Just wanted to relay an interesting story. Two weeks ago, I was waiting for
my rental car at the Alamo car lot at National Airport in DC. Also waiting
for a car was a US Navy Rear Admiral (two stars). I was rather surprised to
see that an Admiral had to wait for a car and jokingly asking him why the
Pentagon didn't send a one for him. As we were talking story, I pulled out
my Newton to check my schedule. Upon seeing this, the admiral smiled and
said "Is that a Newton? I haven't seen one of those for years." He went on
to tell me that the Navy had a large program to evaluate the newton for use
on ships and subs to facilitate communications and wireless access to the
ships' central computers from anywhere onboard. He apparently was in charge
of a major part of this project. He told me that the Navy was very pleased
with the Newt and made plans to issue 2100s to all shipboard personnel Petty
Officer and above but canceled the deployment when Jobs canned the Newton.
Now the Navy has issued Palms to most of their personnel but the Admiral
told me they are not satisfied with the capabilities compared to the Newton.
Damn, how could Apple pass on an opportunity like that? They would have sold
tens of thousands of units to the Navy alone. That would have likely
increased when other military units saw what the Navy was doing.
Furthermore, as the Navy officers moved on to civilian lives, they would
have been able to further spread the news of Newton's superiority to their
civilian employees. Think of what might have been.
Aloha,
Paul Grothaus
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