Jeff Hawkins

eff Hawkins' flair as an innovator can be traced back 40 years to the North Shore of Long Island, where his family designed and built unusual boats,some in which the family lived.

From that creative atmosphere and the influence of a father he has referred to as the consummate innovator, Hawkins moved on to invent, among other things, the original PalmPilot products and to found both Palm Computing and, later, Handspring.

Hawkins holds nine patents for various handheld devices and features and is poised to introduce this fall the latest product in Handspring's Treo family, the Treo 600 smartphone. The product promises a smaller, more phonelike design with a full QWERTY keyboard, built-in digital camera, improved battery life and additional memory. Hawkins said when introducing the first Treo model in 2001 that the series was designed for anyone who carries multiple mobile devices.

Dan Elliott, vice president of mobile technologies at CompuCom, Dallas, says the ease of use and basic functionality incorporated into Hawkins' design has made the Treo smartphone more accessible.

"The biggest thing [Hawkins] has done is he's kept it simple," Elliott says.