About Vesey Crichton:

Vesey Crichton was appointed to the position of vice president of Europe/MiddleEast/Africa operations for the Palm Solutions Group in July 2002. He is responsible for expanding the world-leading handheld solutions company’s presence and for driving consumer and enterprise sales across the region. Crichton joined Palm from Vignette, an international company based in Texas that makes Web content management software where he was vice president Northern Europe. Prior to Vignette, he worked at AltaVista, a world leader in search technology, where he was a vice president and general manager for international operations. Before that, he was at Compaq, where he made a significant contribution to the development of the company’s server business during his 11-year tenure there. In his final capacity at Compaq as U.K. and Ireland Director, Marketing and E-Commerce, his demand creation strategies supported annual revenues of $3.5 billion.

[PDAExp] Do you know PDAExpertos.com?

Yes, I Do, of course.

[PDAExp] Why did you choose Spain for the launching of the new models instead of other countries that you are responsible?

I came to Spain because of the fastest growing of handheld market in the develop world and also because, actually, Spain is the palmOne fastest growing country in the world, so this guys [palmOne Spain staff] are the one growing faster for us.

Jordi Marca (Marketing Manager palmOne Iberica)
Vesey Crichton (Vice President EME palmOne)
Sandra Ardila (Marketing Director PDAExpertos.com)

[PDAExp] So, for the Spanish market what do you expect with those two models [Zire 31 and Zire 72])?

I think the market here is going very well. We are very pleased for that. The use of GPS is very succesful in countries like Germany where it became a big Fashion. In Italy today, PDA is use for navigation mainly, for taxi drivers and so on. And time for GPS is a big trend but we thing that there is also with Bluetooth, with mobile documents with a really nice screen for video. We are sure that the model with Bluethoot is going to be a very big sell, because is the thing of having everything but in one.

[PDAExp] About the Bluetooth technology included in the new model [Zire 72], What do you expect that the user are going to use it, because it´s not a very well known technology here?

I agree with you that Bluetooth is one of the latest technologies, so, the main users are going to be web browsing. But the main use is going to be mobile e-mail.

Mobile e-mail is an interesting phenomena because at the moment less that 1% of Europe phone users have mobile e-mail and we can see that there is a growing market, so we expect that within the next 3 years 40% of mobile phones users will have mobile e-mail, so, to be able to use Bluetooth. It´s really good.

[PDAExp] You have been in the company for two years now, you've been living so many changes: the first Palm smartphone was launched, Palm purchased Handspring and the company was divided in two new companies. So, How have you been living, personally and professionally, all those changes?

It´s been very exciting, the company is growing very fast and what will probably happen in 3 o 4 years is that the handheld market will grow faster than other electronic devices. It probably grow almost 10% every year and that is a very big grow for any business... So that´s very exciting for all of us to do with all this new technology, it´s fun.

[PDAExp] We know about smartphones that its market is growing faster than PDAs. Some people say that maybe in the future PDAs will disappear. Is it possible? Can be a future without PDAs?

That is certainly what the analist think, but I think they are wrong. The analist think that the market will gravitate in a single type of device with Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPRS and everything. But it´s not going to happen because some people want a single palm, others want to go to the cinema at night and they want to carry a small phone but during the day they need a proper screen because they do a lot of dates and the solutions are very important. That is one of the reasons. The second reason is that I don´t think that is going to happen because your interest [showing Sandra] and yours [showing JJ] is different. Maybe I´m mad about music and I will have one with MP3, or you will end with a device that is good for pictures because you like photos, and you [JJ] maybe are very interested in statistics and you need a proper screen, so I think people´s requirements will be very differents, and it will be different devices for different people.

[PDAExp] But anyway there will be different models for smartphones

The market will grow, models will grow, and there is a reason, the reason is that for the carries: Telefónica Móviles and Vodafone are getting all the revenews that they can today about phones, and you are not going to talk more and you are not going to send more SMSs, so the grow is flat for mobile phones but with a mobile e-mail and web-browsing the revenews are growing more and more, so it´s big reason what the carriers get behind.

[PDAExp] Now talking about the models that you are presenting today, We are still missing a new version for the Tungsten E, Will We see that soon?

I think so [smiling].

[PDAExp] Will be nice to have the exclusive for PDAExpertos…

We don´t have any announcement at the moment, but obviously the whole team is working on that all the time.

[PDAExp] Well, Palm was divided in two and it seems like palmOne is completely independient to decide the operation system in all palmOne devices. Will be possible to see a palmOne device with an OS from a different company than PalmSource?

Yes, palmOne is completely independient. Every time we develop a new product like this we figure out with this product and for this kind of people wich OS we should use. Anyway we allways come back to Palm OS for the requirements. But there is not religion about that.

[PDAExp] Will you consider Symbian for instance?

Symbian no! Palm OS is good, it´s easier to use, if you change Palm OS for Windows CE you´ll see that is more complicated.

[PDAExp] The new version of Palm OS is coming soon…

For our devices We haven´t announce it and part of the reason is that there is not a lot of new things of the new version 6.0, so there is not so much new.

[PDAExp] Will the new version [Palm OS v 6.0] be adaptable to the Tablet PC platform?

I´m not sure.

Mr. Crichton was very pleased for the huge Community of Palm OS users with more than 8.000 members that PDAExpertos.com and HispaPUG have created, not only in Spain but in Mexico where it is based in cities like Mexico D.F., Yucatán, Guadalajara, Monterrey and Querétaro, and in Colombia in Bogotá.