Palm Computing's devices--the Pilot 1000, Pilot 5000, PalmPilot Professional and now the Palm III--all perform essentially the same tasks, although the Palm III purports to be "third-generation." Applications on all units include an address book, to-do lists, memos and a calculator. The genius of the platform has always been its complementary relationship to a PC, which serves as both a data source and a backup method.

The Palm III applications offer a few minor improvements, including a limited ability to send data over an infrared port and more built-in memory. The Palm III also includes flashable ROM for future enhancements, so you won't have to replace cards. Palm Computing is preparing a Macintosh desktop via the Palm MacPac. Otherwise, there is nothing new in this unit that you can't find in a third-party application for the Professional series units. It's hard not to feel let down.

I don't want the Pilot to become a bloated, complicated device. I simply want a few problems solved. Many frustrations with the original Pilot remain, such as the too-glossy screen and the stylus' slippery plastic-on-plastic feel. The Palm III actually takes a step backward in some areas. The new cradle is flimsy and tends to fly around when you remove the device. The optional 14.4-Kbps modem ($129) doesn't fit the Palm III as well as the original Pilot, so it's easy to accidentally lose the connection while doing a network sync.

I found no technical problems while testing my beta version of the Palm III in our Dallas Real-World Labs®. All data converted from my original Pilot 5000 running Pilot Desktop 2.0. The serial-port HotSync worked consistently well using the standard Windows Palm Desktop applications or Lotus Development Corp.'s EasySync Release 2 for Lotus Notes. With the optional PalmPilot Modem and Network HotSync software, I synchronized data with a PC over the public Internet and through our internal remote-access servers.

Network HotSync, also available on earlier Pilots, can operate in either of two modes: through a remote-access server using the PalmPilot Modem or by using a cradle on a PC attached to the same internetwork as the primary PC holding your data. In either case, TCP/IP is used for network access, incorporating the PNRP (Palm Name Resolution Protocol) to locate the primary PC.

PNRP starts by sending a request packet to the IP address configured in your HotSync setup. If that fails, it uses directed subnet broadcasts to the target subnet. Next, it attempts to use DNS to find the address. If DNS fails, it sends directed subnet broadcasts using a few common subnet masks. In the lab, I successfully located the primary PC and synchronized from multiple locations using both fixed and dynamic addressing.

Palm OS 3.0 is at the heart of the Palm III. It's also available for previous-version Palm units via a 2-MB memory upgrade. Palm OS 3.0's enhancements benefit the application developer, but are not immediately apparent to the user. Improvements include simplified memory and file streaming, a new large font and custom font control, a partially implemented grayscale capability, some infrared port communications and sound controls like MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file playback.

Clearly, the company's strategy is to build the Palm device as a platform, relying on independent software vendors for innovation. It enjoys a large community of enthusiasts and developers who offer commercial and shareware applications, such as data conduits, simple applications and games. You can find utilities that track recipes, train schedules and biorhythms. You can even read newsgroups or surf the Web with the Pilot. Yet the vast majority of these are just gizmos--far from being killer enterprise applications.

The Palm III soon will be facing stiff competition from a new wave of Windows CE 2.0-based palm-size PCs that feature innovative applications right out of the box. Hordes of Windows developers can easily port their Win32-based applications to these devices. In order for Palm Computing to maintain its lead, customers need to see some immediate reasons to keep buying.

Sure, there are a few enhancements with the Palm III. You'll have more memory--2 MB--enough to keep 50 percent more addresses and appointments than with the PalmPilot Professional. You'll also notice the infrared port, but it only exchanges data with other Palm III units. You can't eliminate your HotSync cable and use your PC's IrDA (Infrared Data Association) port.

I have a list of innovations that I'd like to see in the next version of the Palm. These include a decent point on the stylus, like that found in the Cross DigitalWriter; the ability to dial numbers from the address book by generating DTMF (Dual-Tone MultiFrequency) tones; built-in fax and printer support; a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) for running an even wider range of applications; HDML (Handheld Device Markup Language) capabilities for simple Web-like applications; paging without an expensive modification and vibrating notification of appointments (and pages).

Is it unrealistic to expect all of this in such a small device? Hardly. Many of these features are available in palm-size PCs from Casio, Everex Systems, LG Electronics, Philips and Samsung. What's more, they generally match the Palm III application for application.

The battle for the shirt pocket is about to begin ... again.

David Willis can be reached at dwillis@nwc.com