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October 7, 1999
Web posted at: 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT)

by The Industry Standard staff

(IDG) -- And you thought the yuppies just doodling in their Palm Pilots at restaurants were insufferable. Now that the Palm VII has appeared with its national wireless Internet access, those early-adopter types are likely to spend even more time absorbed in their precious devices.

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3Com has just begun selling the new device nationally, after a four-month test period in New York City. The gadget-happy business press was predictably excited.   

The Palm VII is the first PDA to grant the kind of freedom to Internet access that mobile phones gave to voice communication," wrote the San Jose Mercury News' Deborah Claymon. She quoted the hyperbolic Gerry Purdy, president and CEO of the California market-research firm Mobile Insights: "I call the Palm VII the C

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harles Lindbergh of wireless data." She balanced his ebullience with a skeptical quote from analyst Barney Dewey, "It's going to be at least another generation before this kind of device is going to be really interesting to a lot of people." Besides, why pay for wireless Internet access when hz.com is offering a free Internet information retrieval service for pagers, phones and PDAS?

That hasn't stopped Amazon.com from jumping on the Palm VII bandwagon. On Monday, Amazon said it was launching a wireless e-commerce company specially created for the devices, reported CBS MarketWatch's Steve Gelsi. And 3Com is hoping to jump-start the Palm VII's ubiquity by slashing the price $100, making it $499 – cheap enough to let bitter technology reporters afford one.