They promised the power of Windows in the palm of your hand. But all you got was an inefficient FiloFax. Windows CE was on everyone's hot-product list at last year's Comdex, but turned out to be a not-so-hot product for Casio, Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, NEC and Philips Electronics.

They all created handheld PC's designed to run the Windows applications such as Word, Excel, while delivering e-mail and the Web.

Those executives must be scratching their heads with wonder ever since the release of the Palm Pilot -- a handheld organizer that's become the fastest selling computer device in U.S. history.

The Palm Pilot, created by 3Com/U.S. Robotics, doesn't run Windows CE, but does everything else that Windows-compatible devices do, yet costs hundreds of dollars less. Just goes to show that the consumer always knows best.

 1. Push
 2. Windows CE
 3. 56K
 4. Cable Modem
 5. Web-TV
 6. Net Magazines
 7. Apple's Demise
 8. Mac Clones
 9. E-Cash
10. Comdex '96

 1. Dynamic HTML
 2. New Domains
 3. Metered Bandwidth
 4. Web-TV
 5. Rich Ads
 6. The Big Chill
 7. Middlemen
 8. Digital Detente
 9. Cybercommerce
10. Web standards