IBM Canova was working at
IBM when he realized that chip-and-wireless technology was small enough to use in a handheld device. His boss,
Jerry Merckel, was working on the development of
PCMCIA cards that could be used to expand the memory of laptop computers and realized that they could also be used in the sort of device that Canova was thinking of. Both were working in a team that had been put together by
Paul C. Mugge to enliven IBM's product range by developing smaller, lighter products. Merckel pitched the idea to Mugge of "the phone of the future" that would use cards inserted into the phone to run services, and the development of a prototype was approved by Mugge. It was decided by IBM to show the device, code named "Angler", at the November 1992
COMDEX technology trade show in Las Vegas, necessitating a rush to complete the prototype by Canova and his team that saw them working 80-hour weeks in order to have it ready. As the originator of the idea for the IBM Simon, Canova has been described as the inventor of the
smartphone.
Palm Canova joined
Palm in January 1997 where he was head of engineering for the
PalmPilot, Palm III, V, and VII series of
PDAs and successor devices.
Other appointments Canova has also held senior engineering positions at
Amazon Web Services,
Coherent, Inc.,
Plastic Logic,
Neato Robotics,
Livescribe,
Reactrix Systems,
Wheels of Zeus and
Cirrus Logic. == References ==