Visor's Edge: HandSpring's latest offering is the slim and compact Metallic Silver Visor Edge, which has Dewar's DateBk software included.

Dewar profile

While familiar suppliers such as Advanced Technical Solutions, Geac and Managing Editor are building handheld applications specific to the newspaper industry, another name familiar to newspaper folk is also big in the handheld world:

C.E. Steuart Dewar.

The longtime provider of editorial and advertising systems sold his Dewar Information Systems Corp. (Disc) business to Sysdeco, which merged it into Atex, almost half a dozen years ago (see The Cole Papers, September 1995). Although he had a three-year consulting contract with Sysdeco, Dewar rapidly changed direction in his life and began devoting his plentiful energies toward building a sanctuary for zoo gorillas.

Gorilla Haven, the focus of Dewar Wildlife Trust Inc., a non-profit organization funded by Dewar and his wife Jane, was established in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia in late 1996. Zoos from around the world will have the opportunity to send gorillas with problems -- such as surplus males, genetic redundancy, personality problems and insufficient living quarters because of facility renovation -- when the 286-acre facility opens later this year.

Dewar planned to write software in his time away from Gorilla Haven as a way to "bring in small amounts of revenue." As an early adopter of handheld computers such as the Psion, Dewar hit upon the idea of creating personal productivity software for handheld computers. Pimlico Software Inc., a shareware software company, was born.

"My primary application for the Palm -- DateBk3/DateBk4 -- has become one of the most popular apps for the Palm and is doing very well," said Dewar. DateBk is an advanced replacement for the Datebook, ToDo and Memo applications that come with the Palm. "I also licensed it to Handspring, so their 'advanced datebook' application is actually my software and in the ROM [read-only memory] of every Handspring Visor."

Dewar said that from a business point of view, "it is more personally satisfying to be on the forefront of the rollout of handheld technology, the impact of which has still not sunk in to a lot of people."

In addition, Dewar said that Pimlico has better profit margins than Disc ever had.

As part of his passion for handhelds, Dewar also has a Compaq Ipaq handheld with a tiny 1-gigabyte Compact Flash drive. "When people see that I have two full-length movies stored on the 1-gigabyte drive and can watch them on the Ipaq, they start to get an idea of how entertaining these devices can be, as well as useful," said Dewar. "Although I still like the Palm for its simplicity."

Pimlico Software Inc., e-mail: cesdewar@gorilla-haven.org.

-- dmc

See also Handhelds make their way into circulation, sales departments and Palm profile.

From THE COLE PAPERS, April 2001, Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved.