Sweetie is a practical lady, which is one reason I married her. For years now, she has done a superb job organizing our household and keeping us on a reasonable budget. No small feat, considering my bent for late-night bidding wars on eBay. So I wasn’t a bit surprised when, after I got a new Compaq iPAQ, Sweetie placed immediate dibs on my old PalmPilot. As soon as she took possession, she instantly discarded her Mary Engelbreit day planner and went to work transferring phone numbers and converting to Palm’s infamous Graffiti. She soon became PalmPilot’s greatest ambassador. Everyone, from chiropractors to waiters to CostCo pizza vendors, was a potential proselyte. Sweetie loves her Palm. This went on for more than two years when, this past Christmas, I decided to surprise her with a new one.

Now don’t start on me with the whole “support-your-own-company” tirade. I’ve already flogged myself for that one. I’m fully aware that we’re talking about competing standards here-PalmOS vs. Windows CE-and that I happen to work for one of the competitors. But it was important that I get the lady something she wants, as opposed to just something I want her to have.

I knew Sweetie would want a new Palm. I knew it.

You see, she started out on a Palm, not a Windows device, and that’s 90 percent of the battle. You can apply it to almost any software argument over the past twenty years where competing standards were on the line. Word vs. WordPerfect. Windows vs. OS/2. Excel vs. Lotus. Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas. (Ok. That last one didn’t really apply, but isn’t Buster’s 10th round knockout of Iron Mike still just as sweet as it ever was?) Getting people to use your software in the first place is a difficult task. But once they’ve adopted it, just try converting them to a different program. They’re more possessive than Ted Kennedy eying a plate of chicken wings. People just seem to fall in love with the software they grew up on.

It was decided then. Sweetie would have a new Palm, but which one? Her only complaint about her Palm III was its width. She wondered whether there was a thinner one that would fit better in the side pocket of her purse. (Did I mention that she’s extremely practical?) When last I shopped around, Palms bore Roman numerals: Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII. Each one was better and more expensive than its predecessor; you bought what you could afford. But these days, 3Com has given them nicknames. There’s the Palm Zire, the Palm Tungsten, and the Palm Treo, all of which branch off into various models, such as: E, W, C, and 71. One of them even doubles as a digital camera.

So over lunch one day at the local electronics superstore, I grabbed one of the display models and quickly snapped off an awkward but passable photo of my elbow. Not too useful, but pretty cool coming from a Palm. I could just imagine the glee on Sweetie’s face come Christmas morning as she would snap pictures using her new color-screened, high-memory Palm Zire 71. I imagined her being thrilled and me being the hero.

But that was just the problem. She wouldn’t be thrilled. Sweetie doesn’t care about a camera feature, she just wants a Palm that’s thin enough to fit in her purse. I started combing the specs and found that the Tungsten E is just a half-inch thick. Perfect. By that evening, it was wrapped and under the tree.

Did I let down my own company? Sure. Was I disloyal? Maybe. But as any American husband knows, there are higher powers at work here.

Working for a top software company: Good
Buying the company’s own products: Better
Making Sweetie happy: Priceless