Slashdot Mirror
Palm To Purchase Be's IP
There's been a lot of rumours swirling around an imminent buyout of Be's IP given their current cash situation. But I wouldn't have thought of Palm as a potential suitor - but a story in the subscription only area of today's WSJ indicates it to be true. Hopefully a non-pay service will get the story soon - but looks like Palm is trying to beef up its software side, and wants to get some Be's engineers.Update: 08/16 02:16 PM by H :Looks like C|Net has the details - 11 million USD in Palm stock for the purchase of Be.
Probably not. Remember what happened to 3dfx (TDFX) stock? Hopefully people were smart enough not to invest their life saving in BEOS.
I hope you are right
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I always preferred NeXT to Be because Jobs, even though he can be an ass, is preferable to Gasse's constant complaining about being downtrodden and calling himself a victim because of busniess decisions he himself made. I hope Palm can do with Be what Be wasn't able to do with itself....
> they soon will be closing their doors, probably forever
If you had bothered to read the press release and aqaint yourself with the facts prior to your "guess", you would know that it is stated that Be intend to wind up the company after the sale goes ahead.
> will soon be learning why it is that Free Software is such an important concept
You forget that most of the apps and drivers for the BeOS were written (as freeware) by the same people that write freeware for the other free operating systems. They all understand what the deal is, but you evidently don't understand them, or their motivations.
> and you can also guarantee that they aren't going to be interested in the desktop portions of the OS. Palm makes handhelds.
Palm can look at the desktop OS and see a product. Any product is worth something so they sure as hell won't "bin" it. Even if the only value is releasing whatever they can in return for goodwill from people and image. That in itself has value. And yes, believe it or not, despite being in a backwater in the UK, I had heard a rumor that Palm made handhelds, but thanks for letting me know.
> and the time and effort spent writing drivers and Be specific applications has just been flushed down the proverbial toilet.
No, The time spent was a gamble on something good that they believed in that sadly didn't pay off. Most importantly, it was fun, and secondly most of the programmers wrote portable code. Thats not time wasted
Developers who give their effort for free for ANY os, whether linux, Be or windows deserve respect for it. Whatever happened to solidarity? Why do linux 'advocates' insist on trying to take a higher ground when writing any free sofware is not about competition?
Yes.
I am glad that BE won't deisappear without someone showing interest. It would be a shame if they did.
I guess you haven't met too many BeOS enthusiasts then. They're almost as bad as the die hard OS/2 nuts. I little more mature and intelligent than the average Linux user, but still foaming at the mouth.
Since Palm's main interest is in Be's PDA software department, will the rest (or at least some) of Be's software (i.e. BeOS) become open-source so that there would be yet one more free OS?
After all, the OS community responds gratefully to any presents it is given, and BeOS's commercial value is limited, particularly now.
I suspect Palm bought BeOS for the programmers, not the software. But if they did buy it because they want to put a BeOS derivative on future Palms (and they need a more powerful OS than they have), it just shows again how much in love the Palm culture is with proprietary systems. I think with this strategy, they are going to face a difficult battle in the marketplace, as they are competing against Java, Linux and WinCE (which is, of course, proprietary as well, but often not viewed as such).
As somebody else has pointed out, this will be great PocketPC competition. Just what Palm needs - a new OS that's scalable, lightweight, and has a lightweight GUI. I hope they port BeIA to the ARM and introduce it as Palm 4 next year...Palm needs something new and shiny fast.
Perhaps, to fight the colorful PocketPC's media player?
¦ ©® ±
Interesting, offtopic story: In New York City, advertisments with built-in IR download units have started to appear. You pull out your PDA, point it at the side of the booth, and get a tiny program that has something to do with the ad or NYC (well, ideally, it didn't work for me the one time I tried it). Imagine, in your example, looking for a sushi restaurant, going up to an ad for the Zagat survey, downloading a listing of all restaurants in a 10-block radius, and doing a search for "sushi". This might actually work...
Couldn't figure out just why in the world Palm would buy Be. BeIA is one possibility that suggests it wasn't just a bizarre act.
Well since Sony make Palm devices (Clie), the next step could be SONY buying Palm+Be...
I hate to use the "s-word," as an old boss of mine used to call it, but it depends on whether there are synergies between the two companies.
Clearly Palm thinks the sum will be greater than the parts. I wonder if this telegraphs a change in strategy to diversify away from just handheld organizers and wireless communications.
Palm isn't the underdog yet. If it keeps releasing lackluster hardware that is equal to Windows Powered Devices only in price it soon will be, though. Could PalmBe be the answer? Along with some nice hardware upgrades, it could actually be competitive with WinCE, I think.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Be, which develops software and related services for Internet appliances and digital media applications
This gives a pretty good indication of what Palm was buying Be for.
I saw this one coming a mile off. No matter what kind of Moore's law breaking processors Aki and the Deep Eyes Squad might have been using in the future, there is no way the current Palm OS could have ever scaled up to such a nice holographic GUI without some serious help.
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another."
"acquiring the assets and intellectual property of software "
That means that they are not buying the company, just IP and assets. That means that Palm will not be accepting liabilities, like support contracts, employment agreements, etc.
In scenarios like this, victim company is quickly closed and some employees are fired and some are given options to join new company.
This is not such a good deal as ouright purchase. I hope I am wrong.
Only if it is a Palm Tree.
As for Palm, well they've been in the market for a new kernel for a while now, and BeIA being very slick is perfect for them. Its established (technically, not commercially) and deals exceptionally well with real time media and networking - the kind of things Palm want to build upon for appeal.
The real question is where does that live the desktop OS that showed som much promise? As expected of a slashdot reader, I';ve got to say 'I hope it going to be made open source/GPL/Free/wibbleware' or similar words. Well, who knows... I just hope it doesnt vanish away... Press release here.
How pissed off do you think they'll be when they find out they paid millions for 127.0.0.1?
OS'es need three basic things: development environment, applications, and drivers. Surely BeOS did not lack in terms of first two. Because it was able to run GCC and many other free software
Well, kind of... What "killed" BeOS was the combined lack of software and drivers. Since it was supposed to be *the* Multimedia OS, drivers was naturally very important. You can't call an OS multimedia superior without supporting the newest and best multimedia HW.
But another very real problem was that there were no complete software (multimedia) packages. No Logic/Cubase, no Photoshop, no Illustrator, no Dreamweaver/Frontpage, no Director, no Premiere... Hell, not even a fully functional webbrowser...
Without this stuff it was probably kind of hard selling the OS as a professional development platform for multimedia designers (the presumed buyers).
