular case, InfoWorld’s readers can have a significant impact. At least, some of you can. Here’s how:

CIOs have access to CEOs. CEOs, at least those of large corporations, have access to, and considerable influence over politicians. Don’t want UCITA to become law? Make sure your CEO and chief legal counsel understand how it could affect your business if it passes.

Handle this gingerly — you’ll be taking a risk. Be businesslike, not alarmist. Recommend that your chief legal counsel review UCITA as the first step — don’t recommend any action based on your understanding alone. But introduce the issue. Educating your company’s leaders on issues like this is your responsibility.

In a nation that views influence-buying as free speech instead of bribery, UCITA won’t be stopped with mere facts and logic. It will be stopped the way it’s being promoted: by old-fashioned political arm-twisting.

I suggest you use your political skills … the corporate kind, that is … to make that happen.

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