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Palm to give $2.3m of unsold PDAs to education

Intel at it too

The great Palm inventory clearance continues, this time with a donation of $2.3 million worth of PDAs to US schools, colleges and universities.

Oh, the move is nicely spun as a philanthropic gesture - and we applaud Palm for handing the kit over to folk who can make use of it rather than dumping the machines in landfill - but the company's ulterior motive remains the elimination of all those unsold Palm Vx, IIIc and m100s in its capacious warehouses.

At the risk of sounding cynical [what us? Ed], we even wondered for a moment if there was a tax advantage in writing down inventory in this way.

To be fair to Palm, it has made such donations before, as part of its Palm Education Pioneer (PEP) program. To date, some 175 classrooms have been kitted out with free Palm equipment.

Then again, it's as much about indoctrinating young minds to the Palm way of doing things as anything else, so perhaps we're right to be wary of the company's gesture.

Actually, this kind of thing is quite common. Intel yesterday said it was granting money and kit to various educational authorities in Florida to create the Intel Technology Center, a place where school teachers will be able to go along and learn all about Windows. Unlike Palm's plan, there is a quid pro quo: teachers will have to cough up $250 and hour (minimum stay one hour) to use the facilities Intel so generously... er... donated. ®

Other Palm inventory clearance manoeuvres

Palm offers '65 PDAs for the price of 50' deal
Palm begins great PDA giveaway in Orange County
Palm brings cheaper PDAs to European developers
Palm cuts developer PDA prices by up to 40%

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