And of course... There was no MS Office... (ordinary buyers)
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Well, you better start practicing since there is a near zero chance that you will ever see another BeOS update.
Personally, I got over being irate shortly after 5.0 Pro was released missing a lot of new stuff we expected. I hung around for a little while hoping to see some of the promised updates (BONE, OpenGL layer, new drivers), but once Be officially stated there would be no more BeOS updates I gave up.
BeOS is dead. Get over it. The sooner you switch to something else, the sooner you'll start feeling better. And you'll finally be able to upgrade your computer.
That'd be gp3.jpg, not gp3.jpg. Try this link.
This is good news. I use their 'Personal Assistant' PIM, and it is got to be the best PIM out there. So if Palm comes out with a Palm-BE device, hopefully I can just run PA on it. At least there are some alternatives still on the market besides Microsoft.
Actually, the problem was that the hardware sucked. I had one in 96! The company I work with had the most Be Boxes compared to any other company besides Metrowerks. Unfortunately, our main control software only runs on BeOS, and we are still shipping it.
The hardware sucked because even though it had dual processors, the processors and the supporting chipset did not allow for cache memory if you had dual processors. So, it ran slower than the single processor macs.
Then Be just decided to write BeOS so it runs on existing PPC Mac's. Steve Jobs stopped that when he went back to Apple and closed the mac architecture again. So Be got investment from Intel and started migrating BeOS to Intel. I SUSPECT that Be had some sort of agreement with Intel to phase out PPC support - I can run Linux on my Dual Mac G4, so why couldn't they make Be run on it?
My experience with BeOS has been long and sad. Beta versions and Release Candidate version going on for years. Every new version required ALL apps to be recompiled because of the 'C++ fragile base class' problem. It was neat to see the O/S architecture done in C++ but I think it caused way too much trouble in the long run. Plus they wrote the C++ code before the ANSI C++ standard was finished, so now there are much better ways of implementing the same kinds of things. BeOS serial drivers were broken for a long time, sometimes sending bytes OUT OF ORDER!
My current BeOS installation kernel panics now when I move my mouse IF a single byte has been received by my real Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface (i.e. not defaulting to UART mode). Networking plain sucks without BONE, but BONE hasn't been released. Without BONE a 100bT connection is lucky to run at 5 megabits per second!
GUI design is painful with no standard gui designer or resource editor. Hell even my old Atari ST in 1986 was easier to design GUI's with! There were GUI design programs but most if not all were closed source and therefore useless when the next version of BeOS came out until the small-time author decided to port it. Many third party support libs were closed source and just abandoned by the author.
Forced multithreading in C++ which is a language which was NEVER designed for multithreading - of course you can do it but many pitfalls await for programmers who are not anal about their semaphores. No proper debugger support for a long time. No real posix compliance.
select() works on sockets but not on serial port handles. Drivers so limited it becomes a surprise when it boots on a laptop - which was never officialy supported but necessary for us.
Mouse drivers which scan your serial ports for mice and HANG sometimes when you have a more complex device on a COM port sending data. Change the GUI default font size and all the applications gui's screw up.
The GEEKPORT, which really made the BeBox special was fun but not very well designed physically and would break or fall out during shipping.
Yes, BeOS booted FAST, ran very SNAPPY, but if it doesn't run on your computer and all the apps are unstable there is not much you can really do with it.
BeIA is probably quite decent as an embedded O/S. It contains better networking. BeOS for desktop will be gone soon, and I say "GOOD RIDDANCE"
BTW anyone know of a BeOS-like GUI class library that runs on Linux so we can port our programs?
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
The guy who wrote this book might disagree since there is a chapter on device drivers.
2 0/ 104-0598397-2948731
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15586053
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
Apache is a good example of an Open Source product that has totally eclipsed the original. Who uses NCSA's webserver any more?
The PHP scripting language is another good example.
I woudn't be at all surprised if XFree86 begins to put the commercial X distros out of business, either.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Like Interem CEO Steve Jobs, right?
Well, it does not seem good. Palm has said that it has no plans to continue developement for the Be Operating System(BeOS). I only hope they wise up and sell what Be, INC has already done. They could make a little of the money they spent in buying Be's IPs. Over a million copies of Personal Edition were downloaded. I bet that at least 1/4 of those will buy R6 if it had BONE and OpenGL...
Palm's stock is falling, even though the IDC said that Palm did the absolute best thing it could have done. SO why?? Why is Palm's stock falling?? Well, because the investors would like to see a return off the 'investment'. The Be Community is very large and very loyal. It would be in Palm's best interest to at least test the waters. Hire Be, INC to finish R6, or whatever, and then Palm should release it as the BeOS R6.
The BeOS is the best OS there is for the desktop. I just hope Palm sees this, and the hurt they will do to themeselves by not releasing a new version of BeOS ...even if it is called BeOS Epitaph
BeOS and Volvo...my two obsessions... At least Volvo will survive....
Bzzzzzt. Wrong. Tascamuses BeIA for it's new SX-1Integrated Audio Production Workstation.
I'm sure there's more.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Yes, well, www.3dfx.com looks pretty dead to me.
Yankowski: "We'll take their OS, even though it has never run on a mobile device, and it will be a hit! Then we can kill off their existing appliance business model save money by not moving into a market space we've never had a chance of competing in anyway." Kessler: "I quit." Gassee: "I should have sold to Apple when I had the chance. Will that be cash, check or credit card?" Yankowski: "Do you take stock?" Gassee: "No. Wait! Come back! I'll take it."
Goddamnit!
Goddamn windows lovers always talk about how linux isn't that good and that's why windows is on top.
BULLSHIT!
beOS was the OS that should have been on top. It is a beautiful OS with everything a regular person would want -- a fast, robust system with plenty of applications for it (www.bebits.com), fantastic features, a simple yet beautiful UI with an even simpler configuration, and a shitload of other things going for it, such as posix compatibility and a free C compiler and IDE.
People, when you speak of an OS that should be on every regular users PC, this is it. BeOS was virtually flawless, and would have become moreso if the market wasn't so hideously monopolized that a good piece of code like beOS couldn't compete.
WHO NEEDS A BETTER EXAMPLE OF HOW AN MS MONOPOLY HURTS THE INDUSTRY?
P.S. Sorry if this point has been brought up already -- I'd never get to the reply button in time if I read the articles *and* the posts.
It's been a long time.
