The people who invented the PalmPilot quit Palm to build a better one. Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan left in 1998, unhappy with where Palm's owner, 3Com, was taking it. They licensed Palm's own software and launched the Visor, a cheaper handheld with a slot on the back for add-ons. By June 2000, Handspring was selling a lot of them, and Wall Street wanted in.

A Slot for Everything

Handspring started in Mountain View in June 1998. Its Visor ran the Palm operating system, synced over USB, and had a Springboard slot that took modules: a GPS, a camera, an MP3 player, even a cell phone. The bet was that a handheld could become whatever its owner needed. In early 2002 the company stopped making Visors and launched the Treo, a phone with a keyboard and an organizer built in.

Back Home to Palm

Handspring priced 10 million shares at $20 on June 20, 2000, raising about $200 million. It traded on Nasdaq as HAND and closed its first day near $27, up 35 percent. Then handheld sales slumped and the stock fell hard. In 2003 Palm's hardware business bought Handspring and kept the Treo. The founders went back to the company they had left, and the Treo became one of the first popular smartphones.

Cover: Upraised Right Hand, with Palm Facing Outward: Study for Saint Peter, Raphael. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an open palm (the PalmPilot's makers).