The Pocket PC platform has some distinct advantages with its built-in Pocket Word and Pocket Excel software, its OS capabilities, and its speed of floating point calculations. However, the choice of a tool for use within a corporate environment has always been best focused on usability and support factors rather than on bells and whistles. Not surprisingly, Palm devices are still the overwhelming choice.

The result? Microsoft's Windows is the reigning king of the desktop while the Palm OS is king of the handheld. Despite any initial beliefs you might have that your "Microsoft shop" in the back-office might be stressed by co-existence with Palm OS mobile solutions, the two are, in reality, remarkably compatible.

Thanks to a few foresighted developers in the Palm Economy, there are already some products on the market to help you as you take on the Zen of seamless integration between these two leading platforms. In particular, I'd like to provide some insight into solutions that can integrate Palm devices with the most frequently used desktop applications, our old friends the word processor, the spreadsheet, and the database.

The dream: an office in your palm
The three core components of a desktop "office" suite that translate well to the Palm device and offer significant usefulness are spreadsheets, word processors, and databases. As it was in the world of desktop PCs prior to the introduction of Microsoft Office, there are currently a host of independent Palm OS applications that strive to offer as much productivity punch as their desktop cousins.

Spreadsheets
In the functional spreadsheet category, key players include Solutions in Hand's MiniCalc (at http://www.solutionsinhand.com), Cutting Edge Software's Quicksheet (at http://www.cesinc.com/quicksheet/index.html), and Iambic's TinySheet (at http://www.iambic.com/pilot/tinysheet3/), which is pictured in Figure A.

FIGURE A

TinySheet 3.0 has full color support.

DataViz's Documents To Go Professional suite (at http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/index.html) also includes a fine spreadsheet viewer, and they have recently added some limited cell editing capabilities.

Word processors
The word processor has yet to be fully realized on the Palm platform. Our expectations for word processing have changed a great deal in the past ten years since the era of Uniplex and blue screen WordPerfect and WordStar. In the Palm OS realm, these applications are more aptly known as DOC readers/editors. Some of the most well-known solutions are Cutting Edge Software's Quickword (previously known as SmartDoc at http://www.cesinc.com/quickword/index.html), Megasoft's MegaDoc (at http://megasoft2000.tripod.com), Aportis' AportisDoc (at http://www.aportis.com), and Qvadis' Express Reader GT (at http://www.qvadis.com/expressreader/gt.html), which is pictured in Figure B.

FIGURE B

With Express Reader GT, you can search for a specific word or phrase.

Recently, DataViz also added limited editing functions to the WordView application in their Documents To Go Professional suite.