Heh, yeah, and maybe they could end up bankrupt like those guys at Eazel who thought it would be a great idea to take the UI skills that they learned from Apple and try to make loads money from the Linux market. As the psycho dad in "Heathers" said, "Showed those fucks." :)
"Be would be the core of OS X"
That would be SOMETHING. I sincerely believe, in the long term, Apple would be better of with BEOS instead of BSD variant.
BeOS was simply better suited for the kind of market Apple is aiming for.
Did anyone see the stock prices? Be's gone down 47% to .25! TWENTY FIVE CENTS A SHARE!! It takes effort to drop your stock price down that far.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
I'm not an 'Open source everything!' zealot, but there's three letters anyone here really ought to remember in reply to that comment.
B, S and D. They ripped out the bits they couldn't open, then released the rest. Meanwhile, hackers spend time building replacements that can stay there.
Why not with BeOS? They may have sound business reasons for not wanting to (which they're allowed to), but there is a technical precedent for that sort of move.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
But BeOS surely failed in driver support. Mine and my friends' Be adventure was short because of driver issues.
The conclusion is: Since there is (almost) no driver issue on PDAs, BeOS may suit very well on them. I do not know how much Palm integrate from Be kernel, but they will surely use Be applications and development environment. With the addition of the PalmOS emulator (currently downloadable from their site) we may see many free software development on *nix for Palm.
Tired of cars? Try stage coaches!
Be keeps their cash with this agreement.
Good Lord! This has to the THE worst 'E-' name to date. EVIL-la. 'Who are the ad wizards who came up with THIS one?'
m00.
The Palm OS road plan, as far as I understand it (and I have no inside contacts whatsoever) is for Palm OS 5.0 to be far more multimedia-capable and powerful in general than preceding Palm OSs were. In addition, Palm OS 5.0 will run on new ARM-based hardware, giving it lots more processing power while retaining Palm's superior battery life. Existing Palm software will probably be run under emulation.
I can certainly see the Be folks helping out in the multimedia arena. I wonder if they'll do any work on the user interface side? I kinda hope not, since I like the simplicity of Palm OS.
Wow. Talk about unexpected. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Apple.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Ok, the logical reason for Palm to buy Be's ip is so they can do stuff with BeIA. I'm told that the developement platform is BeOS. Besides the BeIA developers, and already existing loyal BeOS users, will BeOS be getting any new users? probably not. At least while Be owned it I could tell myself that things would eventually turn for the better, even though Be hasn't done anything with it in a year. Now BeOS users will slowly start being grouped with the likes of other high quality, yet fairly dead, OS'es. This is bad. It will devide the BeOS community. BeBox owners will be grouped with Amiga owners, but those that use BeOS on a mac or pc will be grouped with the OS/2 users. Please don't do that to us. We will remain loyal to Be and the BeOS. Don't sweep us away. This is exactly why I wish I was still a mac user. Instead I'll have to boot up linux. I wonder how the Next people survived. I feel dirty.
I want PalmOS for x86 fuck windows.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
If they ported BeOS to the palm colors...
*drool*
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Yeah, Palm was heading down the road to destruction pretty well, but I think this move really seals it for them. Not that the stock itself is that much, it's more of a perception thing, showing how directionless Palm has been for the last couple of years. It's like they're in the death throes flailing around for anything they can grasp onto just to stay alive. It's hard to believe that a company with such a large marketshare is thought by so many to be destined for www.fuckedcompany.com, but that just shows you how badly the past couple of years has been for Palm and how poorly they've set themselves up for the future.
On a side note, and having used BeOS in the past: Ouch about being bought out for only $11 million. And not just $11 million, but $11 million in Palm stock, which is going to be about as valuable as VA Linux stock in a couple of years...
Well, Palm might licence it out to companies doing web pads. I doubt Palm themselves are about to try and go into the web pad market: they have too much competition in their base market to divide their focus.
Open sourcing BeOS might be nice, too. I bet their kernel has lots of goodness that could go into, say, Linux.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
When you think about it... Palm OS looks more like BeOS than any other OS out there. For example... that tab in the upper left corner.
the only thing that palm would want, given thier current market would be the staff, so I am wondering, what are they going to do with the OS? are they planing to move to the desktop? I don't see anyone using BeOS as a way to leverage the market, palm has palmOS, is there any tech in BeOS that would be useful to them?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
If Palm implements BeOS as well as Apple implemented NeXT, Palm would be doing fabulous.
Guess you never used MacOS X, eh? You should check it out, rather than speaking thru your hole.
The core dump would be a file named goofy.
The mouse would henceforth be known as the 'Mickey'.
Saying "I'm sick and tired of this Micky-Mouse operating systm" would no longer mean you were talking about Windows.
m00.
Does he have a supersonic jet with a crazy new wireless internet access with which he can post to slashdot from the middle of the atlantic?
or did he jaunt to greenland for a brief siteseeing venture?
(Note: check the time it was updated)
BeOS is not based on XINU (yea, I've heard that rumor too). XINU is an x86 OS that doesn't run in protected mode. BeOS is a microkernel that started on the AT&T Hobbit. Totally different beasts.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Hmm... sounds like the SEC might have a problem with that.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
Now, please don't panic or jump out any windows. Just remember, you win some, you lose some.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
That's one of the wittiest posts I've come across all day.
How did JLG do developers wrong?
D
Morons.
Now imagine the two working together. You need directions or some good sushi places, you walk up to the kiosk, do a search and transfer it to you palm pilot.
This concept could do so much, too bad Palm probably doesn't have the capital to pull it off.
Well, Palm are supposed to be moving from the Motorola DragonBall to the ARM architecture in the near future. Perhaps they felt it necessary to acquire some developers who had experience writing a real OS?
Well, this is the future how I'd like to see it:
Palm takes BeIA in order to compete with the PocketPC/WindowsCE platform and possibly licence BeOS for devices like Edirol and Tascam make them or let Sony build HARP-devices. BeOS will remain as the development platform for BeIA, I think it ain't that easy to migrate the complete development environment to Win2k. Palm will make BeOS available for free just like you can get the PalmOS development tools for free now. In order to have broad acceptance for that development platform, Palm will be forced to keep BeOS up to date with support for the latest hardware, like Kyro or PIV.
Let's just hope the best
Doubtless Palm was after not the desktop BeOS, but the BeIA internet appliance operating system. BeIA has, to date, only been sold to Sony for the eVilla gizmo, but that probably won't earn Sony much money. But if Palm can combine BeIA with their own PalmOS, they could really give PocketPC a run for the market.
Q: I can run Linux on my Dual Mac G4, so why couldn't they make Be run on it? A: Because if they based their BeOS development on the Linux porting work, they would be 'infected' by the 'viral' nature of the GPL and would have to open source their OS.
My point is that the the architecture information is available. You don't have to use linux source code with its 'Viral' nature. NetBSD and Darwin are available for Mac's now with more applicable licenses.
Q: BTW anyone know of a BeOS-like GUI class library that runs on Linux so we can port our programs? A: Have you checked out the Berlin? The only way to get anything like BeOS performance is to scrap X-windows. I don't know if Berlin is any faster but it seems to be the only other prevalent GUI to Linux.
Last I looked at Berlin it still wasn't complete. But I am looking for a class library that is very similiarly laid out as the Be GUI class library so I can take existing BeOS app code and port it easily to either WIN32 or X.
On a semi-related note, what happened to the GUI which you could get from Kaffe 1.1 (or so). You didn't even need an X server at all, Kaffe drew its own AWT classes. This would be great, to be able to simply boot the Linux kernel and bring up a JDesktopPane.
That WOULD be interesting. I didn't know Kaffe had GUI capabilities! Thx.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
As you said they're already using it, plus Sony's really pissed about MS's business practices & are not impressed by MS going out & competing with them (XBox), as they are one of MS's best clients (VAIO, uses MS OSes, & don't even offer Linux OSes as a alternative, unlike other laptop makers, such as Dell & IBM).
Mnn, that's one big sentence.
Also Intel owns quite a bit oof Be Inc, which could creat problems for a none X86 user buyout - Palm uses a CPU based on the ole Moto 680 while Sony uses X86 almost exclusively (well for their OS based CPU's, if you know what I mean).
Time for a pedantic historical note.
Be started out on a chip from AT&T called the Hobbit (http://www.bebox.nu/beboxdev.php). First prototype used 1 hobbit. The second used 2 hobbits and 3 3210 DSPs (the AV in the Quadra AVs, plus also used in numerous Photoshop accelerator boards). This would have made for a really, really cool system. But, then the Hobbit was canceled.
That is when Be moved to PPC. The PPC BeBoxes were actually kinda crummy. They have no L2 cache, which hurt them, and they used 603 chips which also weren't so great. The only reason that people didn't realize the boxes sucked (well, sucked might not be the right word, since they were nicely designed, and the geek port was cool, but there were too many sacrifices made) was that the OS was so much radically better than anything else in speed and responsiveness that most people didn't notice.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Palm's market share is falling like a stone.
Palm's stock price is falling like a stone.
You'd hope that someone that'll be in business in 3 years would have bought Be. Like Sony or Apple or IBM. But at the rate that Palm is tanking, I doubt they will be in business by 2004.
It's entirely possible (likely in fact) that I'm confused, but I was under the impression they bailed on the hardware because they couldn't get FCC Class B certification.
I really liked the Geekport, but was just out of college, recently married, and had too many bills at the time to buy one.
Who says there not?
I heard that Microsoft was preparing to shut-out Be, INC a few years ago.
They even mentioned them in their anti-trust trial!
They assiimilated Be's technology via reverse engineering.
Take a look at Windows XP, you will see that it is terribly similar to BeOS an many aspects
BeOS and Volvo...my two obsessions... At least Volvo will survive....
yeth I do!!!
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
Does this mean that we might actually have a palm running a BE OS? I don't really see the thought process that Palm is following here, unless they are just trying to pick-up a lot of engineers at a good price.
Macho Engineer Donkey Wrestler
Multimedia experiance on Palm, that's why. Image apps like SoundPlay and mpgplayers on your Palm. It's the multimedia apps that have been letting WinCE kick the pants out of Palm.
Hi Leo Schwab! Now that Be is gone are you moving to Palm or will you be searching for another job somewhere else? Good luck!
No MS Office, true, but there WAS (and still is) Gobe Productive.
Gobe Productive is still alive and kicking ass despite the failure of the Be operating system. (It's just screenshot, guaranteed goatse.cx free.)
New powerful CPU and a single-user Multimedia, rampantly multi-threaded operating system with a knack for fitting whereever it's stuffed.
Sounds like a better bet than a Linux pda. {duck}
Yes, teh Krat is a slashdotter. Ph33r!
I rarely do more than just glance at the headlines these days, though.
To Be or not to Be.
Because color displays suck for serious work. Ever heard of "battery life"? PocketPCs for the kids and PHBs, Psion and Palm for those who actually use these things for PIM, writing, reading etc. Too bad people are stupid.
I nearly LOL'ed, myself... product placement is getting sneakier every year.
Perhaps the icon could be the head of Jean-Louis Gassée with some sort of palm-like augmentation on his face..
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
If I'm a BeOS user who's gonna be really irate if Palm doesn't continue BeOS development, how many people are with me? Anyone?
[o]_O
More like 8 hours ago, check out BeBits
Yeah, but if the new market is a bust (and I have yet to see any web pad sell except in the clearance bin), and going there makes you less able to compete in your base market, you're dead too.
If Palm wanted a new market to go after, they should try to break into TI's graphing calculator for high schoolers market. All it would take is one app.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
That is, *IF* they can stay alive long enough....
Things don't look so good for any PDA business that isn't doesn't have a 'Q' in it somewhere....
-Violence may be the last refuge of the incompetant, but I know what turns Mr. Hand into Mr. Fist...
I thought it said that JLG will only be temporarily in that position. Presumably then he will "pursue other interests". That's probably a good thing, since JLG's attitude towards BeOS developers and users hasn't exactly helped the company over the last few years.
Heya all. I've been using BeOS for past two and a half years. I will not stop using it, as it does everything I need it to do. There are driver specifications, so I can add drivers if I need to myself. I just bought myself a Armada M700, runs BeOS just great (except for the sound, but for that I'm going to port a driver from OSS/Free). Before people go berzerk, think Amiga, and also think: do what feels good! I'm going to continue using this operating system 'til I see I can't do what I want with it. -- tic, Be Developer ID #E-20392 "As long as a man's dreams are those of sleeping late on weekends, some beer and some occassional snuggling, nobody can ever take those away from him!" -- Marge S. (not a literal quote, but you get the idea)
So does this mean that we get SMP palms with little LED bargraphs on each side of the display for each CPU?
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
And by the way, I'm actually an avid Palm supporter. I'm just wondering what kind of a dent it makes in the industry when a financially-strapped company buys another.
AFIK, FCC Class B certification is nothing all that special. I could be wrong, but I dont think the FCC tests class b devices...you just follow the guidelines and slap on a sticker
I'm probly not right tho (can anyone back me up?)
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
Strange is grammer or name article of slashdot. Hurt the my is this by brain.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
I'm struggling to figure out why Palm would do this acquisition. I mean sure they pick up some world class software developers who could surely help them in working with the PalmOS - but what are they going to do with the BeOS?
Another poster suggested that they port BeOS to the Palm color. I'm sure it's feasible - says my brain even though it can barely spell BeOS - but it wouldn't really shine in the Palm. The BeOS is a true pervasively multi-threaded OS. AFAIK, it was built for heavy multimedia applications that involve a lot of disk I/O -- something you rarely see in a Palm device.
Now if Palm were going to make a play to expand the BeOS product line for the desktop -- ie. try to compete headon with Micro$oft, Linux, BSD, etc. that would be interesting! It's too bad that AOL/Time Warner wasn't the one doing the acquisition - they'd have much deeper pockets to actually make the desktop OS competition interesting.
Sex, Cars or Computers? or Should We Be Together? - you decide
The GPL.
They ported across to X86 in virtually no time, relative to how long such ports normally take
It was then re-purposed as a Windows alternative, aimed (again) at multimedia content developers. Who stayed with the Mac, for reasons noted above.
The only other people who might want Be were the ones who wanted an alternative to both Windows and the Mac. We went to Linux, because it had both freedoms, and more apps.
Best Slashdot Co
enjoy here
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Tired of walking? Get into a space shuttle!!! Fucking Lusers.
Even though the Tascam web page says it uses "BeIA", the engineer responsible for it posted on BeNews that it is actually BeOS R5 Pro.
The x86 port and then BeIA were simply last ditch efforts to reposition Be in an entirely different market than it was designed for.
IMO, the only thing that could have kept Be viable was to have dumped the OS and to have kept the hardware. Commodity priced PowerPC boxes running LinuxPPC could have made Be a household name in the workstation market.
Well now that I've touched streaming video, I'll never go back to ASCII Video/Static low quality, low color images again... Bring it on full color full movie... :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
For those of you who don't remember, When Apple was interested in Be in 1996, Jean-Louis Gasse asked for 400 millions, It wasn't worth it so they went with NeXt instead :)
11 million in Palm stock, huh? What's that, like 5.8E21 shares at this point?
Juiced? Or Not?
Palm could use the B in Be in rename their flagship product 'the Balm' and they could use such trendy phrases as: 'it's the balm of your digital world' 'balm is the beat-all of all your needs' 'with a palm and balm the uses are endless!' everyone knows that they've just overused the word Palm and now it's common everyday blah.. it doesn't cull out a "what is that" anymore.
This is a great move for Palm - with all the handhelds being powered by a more and more powerful OS, Palm needs a real jolt in this area.
Palm's OS will be easy to emulate in BeOS, and BeOS is well suited to small platforms. For $11 million, this is a bargain of an investment for a company that needs a new OS.
Apple did it a few years back with NeXT, with stellar results. I forsee this propelling Palm ahead... perhaps not way ahead, but ahead none the less.
It's much better this way, than the year and a half we've been kept in suspense.
okay when do we see Palm Be -- made to compete with Win Ce -- it will have Open GL, Java support, Realtime video manipulation and capture support, all the fun stuff that is loved in Be -- but on a Palm pilot type device??? ---- http://www.wordnature.com I'm remis how bout you?
He started a company which made a pointless operating system that was marketed to noone in particular.
Why... make the Disney Operating System of course! ohhh the humanity!
i'm going to buy palm's ipx! lololololololololololololololol.
geek humor. it's an acquired taste.
You'd hope that someone that'll be in business in 3 years would have bought Be. Like Sony or Apple or IBM.
Reminds me of those Kia commercials. "10 Year Warantee!" they claim. Like I believe that a copmany who builds cars as crappy as Kia is actually gonna be around in 10 years. The only company who I've seen Consumer Reports actually say "you would have to really work to make a worse car" about.
What's wrong? I have written drivers for BeOS, I have read sources of Unix drivers. I know how BeOS drivers look like from the inside, do you?
You will lose it all. Notice that after the sale, BE will liquidate and that will be it. Ciao!
Not really. Although BeOS is not based on Unix despite other claims, the drivers work somehow similar. A Be engineer once stated on the dev mailing list that it'd be possible to port XFree86 drivers in a couple of hours. As for sound and network drivers, just like in Unix they are mapped to device files with regular open(), read(), write() etc functions.
Aha now it make sense first Palm has been loosing market share and revenue. Now it announces that it will be moving to arm architecture then it announces that it is splitting into two divisions software and hardware and now they by out BeOs. They obviously have discovered that the money isn't in making the devices it's in making the software that runs them. Hardware is expensive and low profit you have to have manufacturing facilities distributors and engineers, all of which cut into already thin profit margins. But if you make the software that makes other peoples hardware work all you need is a office and a group of programmers. Take a look at the difference between Apple and Microsoft Apple sells hardware that runs there software and Microsoft make software that runs on other peoples hardware we can all see which one is the most profitable business model. Palm is repositioning it's self to be IP company rather than a hardware company soon you will refer to your palm device like you refer to a windows PC not by who made the hardware but by what Os it runs
I've never noticed it before but my thinking cap does sort of resemble a hockey helmet
If you have a subscription to the WSJ, you can read the full story here.
what is intresting is the differant hardware that Be has had to run on
AT&T hobbit processor - starting blocks
Power -- IBM 32 bit chip
PowerPC -- IBM 32/64 bit chip
dragonball -- MOT trying to beat ARM
intel 586 -- plain intel arch when it all seemed to be going fast
Geode -- NatSemi trying to get MOT market
and now
ARM 5TE -- the guys from cambridge who didnt have any money (they do now)
what is intresting about this is what would you compile with,
for the hobbit it would be their own compiler
then power again a custom or gcc
then PowerPC either relie on Power stuff or use IBM compiler
IA use GCC
Geode as well dragonball use GCC or custom
ARM will Proberly use GCC or custom proberly greenhills Multi2000
the point is to go through all this would mean alot of it will be standards with little or no complex features used
makes porting to ARM a breaze
PalmOS compatability going to ARM is going to be an emulation job anyway
why not emulate all of existing API + processor and start with something new ?
what do you think ?
regards
john jones
We are pleased to announce the beta release of Palm Reflections, full feature, Palm sync application for the BeOS. Go to http://www.omicronsoft.com for full details.
What did Be do to Compaq?
I wonder if Palm wants to use the Be kernel for the next generation of ARM-based devices. Note that PalmOS already runs on top of a different kernel (AMX, I think), licensed from another company.
-Karl
The Register has the story at www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21080.html. Palm will pay $11 million in stock. Be's shareholders still have to approve the deal.
man, i figured palm was pretty much dead, given how fast their stock has been plummeting. now with this acquisition, anyone else think that palm will be here to stay? will they give up their own os and embed beos onto new palms? only time will tell. very interesting though...
E.
-
This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
rockin the suburbs, ben folds
What the fuck stopped them was that they had VERY limited resources and had to put those towards advancing the OS on a platform the had real support for (Intel lent them engineers). Taking time to reverse engineer things for a platform that didn't want them (zero mac systems would ever come pre-installed with BeOS after Jobs came into power at Apple) would be silly when they needed every man-hour of work they could get just to get advancements going on their x86 version.
And there is this story at Yahoo.
And, too bad about Alan Kessler leaving. He was one of the few former 3Com guys that I really respected. A good guy, and seemed sharp.
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold
I personally think Be's reason for not supporting Apple's G3/G4 logic/IO chipsets is because of Intel's involvment.
They claim that as a corporation it would be risky for them to reverse engineer Apple's chipset drivers - well waht the fucks stopping them from reverse engineering the Linux's Apple G4 chipset drivers.
They already support the Mac-Clone G3 chipsets & the beige Mac G3 chipsets, so it can't be that hard technically for them.
If by "integrate" you mean, allow synchronization, it already exists. Also PSION pdas can be synchronized. Find out more at http://www.bebits.com/
Details, man!
What kinds? Who? Where?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
...but only because they've overextended themselves. (In contrast, Microsoft is years away from overextending themselves because they have so many other ways to provide income.) However, the Palm name is still well-recognized and appreciated. Think of all the apps available for the PalmOS. Think of how "PalmPilot" is still a casual name for any handheld computer, despite the fact that Palm hasn't made any "Pilots" for a couple of years. Now imagine a full-color, fully-interactive OS for a color handheld or web tablet with the Palm name branding it. Be's name couldn't make that sell. Palm's name could. Microsoft could sell it better, of course, but (TabletPCs notwithstanding) they're still not quite there yet. And neither Sony nor Apple nor IBM is really in the handheld/portable market, while Palm has been about nothing but. If anyone can make the BeIA a success now, it'd be Palm. (Whether they will or not is open to speculation.)
If one failing company buys out another failing company, does it make a sound? :)
I haven't seen much surprise from the
However, that said, I can see that the main reason you want more power on a PDA is for multimedia and that's been the focus of Be, Inc. since the beginning. And it's closed source which is a better revenue stream. But still... putting Be's multimedia code on top of the PalmOS seems to me like turbo-charging a lawnmower.
The question is will the PalmOS absorb the multimedia expertise of the BeOS or will the BeOS be shrunk down to fit on a next-gen Palm?
-R
Me
I've never understood hardcore Linux users. They're always blindly optimistic. There could be a headline stating "Earthquake Hits Be, Inc. Headquarters, All Employees Dead" and somebody at Slashdot will post "I bet their kernel has lots of goodness that could go into, say, Linux. Let's hope for the best."
-- Boycott Shell
a) IP is bad
b) Property is theft.
Already specialised Audio mixing gear has been matched with BeOS, very successfully.
First, everone's favourite fearless leader, JLG, will be in an "advisory position" to their OS group, hopefully having some input/control as to the future of the PalmOS platform.
We all know what happened when another charismatic, former Apple executive had his company bought out, then assumed an "advisory position" in the new company, right? (Think Gil Amelio, hint, hint!) Palm's CEO better keep a close eye on JLG.
-jimbo
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Bob and Larry from VeggieTales
I believe that it would be a wrong decision to allow Gassee to provide business planning efforts or Palm. Don't get me wrong the BeOS was and partially still is a vrey remarkable operating system. I really enjoyed playing about with it.
It is just my opinion that Gassee should have taken Apple up on the offer back in the day. Of course we, more than likely, never would have seen BeOS on the x86 platform if that happened. At least the BeOS could be in greater general use than it is today.
While I do use Linux and I am far from afraid of the CLI. I really enjoy a very crisp, clean and attractive GUI environment. BeOS provided that and also gave me the CLI that I actually enjoy. I really hoped that BeOS would have taken more market share and continued to be a viable desktop platform.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Sigh...
Right now the market is in horrible shape. PC OEMS are nothing more than Windows distributors and Apple has a near monolopy on not being Microsoft. It would be nice to get some fresh blood in the industry.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Secondly, Palm doesn't defecate on developers. Be did, despite JLG's comments. Let's hope this turns out better for us developers.
Thirdly, Be does have existing BeIA contracts, and it's possible that Palm would consider continuing to market BeIA to IA developers as a means of bringing in more money (but with the Palm name attached). What is the development platform for BeIA? Why, it's BeOS. They either need to port their development platform over to another OS (unlikely) or continue BeOS at least for developers of that.
Lastly, this isn't a buyout. Palm bought Be's *assets*. Be as a company is still around, and a note in their press release said they retain the right to bring suits, *including under antitrust law*. You can all speculate as to the target, esp. considering what they did with Compaq.
I don't understand your statements about Unix device drivers. A driver for BeOS is completely unlike a driver for any other operating system.
The BeOS has a fragile base class problem. NeXT does not! That's one of the many reasons Apple was right in not buying them! http://dreadnet.editthispage.com/2000/05/20
Replying to my own comment to get it noticed :) I really could use some info from someone. Thanks
The second big mistake they made was the damn "focus shift" to internet appliances, where they dumped BeOS and alienated the customers and developers. You can blame Sakoman as well as Gassee for that brillant move.
I based my XINU comment on my well-worn copy of the BeOS Bible.
In an interview with one of the BeOS developers, he stated that one of the other guys (Be employee #3 or so) "... cracked open the XINU book" and began coding.
I didn't mean to imply that BeOS was derived from XINU, only inspired by it.
Good to see that someone out there knows what XINU is, most people just give me a blank stare.
Ummm, how about a next generation handheld?
Why microsoft is not interrested by Be?
Ack! I can just see Gasse on his knees pleading with Palm, "Please buy us! I'll even take it all in [gulp] stock!"
Also notice that the press release says that Palm is buying intellectual property only! Smart move. From the release, Be Inc will retain "rights and assets [which] include Be's cash (they have cash?) and cash equivalents, receivables, certain contractual rights, and rights to assert and bring certain claims and causes of action, including under antitrust laws." IOW, Be is probably going to file bankruptcy once the sale of the IP is complete.
Be is POSIX compliant, but it isn't unix. Where the hell did you come up with that idea?
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
don't forget that the PPC XXXe forms are excellent embedded processors - and Be started out on PPC. And motorola make PPC, and Palm have a "relationship" with them, as the largest buyers of their older 68k line.
They outpriced BeOS so high that anyone willing to take a day to install Linux said "why bother with BeOS?". But this high price is to be expected: they are based in a valley where rents are $1500 for a 1 bedroom and beers cost $7. BeOS is just another example of a yuppy company being disconnected with the realities of the non-yuppy world.
..for Be's IP? Thats alot of money for 208.185.132.200...
[root@za'ha'dum]# ping be.com
PING be.com (208.185.132.200) from 192.168.0.107 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from www.be.com (208.185.132.200): icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=105.071 msec
64 bytes from www.be.com (208.185.132.200): icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=178.490 msec
64 bytes from www.be.com (208.185.132.200): icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=121.719 msec
64 bytes from www.be.com (208.185.132.200): icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=148.691 msec
what about this? http://pocketsensei.com/color.htm
---
I guess the only reasons they would do this is to strengthen their multimedia products with the emergence of the iPaq and other mp3-and-movie-playing PDAs.
If you put your mouse on the BeOS link you'll see it points to www.palm.com :o)
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
I say get rid of BeOS for the PC platform. Concentrate 100% on using BeIA as the basis of the new PalmOS for ARM processors. The power of BeOS on a Palm device will rock! Be and Palm are my two favourite companies. Only good can come out of this.
This is a great move for Palm. It will be trivial to support current PalmOS applications running on a StrongArm version of the BeOS.
The BeOS should scale downward nicely to StrongArm-based Palm devices and it's one of the few operating systems in the world that truly understands the power of pervasive threading. (Linux, Windows, and MacOS X threads are a joke compared to the BeOS)
If Palm had any balls, they would open source the BeOS for use on desktop-class machines just to piss off Microsoft. I'm sure a lot of users would like to run the same operating system on their handhelds as their desktops, especially as their handhelds become more powerful.
The only thing Palm really needs now is some good handwriting recognition software. They really need to buy Calligrapher in order to make their handhelds useful to a larger number of people.
If only Palm could get BeOS to properly install and run on a PC, it would be worth those $11M...
ObBeSlap: anyone notice that the 'Product' button on the Be site navbar doesn't do anything?
Of course part of the problem was the system reqs to run Newton OS. It would have been difficult to make a PDA that requires megabytes of memory price competetive with a PDA that functions well on 128k. Newton OS required a fat processor at a high speed which required bigger batteries (4 AA vs Palm's 2 AAA).
funny in the article about OpenGL 1.3 we can read this:
All of the major platforms as well as more specialized ones including AIX, BeOS, HP-UX, IRIX and OS/2 support the standard.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Palm OS is showing its age, and needs the ability to do more. Yeah, WinCE may suck for a boatload of reasons, but there's an audience out there for web browsing, MP3 playing, and rich, full-color applications on a PDA. (Whether a PDA really needs to be able to do all these things is debatable, of course.) Be OS can do all these, but never really had the opportunity to break into a mass-market product. At first, I thought this was a strange marriage, but it's starting to make some sense now.
--- Why yes, I am the webmaster of Microsuck.com
$11 million for some of the best gui-only OS code around? Sounds like a good deal to me. Wish I had a rich uncle...I'd buy it and open source it.
w|f
Is Be really a desktop OS anymore? When was the last Be 3rd party app, 1998?
Palm is not buying Be, Inc. Palm is buying Be's intellectual property. Palm is NOT buying Be as a whole. The situation is similiar to nVidia and 3dfx.
How will this affect slashdot's icons? Can you imagine the merging of the BE and Palm Icons into one? :)
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
If there's any company that would be a great owner for Be, it's Palm. Both of them are the underdogs in their market. And, strangely enough to the same company... Microsoft. With the strength of both of these companies together, we finally may see someone that can take on Microsoft in both the desktop and palmtop marketplace. And the embedded arena. Just think of the possibilities.
The Audrey was ill fated, but maybe with the strength of the Be developpers behind them, Palm could expand their market a little!
And in news that maybe be related/unrelated, Alan Kessler, big-wig at Palm, will be leaving the company soon.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
When Be liquidates, any cash left over would be paid out as a dividend. However if there is any liability (debt) there will not be anything left over. Be glad that a corporation is a "limited liability" entity, or you could find yourself liable for some of that debt remainder.
They're investing in their future - more furniture and computers to sell off when THEY go out of business. ;)
And what will Disney do with all three of them?
Disney will probably join with the rest of the MPAA and lobby for a constitutional amendment that removes what "limited times" are still left in copyright law after the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?].
Will I retire or break 10K?
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
So they bought an OS and development tools for whatever Palm turns itself into. OK Dragonball is dead long live ARM. We all thought this would free up Palm the hardware company to use SymbianOS which is a whole shitload better for wireless apps than PalmOS. That left Palm the software company to errrrr.... pound sand. They don't own Symbian and shortly no one NO ONE will want a Dragonball OS unless it' to simply suck royalties from Sony, Handspring and Handera/TRG. So they had to go after a general purpose OS they could use to differentiate themselves. Why not Lunix or BFD you ask? Well if it was so easy someone would have had more than a funky demo by now. Sure the LinuxDA distro is sort of maybe not quite here but as far as development tools? Shucks Mabel, it looks like yer gonna hafta roll yer own!!!!!!!! So Be makes sense: you get the base of an OS you get tools and you get some experience writing apps. Sounds like a better business model than the one they had. I wonder if they can execute on that?
You'll probably get an option for either a 30-minute duration battery, or a really, really long extension cord.
For the more robust in the crowd, a man-portable generator can be worn on the back (camera zooms from announcers face to a scantily clad model wearing a 20 kilo back pack that's belching diesal exhaust, high heels clicking as she struggles down the catwalk).
And that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation).
There are long-standing rumors that Palm wants to ditch the Dragonball for ARM. They demoed PalmOS running on ARM earlier this year, but it had a long way to go. Maybe this gets them out of porting.
Two is not equal to three, not even for very large values of two.
1) Be only had *one* IP?
2) They're *really* overpaying for that...even Verizon charges less. 8:o)
Help us build a better map!
It says in the article that Palm wants to acquire Be's software engineers. Which I could understand. I just hope Palm isn't going to try to make the Palm platform into another WinCE.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
I could well imagine a PDA with a hardware and the related performance similar to the IPAQ, but Be-based OS running on it. Would that be better than an IPAQ? I think it's worth contemplating the possibility, it's sounds appealing to me. What do you think, folks?
BeOS has a posix compatibility layer, but that doesn't make it a *nix. *nix device drivers cannot be ported so easily to BeOS.
Actually, BeOS is based on XINU (Xinu Is Not Unix).
I have to also wonder if this was a move in opposition to a perceived threat from Sony and Microsoft. Now palm controls how sony uses the BeIA.
I believe BeIA does not run under the dragonball processor... actually, it doesn't run under a majority of the currently used PDA processors.
And that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation).
Isn't "self-masturbatory" a little redundant redundant?
excuse me, sir, your ignorance is showing...
Be has been marketing itself to the internet appliance market for sometime now. Perhaps Palm feels it needs to upgrade it's user interface to keep up with WINCE. Not to start a war, but the palm interface is crude and not very attractive. I can't figure out why it has taken them so long to support colors on the interface.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Maybe we'll get light tablets with smooth video, wireless, device connectivity, and GPL software in the hands of the public.
We (might) get unix drivers for all those little hardware doodads that will plug into the palm.. If SD devices can roll out much larger memory capacities I bet this will give Sony's memory stick vision a run for the money. It's basically 200 companies (in SD, pushing SDIO) against the Sonies. Hmm this could all be a war of whose batteries last longer. If so Sony's way ahead.
be, i always thought had potential... lets hope palm makes something good of it.
i cant seem to come up with a sig.
When I submitted the news this morning, Be stock was at 46, now it is at 19, well...
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Whoa... its 2:16 PM already? Where did the day go? I don't even think this post would be before 2:16 PM according to my clock...
In terms of the buy out, I haven't really used BEOS heavily but I tried it a while back and I liked its clean and fast interface. In one sense it may be good for Palm to port it over to their hardware so they can catch up to microsoft interms of multimedia support on their platform; something that BEOS was advertised to excel at.
Seriously, now Jobs could pick up Be's technology without having to deal with Gasse. Advisory roles can be eliminated quite quickly. Jobs knows Gasse blew Apple's chance at fortune when he refused to license MacOS to Microsoft. Remember how Apple couldn't come to terms with Be in April? Probably because Gasse demanded a seat on the board or something like that. Non-technical problems. $11M is a steal.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I turned off Score +1 and turned on anonymity, and the settings seem to have gotten stuck! This post is to test the phenomenon. My apologies for the OT-ness to all concerned.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Sure, they didn't buy Be. They just bought their Intellectual Property (IP). That's like me purchasing your heart and lungs from you for a good price so I can improve my own body functions. Surely, you can survive without them right? No, your body will fold up all operations (read: die) just like Be plans to fold up their operations after Q4 2001.
-- Mike
They haven't sold those things for years.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This Be thing is not going to be for PalmOS5, but of PalmOS6. First, the kernel and multimedia API's need to be ported to the ARM, and then the Palm OS 5 interface and API needs to be able to run on top of this.
Expect 400MHz+ XScale Palm PDA's running BePalmOS6 within 2 years. I hope.
Now Apple needs to buy Palm and then the circle will be complete.
Beyond being able to better integrate the Palm with BeOS (which I would hope was not their motivation) I can't think of what they can do with this that would be useful.
Anyone have any other thoughts?
Personally, I can only hope that Palm does incorporate BeIA/BeOS for the next PalmOS. I've written apps for the Palm and it's a pain in the arse. Writing for the PocketPC is infinitely easier, in my opinion. I haven't written anything specifically for Be, but I hear it's a pleasant experience, so I hope for the best.
My sigs always suck.
Palm needs to get their asses in gear, I could see developers from BE helping with a super-top-secret handheld that smokes the Ipaq out of the water. There are rumors that Ipaq will be switching to ARM processors (thank god, 22mhz is not enough!).
Perhaps this is some new zanny idea of Palms, and in a year or two, we'll be seeing something absolutly jaw dropping from them.
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
Okay okay, Enough about the technology being exchanged, From the sounds of the article, we as stock holders will get screwed? If Be is only selling its technology, whats to happen to the stock? As owner of both beos and palm stock, I am way confused here. Could someone with knowledge about such things please post?
It would be great if Palm adopted Be as their new OS, however, I hope this doesn't turn into another Mozilla where a great product is released too late to be a factor after the MS steamroller has taken over. At least it would be a bonus to us loyal Palm users.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Note that this deal is going for something like NEGATIVE 50% premium over market price (stock fell 50%). Also that Be had something like 5 million in cash (as of last quarter). So the Be management/owner must have been really pessimistic. Palm bought it really cheap.
This might possible be a way for palm to separate out its software palmos side into a separate company without paying a lot of tax, which they would otherwise have done if they had to split palm inc into two companies.
Except for Jean-looey though, he'll get off with the $5m or so in the bank and the justification to himself that he made a great company that was just put out of business by evil back room Apple management.
Palm on the other hand, about to topple over from it's top-heaviness. About to keel over and making last minute desparate purchases to try and bolster it's position.
I wonder if the whole thing was a plot by Jean-looey to get Apple to buy Palm when it dies, thus being vindicated for Apple buying the Jobs-o-matic instead of him.
One thing I'm currently semi-involved with is writing some UDI drivers.
UDI is a driver environment that abstracts normal system services and makes them consistent across multiple operating systems. A conformant driver is source compatible across all systems and binary compatible across systems with the same ABI. Low penetration platforms (like Be and others) if they created the environment, could use something like this to boost their driver availability.
The environment itself is a bit strange at first, most functions are asynchronous and have callbacks, so you rely a lot more on state information. It's very modular, and the APIs to other modules are function vectors called metalanguages. But once your in your in a call in your module, it's serialized so you have no synchronization issues - the environment handles this. The modules can run anywhere, on multiple cpus, or even (in theory) on multiple machines in a cluster.
Why Microsoft is not interested in Be?
Good Riddance to Mr. Gassee & his OS.
He sold this thing in a retail box as BeOS 4, what people got was a very incomplete Beta.
For 10 years now nothing but promises.
Refused to open source it & could'nt finish it.
I'm sick to death of hearing about how good it is. The guy has consistently defeacated on every one who bought his pitch.
Hi
Apologies for the intrusion.
But we have alittle campaign thing going....
BeOS may not be your first OS choice.
But hell it is a great OS that I personally believe should not be allowed to die. Please help support the Save the BeOS campaigns
Official
http://206.231.159.58/save/
and others
http://beserved.teldar.com/petition.asp
http://www.petitiononline.com/savebeos/
thanks friends