The week of June 25, Hal Goldstein and I made our annual pilgrimage to New York City to attend PC Expo, one of the biggest computer shows in the world. It happens each year in the early summer, before the City turns into a steam bath. Computer vendors, trendsetters, and all other interested parties crowd into the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan, to see what's new, talk about the future, and to complain about the taxicabs.

Actually, Hal and I weren't the only ones there with connections to Pocket PC magazine. A number of our contributing writers showed up on their own. We had lunch with Chris De Herrera, and attended a number of parties with Ed Zabrek and Diane Dumas. We bumped into David Ciccone at the Microsoft Pavilion, where we also saw Dale Coffing manning a kiosk.

The show wasn't as big as in previous years, with only one floor of the Javits being used, and part of that blocked off. But there was plenty of handheld action, in the Pocket PC areas and elsewhere.

Palm, Handspring Vendors Develop for Pocket PC

One of the most interesting and profitable portions of the show was my visit to the Handspring and Palm partner pavilions. Handspring, Palm, and Microsoft all have these mini-expos within the show, where they show off products related to their particular device. For example, Handspring's partner pavilion had over 30 small kiosks in one area, each showing a different third-party software or hardware solution for the Handspring Visor. We've been visiting competitors' pavilions for years. It's a great way to check out possibilities for Handheld and Pocket PCs, and to gauge interest in, and acceptance of, the Pocket PCs.

About 25% of the vendors at both the Handspring and Palm pavilions already market products for Handheld and Pocket PCs. These include companies like Extended Systems, LandWare, Novatel Wireless, RhinoSkin, and SanDisk. However, what caught my attention was the number of Palm developers planning Pocket PC versions of their products. Almost all of the remaining independent vendors that I talked to in the Handspring pavilion and about half of those in the Palm pavilion told me they were planning Pocket PC products. This is a big difference from last year, when the vendors either said, "Well, we're looking into it," or gave me a disgusted look when I mentioned the Pocket PC. Times change!

The fact is that these people aren't altruistic about the Pocket PC. They're looking at numbers and they see that there's money to be made supporting Windows Powered devices. There are a lot of very creative products for Handspring and Palm devices. As Pocket PC versions become available, we will be proud to announce and review them. Here are some of the things I saw: