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Palm Announces Separated Software Operations
Eharley writes: "'Palm on Monday announced it has completed the split of its operating system division from the rest of the company. The software unit will now report separately on the financial performance of its licensing business, and could eventually be spun off or sold by Palm.'
Yahoo is carrying the story here. Considering that their market share in PDA devices has been slipping, is this a move that will signal the end of the Palm hardware line or organizers?"
At least they're doing it early. Parallel lines of profit are good.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
What is the sound of one business unit clapping?
...but if they were BSD based, I'd say they were dying. ;) (yes, it's a joke)
Forming a separate software licensing arm, while refusing to license BeOS? Real brainiacs at Palm.
I don't think this will signal the end of the Palm hardware line. From my personal experience people think of Palm as THE personal organizer. Yes, they are familiar with others, but they still refer to them as "Palms" rather than "personal organizers." Their market share may be slipping, but I don't see that meaning the end of their hardware.
It's interesting that they split the software division off. Microsoft is a well established software giant and having a company that only does software is not such a lucrative position with MS in the mix. Unless there's some contract that says Palm hardware has to use Palm software, I wouldn't be suprised if we eventually saw Palms running Windows CE and never saw Palm software again. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way saying MS is better, I'm just pointing out the fact that they are bullies and they will do anything to destroy another software maker.
~ now you know
What I see happening is Palm beginning to sell their OS to other handhelds to try and steal some of the market away from Microsoft Windows CE (because, as all Slashdotters know, M$ == evil). By splitting the two companies, Palm OS can now be viably marketed to other platforms. Before, it was just a single company with a lot of proprietary knowledge, but once they do this split, they can start to open-source it (in a manner of speaking).
It will certainly be interesting to see where this goes, because if Palm does begin to sell their OS separately, then they'll have money for development. If they have money for development, then we'll see some great enhancements to the Palm OS, and I for one will welcome the change... just so long as they keep supporting my Palm IIIx :-)
Makes total sense when they're now licensing their OS to several different hardware manufacturers. Think about it. Their hardware team is in direct competition with their own software sales team.
Several companies are in this unique situation but Palm must have realised the benefits of splitting themselves up. Kind of like 3Com splitting off Palm in the first place.
Oh Well. 2002-01-21 01:30:45 Splitting Palm (articles,news) (rejected)
*** I am the real stylewagon
This is a good move on their part. Palm OS licensees are faced with the conundrum that their OS supplier is also one of their competitors. It's the DSL/ILEC thing all over again. Considering that PDA vendors have the illusion of being able to go to Microsoft for their OS instead (I call it an illusion because Microsoft is a competitior to everyone whether they realize it or not), Palm OS needs to make a better effort to appear hardware-neutral. This is a good way of doing it.
Frankly, I think that console mfrs should do the same thing. Sony and Nintendo should license their console OS's to anyone who wants to build the boxes (imagine the variety we'd see!).
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It seems to me that Palm is doing this to hedge their bets against Microsoft. This way, they can split the company--if Microsoft kills Palm OS, the hardware division of the company will survive, and vice versa.
The reason they are doing this may be because their market has become saturated. As the Yahoo! article mentioned, "demand for organizers has ebbed," and "unlike Microsoft, Palm does not have a multibillion-dollar product like Windows to fall back on." So it looks like this move is Palm's way of trying to ensure their survival as they do business against Microsoft.
It's wrong to think that every business automatically uses it's products to boost each other.
It may make very solid financial sence for palm to take steps to ensure their hardware and software sections are financially and legally separated. Maybe the COULD sell more palm devices if they used other software.. and maybe they could make more on software if they weren't stuck with a single platform.
This way.. if one fails, the other can go on.
Obviously someone learned from Apple's mistakes. Palm is the superior platform (compare a high-end Clie to an iPaq and try telling me otherwise). WinCE is a bloated, silly way of navigating a palmtop machine. I, personally, don't want to bring my MP3 player to meetings nor do I want to bring my organizer when I go for a walk. What MS and the PocketPC manufacturers haven't learned is that people might like to have add-on capabiliity (add a modem or a GPS to your Palm), but they like the ability to travel lightly. A palmtop that requires 32MB of RAM just for the operating system is nottravelling lightly.
I think this is probably a very reasonable move, which allows not only the hardware division to experiment with possible altnerate OS's -- including linux, beos, and probably qnx
But it makes more sense from a sub-licensor standpoint, in that the money you pay isn't necessary going to your direct competitor.
It sort of levels the playing field
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
The official press release is at: palm.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Palm is not going to stop making there PDA's. I just recieved an email from them the other day stating the they have a new device comming out. It did not state what it was, or when it would be out but none the less it stated that they are getting ready to put out a new device. Would they pull out of the PDA market after releasing a new PDA, I think not.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." Linus Torvalds
How does Be fit into this picture? They bought Be just to spin it off? Is that a good idea?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
"and could eventually be spun off or sold by Palm".
I see it now. . .
Palm spins it off, MS's mere presence threatens to buy and squash it so AOL buys it and uses that as another "see I got that too" to MS.
AOL can't figure out what to do with it so they decide to embed it in their mythical "AOL anyhwere" web-applicance along with RHL, Mozilla, Winamp, etc. Suddenly AOL buys another OS so that MS can't quash it, Palm OS is no longer 'needed' in their scheme so they open-source it and make it another AOLServer, the chaos continues and MS wins because they're the only ones with a direction.
Let's see if my prediction happens. I see a pattern emerging. . . .
From where I am standing I see many more PDA devices running PalmOS. Microsoft may have the marketing power to create the illusion that they have big market share, but in reality any other company would be dead if it was based on moving an OS. The competition here has to be on PocketPC Vs. PalmOS Vs. ???. (Because for one thing Microsoft does not provide any hardware to run their PocketPC OS on). In reality I would bet that their are 50 PalmOS related devices sold for every 1 CE/PocketPC device.
Now do I think that Palm is slacking in their Hardware provisions and enhancments....Hell yes I do...But they are the AOL of the PDA world -- and it wont matter how many bells and whistles they have to compete with -- they still will be the king of the hill.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I do think that the O/S division being separate is a good thing so if the bozos (former Apple people who have apparently learned nothing about inventory management) that now run Palm screw up again, it is available as a ready-sale item which will keep Palm O/S viable.
Now if we can keep Handspring from shooting itself in the foot (No more Springboard Slots -- WHAT A DUMB IDEA), then the non-MS PDA market can continue to flourish.
Springboard cool thing of the month is MemPlugs which allow your Handspring to have up to 256MB of RAM. Now that is cool and very usefull for walknetting things from point a to point b.
-- Multics
go read it.
While they refuse to license BeOS, this could potentially change things in that respect...hopefully they'll either license it out, or...even better...continue development on it. It would definitely be a shame to see Be development stopped or limited to Palm's narrow goals.
I didn't know Palm was slipping! I thought that since they have a generic associated with them (think Xerox, FedEx), they must be doing fairly well. No one calls it a "Handheld" or "PDA" (other than the technical crowd, that is), I usually hear "Palm Pilot", even if it's Windows CE or whatever based.
Are you sure that Palm's market share is really "slipping"?
Everything is mainstream now.
Moreover, unlike Microsoft, Palm does not have a multibillion-dollar product like Windows to fall back on.
Neither does Microsoft anymore. XP launched, and the earnings for MS came up short. XBox launched, and it failed to outpace a one year old console.
MS needs to find another homerun, and they are willing to try just about any market segment to get it.
Why is it necessary for both Palm and Microsoft executives to lie about the capabilities of the other?
The problem for Palm is that their hardware business has a stronger consumer presence than their software. They also appear to have been asleep at the wheel for some time, while Microsoft was busy reinventing the PDA, Palm have not done anything of note since the Palm VII which is still as big and bulky as ever.
Palm are in a hole because Microsoft are producing a pocket computer while Palm are producing a single purpose appliance.
The problem with a Palm is that is appeals to the same people who used their Filofaxes in the 1980s, those obnoxious organized people who can actually remember to charge the damn thing each night. The Palm VII could have been the answer - a PDA and comunicator in one. Unfortunately using a Palm VII is a bit like using a dual boot Linux/Windows PC. It can play Tombraider, or it can run Gnome but not both at once. Same with the Palm VII, it can download email from Palm net, but it does not integrate seamlessly into my corporate mail system, not without some plugin in the sever my IT dept would never install.
The pocket PC on the other hand is not just a PDA, it has Word and Excell and Outlook. It also has an MP3 player that looks pretty solidly aimed at the consumer market.
So OK at the moment there are relatively few consumers with $500 to spend on a pocket PC, but within a year that price will be $300 and the year after $200. There are an awful lot more consumers interested in a consumer gadget than are interested in a cheap PDA.
OK so you can buy lots of software to make a Palm do the same as a PocketPC - only no MP3 output as there is no audio output. The problem is that by the time you do that you have spent more than you would for the PocketPC and you have a processor that is a third the speed and a third the amount of RAM.
The problem for Palm Software is that they have to quickly get to the point where they can make their platform as a package match Pocket PC. They may be able to buy in some software from third parties and bundle. As things stand they are playing Lotus 123 to Microsoft Office.
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or this post would have been bitch slapped into oblivion.
In the computer industry, the money is ALWAYS in software rather than hardware. Look at the margins that hardware companies make, or why Microsoft sells each X-Box unit at substantial loss. The marginal cost for an additional copy of Palm OS, or Tony Hawk 2.5X, or whatever, is practically nothing; however, the marginal cost of an additional video card or Palm Pilot is substantial. Greater profits are earned in the software market.
Also, market saturation will reach the hardware market for PDAs much faster than the software market. Who wants to buy another Palm after they just bought their V for three hundred dollars two years ago? Eventually, devices will reach sufficient power and size that continual advancement is senseless, and additional profits will only be extracted by writing new software. Way to see the future, Palm.
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Palm's biggest problem is their processor the "Dragonball" - a special version of the 68xxx series with buildt in LCD display controller.
This processor is OLD !
The competitors are miles ahead (BTW: Cool record !)
EPOC - ARM9
PocketPC - StrongArm
Linux - StrongArm
All 32 bits and a modern OS.
Motorola has several successors to the 68xxx series, but none for the PDA marked, the Coldfire for embedded use and the PowerPC for the desktop, and some embedded powerpc variations.
is it me or are we seeing history repeated? microsoft gaining the upper hand against the superior platform? think of palm as apple, and you see a very similar situation. hopefully this move will make palm more competitive against MS.
while you make pretty speeches...i'm being cut to shreds. you throw me to the lions...a delicate balance.
That would be a great twist, especially if JLG came back as CEO. :)
... is that they made their PDAs work *too* well. Think of it this way: everyone who wants a Palm Pilot has one by now and, if they're anything like any of my friends, they're in no hurry to "upgrade", even to a color screen. Palm's gear is great for the tasks it's designed to perform, and, unfortunately for Palm, there's really no constant need to upgrade like there is for a PC. People who bought Palm Pilots 2 years ago are still in no hurry to replace them, unless they've got a bit of disposable cash laying around (and who does, these days?)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If they get out of the hardware side and just hope to compete by making PDA operating systems (with Be's help) they are going to spend lots of money until 3Com gets tired of it and they eventually succumb to Microsoft.
License the OS definitely, but lead with an example in the field guys...
The OS division has spun off from the rest of the company!!! I can't believe it!
Oh...It's not Microsoft? Nevermind.
My first reaction was exactly the opposite -- now that the software division is out on its own, maybe we'll see PalmOS for other (currently-WinCE) platforms.
Just junk food for thought...
What part of "Make a diary entry with any topic you want" do you not understand?
What part of "Topic: Palm Announces Separated Software Operations" do you not understand?
What part of "browsing at -1 shows all articles" do you not understand?
I wish all you off-topic ranters, goatsex and "first post" posters would fuck off and die for good.
EOM
The problem with having the Palm OS and Palm hardware divisions in the same company is channel conflict. Palm licenses the OS to Handspring, Sony, Samsung, Kyocera, HandEra, and others. They also compete with these other companies with Palm hardware. By separating, and eventually spinning off the Palm OS division, the Palm OS licensees can have confidence that the Palm hardware division will not get an unfair advantage in access to a new OS, and prioritization of new features. As for the Palm shareholders; by eliminating channel conflict, the two separate entities should have a market value greater than the current Palm. (YMMV).
Also, Palm has indicated that it does plan to transition to an ARM processor. Though I don't recall whether they've chosen TI or Motorola as their vendor.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Thank you. I thought it was egregiously overrated
too. Everyone knows about Handspring.
I think it's silly that if one posts something
halfway decent early in the discussion, one's
basically guaranteed to get modded up by two or
three points.
I even got accused of being a karma whore one time
because of this.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
you seem up tight. I bet you get road rage. I bet you are upset when things don't go your way. You know, people up tight like you die younger then the rest of us laid back cool individuals.
PalmOS has a much more mature commercial and GCC development suit and numerous language choices. The POSE (Palm OS Emulator) is far superior to the Windows CE equivalents and hardware debugging is better supported.
As a PalmOS and WindowsCE developer I am constantly tortured by the incredibly sluggish hardware level debugging with WinCE devices.
Additionally during development many WinCE applications will run perfectly well in emulation only to fail on an actual device (and hence requiring more hardware debugging). To be true this is always going to be a problem (the softare emulation/hardware differences) and it does effect PalmOS as well but to a much smaller degree (due to their excellent emulator).
I guess my point is WinCE development is so severly hampered by the Microsoft supplied development environment that I'm not surprised there is considerably less software available for WinCE.
I can see some advantages to WinCE having the 'standard' Win32 interface (assuming you already know how to development in Win32 land) but often I find most functionality is 'stubbed out' and it's a constant question of carefully reading the caveats in the documentation regarding what Win32 features WinCE actually does support...
I'd much rather develop under PalmOS anyday.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
I've been looking and haven't been able to find info on any Operating Systems which are able to run on the palm architecture, which aren't palmOS. Can anyone point me to some? Preferrably Open Source... (I'd like to learn about embedded OS development this way)THANKS!!!
"...I'll need guns" --Chow Yun-Fat in 'Replacement Killers'
This should make sense: Execution, as always, will play a major role in the success or failure:
1) Hardware division's now free - though more accountable - to create excellent hardware solutions. (My hope is they innovate, but don't create solutions to problems that don't exist [e.g. the MPEG 4-playing, holographic projector model with purple inverse backlighting].)
They may even, as a poster had mentioned, be able to license WinCE, another OS, or at least parts / applications thereof where they were not able to do previously.
Could/would they also license hardware technology from Sony and others?
2) Software division's now free to find additional licensees, not get (completely) hand-tied for what they can and can't do based solely on what one hardware platform provider is giving them.
In this respect, I'd love to see what the folks from Be have in store for OS 5.5 ...
The overall / corporate unit needs to ensure the software / licensing division is careful when licensees start canibalizing their own sales rather than increasing marketshare for the Palm platform. (c.f. the Apple clone market)
As a user, my hope is they keep the Palm a vital platform - this should help do that, but let's hope they keep their eye on the ball.
What part of /. editors deleting posts don't you understand? [This post will be deleted in 5... 4... 3... 2... ]
Please mod this post up someone. I read this thread and totally agree. Jaime you are a prick.
Palm is dying.
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Palm community when last month IDC confirmed that Palm accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Palm has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Palm is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Palm's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Palm faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Palm because Palm is dying. Things are looking very bad for Palm. As many of us are already aware, Palm continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. m100 is the most endangered of them all.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
m100 leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of m100. How many users of m125 are there? Let's see. The number of m100 versus m125 posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 m125 users. PalmOS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of m125 posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of PalmOS. A recent article put m500 at about 80 percent of the Palm market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 m500 users. This is consistent with the number of m500 Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, m500 went out of business and was taken over by PalmI who sell another troubled OS. Now PalmI is also dead, its corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Palm has steadily declined in market share. Palm is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Palm is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. Palm continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Palm is dead.
Yeah, okay, a title that is a bit over the top, but anyone who has desired to develop software for the Palm has had to endure a rather long-winded and unecessarily difficult registration process. Not only do they want all your vital signs via an online registration, but then they insist you fill out some forms and fax or mail it to them.
Not an impossible situation, but it took me 4 weeks before I could get the SDK up an running. Good thing I wasn't in a hurry !
Perhaps the new structure will get them to ease-up and OPEN up their SDK so the entire OS community can get busy writing applications without having to sign away their first born child.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
So let me get this straight.. Palm spins off their PalmOS division allowing it to chase anyone interested in building Dragonball based PDA's (i.e. Handspring) about a year after they announced that the next Palm would be ARM based, and right after they bought Be.. Hmmm?..
Did BeIA support ARM cpus?
What do you think the chances are that Palm decided to spin off the PalmOS division to make room for the new BeOS engineering team?
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-Metrollica
I think Palm's move is good. Now shareholders can see what makes money in Palm. And if it seems that the operating system unit doesn't do well they can shut it down or turn it to do something else. I for one think that for Palm it would be best to join forces with Symbian. They have a good platform and backing of worlds largest mobile phone companies. Palm could contribute a large number of talented software engineers and designers so they could make Epoc the best OS for mobile phones and PDA's.
If you want to get this story out, all you can do is repost it early in the comments of new stories. I will soon be banned because this will be my 3rd post to go to -1 today, so others have to get involved. Of course, Jamie says we can have diaries about any topic we want. Big deal, who's going to read such a diary entry? If it's not in the comments, it's not going to get read. People have tried submitting this as a story to the /. editors. They rejected it (of course).
Would you mind explaining to me exactly why my Handspring needs a 2 ghz processor?
Biggest problem is NOT the processor. There are tons of market factors as to why Palms may not be selling. One that comes to mind is, oh, that the processor is perhaps good enough and no one's in a hurry to upgrade!!
PalmOS is intuitive, simple, and does EXACTLY what it was designed to do. It doesn't need any major programming and its very powerful and flexible. How much processing power do you need to call up a person's phone number when you tap their name???
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I bestow upon thee the famous Penis Bird
-Metrollica
in this cnn poll. no FUDging now. on tho the desktop.
"Our strategy is, if the environment is a Microsoft environment, we are going to work with Microsoft hardware and Microsoft documents better than Microsoft does,"
This statement is just wrong in so many ways.
First, they will have the problem that Linux users have with MS Word documents. Microsoft can change the format whenever they want.
Second, most Microsoft documents are meant to be edited from a Windows box, especially when you take into account embedded images, and other crap that bloats a word document. Those dont work so well on a platform with very real and pretty much fixed hardware specs.
The only way that Palm can deal with Microsoft documents better then Microsoft is if Microsoft ports up to date versions of its products to Palm's OS. Given the choice between supporting a competitor or supporting themselves, Microsoft will support its self.
I think they need a better plan. One that involves delivering features specifically targeted to their platform rather then emulating a different platforms capabilities.
END COMMUNICATION
The people I know who have PDAs all have Palms. And they aren't businesspeople in the sense of being executives or anything. They work in banks, insurance companies, etc.
These are "common people," not tech people by any sense of the word. And they chose Palm because it's what everyone knows, what everyone can afford, and because it does everything they need.
But even then, Palm won't be a viable company for more than five years
I disagree. Palm does everything most people need in a PDA. It does color (if you want to spend your batteries on that), it does GPS (if you need to know where you are), it does barcode scanning (if you want to pay the bucks for a scanner), it is being implemented in cell phones. And there's so much free and shareware software available for it that does everything you can imagine.
WinCE is, exactly as Palm's man says in the Yahoo news article said, a very bloated carry-over from the PC. Windows is bloat for the PC, WindowsCE is bloat for a PDA.
I've developed applications both for WinCE and for Palm. Palm has a much more stable, easy-to-use OS. It's fast. It does everything you need and nothing you don't.
And until energy efficiency is improved, WinCE machines will continue to be battery-hungry mini-laptops while Palm will continue to service the PDA market.
But things got a bit better, and stablizing. But that still doesn't fix the initial problems that Palm has.
1. Margins on PalmOS devices are quite low compared to PocketPC ones. If you ever wondered why they still make PPC's when Palm has 75%+ market is that they don't have to sell that many to make the same amount of money. Compaq has to only sell 1 iPaq to equal Palm selling 6 m100's.
2. They still lack penetration in the enterprise market, which all the big $$$ are made. This is partially due to the advantage that PPC has with their PocketWord/Outlook/Excel, which allows for pretty seamless transfer in the organization.
3. They haven't been that innovative, and their OS lags behind PPC in the networking/wireless division (which is the "cool" thing nowadays)
4. As some mentioned, outdated hardware specs. MS, for PPC2002, has spec'ed them quite high (hi-res TFT screen, 206 StrongARM CPU, 32+ megs of mem, etc).
Splitting the company CAN be good, but only if they utilize their time and resources as efficient as possible to address these 4 points. If not, I should sell the rest of my stock tomorrow.
I've owned a PalmOS machine for 6 years (yeah, since the pilot1000), but right now, I'm seriously looking to get a PPC machine. PPC has caught up to the point that to choose between a Palm and a PPC, Palm doesn't really make any compelling arguments, hardware or software-wise.
Screw this. I found this website about linux news redcrowbar.com and it tells much less stuff but it's new so heh I'm going to be the user base.
The 4k Memo limit
The lack of a standard interface to link data points from the basic apps together (such as linking the note fields from datebook and todo lists with the notebook app)
I really like my Palm device, and I admire its simplicity, but even without comparing against other PDAs I think Palm Inc is overdue on making the underlying OS a little more powerful and flexible. Particularly in light of the remaining challenges of PocketPC and PSION, and the new designs of Linux-based PDAs.
Palm has succeeded in the market [~20m is pretty impressive] because they know precisely what they're about. Many people have tried to make PDA-like devices, but failed because they either tried to exceed hardware limitations or tried to make their OS/Apps do too much, ignoring the actual useful applications that people would use them for.
... Where's a real application that people will actually buy?
... from what I can tell, when the time is right. What opportunity have they missed out on exactly? The opportunity to sell to some bleeding edge techies for some short lived time while the next latest and greatest device comes along? That's not how you run a profitable business.
The modern PocketPC may be quite a bit further along, but it's really not there yet. It offers few worthwhile reasons to switch and many drawbacks. I mean, for the extra 100-300 dollars, what do you get precisely? You certainly get far inferior battery life [especially if you try to use the handheld as the computer it is marketed to be, not as a PDA]. You get an interface that is not nearly as well designed for actual PDA usage. Palm's UI, while it may not be very pretty by todays standards, is fast and is easy to operate proficiently on the go. In short, while PocketPC may _technically_ be able to run all the PDA applications, it does a significantly inferior job of it on the aggregate.
In it's place....we get what? Word and Excel are only be a frustration for the average person to operate. Even for advanced users, it's pretty frustrating. Mp3s? The storage capacity is not nearly there for me at least and the sound quality is pretty flat.
It's not as if you can say that Palm has been or is a failure. They've got the vast majority of the PDA marketshare and they're still controlling roughly 80% of NEW PDA sales DESPITE the presence of these nifty PocketPC gadgets [not to mention the muscle of one very large company].
You may be correct that it is an evolving market. However, many signs show that Palm is adapting appropriately. They're clearly positioning for a radical change (e.g., StrongARM, Be, etc.)
They can test and develop software and hardware quite well without having to spend millions on marketing devices to consumers before they're appropriate. You assert that PocketPC is a success, but has anyone really made any money on it yet when all is considered? I don't think so.
...but the people like me who bought them as organizers find them still quite adequate at that task. Why fix what isn't broken?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
heh - they started out as software only.
palm's first product (before their own handheld)
was 'Grafitt' for the Newton - provding an
alternate input method for the newton's
poor built-in (1.0) recognition (which improved
drastically with Newton OS 2.0). thier grafitti
worked so well, they thought they'd make their
own whole widget, and the PALM hardware was born.
the more things change,
the more they stay the same.
j.
Hey, how much would they sell BeOS? Why not organize to buy it, through EFF perhaps... I'd be happy to fork a few $$$ if that could make the BeOS Free (Libre).
I'd like to see a community beat clueless companies, and make the best software live forever!
Gerald, dreamer.
Just the other day, my faithful old Palm IIIx bit the big one -- it spontaneously stopped working. I called Palm this afternoon to arrange a replacement, being reasonably certain that even though I had an extended warranty, I would be almost certainly get the run around from customer service. Boy, was I wrong! Not only did they honor my extended warranty, they've shipped out a IIIx replacement that will supposedly be here on Thursday.
I thought for sure that with all the handheld problems cropping up of late that Palm would follow in the footsteps of other companies, changing their policies as they pleased. But I'm happy to report that that's not the case.
--=Major
One useless man is called a disgrace; two are called a law firm; and three or more become a Congress. -John Adams, 1776
Can't say I'm surprised. I never really understood the tradeoff Palm made between screen size and writing area. Probably cost concerns. That's understandable. You have limited amounts of everything so you may need to market a slightly flawed design. Then you can go back to improve on it later. Instead what Palm did was to write their OS and application software as if their hardware would never need improvement.
I suppose their marketing and influence has been superb. Also I suppose that Linux and Windows CE will have completely supplanted Palm in all its incarnations in ten years time (except perhaps unless AOL buys the Palm brand and starts selling pda's that run Mozilla).
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
Should Ford stick with building just one model? No, they'd better build a model fitting different needs and also follow market trends.
The business people on the go might need portables agendas with OLED technology and dragonballs, 68040 derived. A college freshman might want something more advanced(!) such as ARM and use it to play his/(her?) MP3 music.
Can you believe? Hp48 is out of production. It's ok; have found Lyme for my palm.
Palm was planning to move to ARM-based platform, and probably still is. This will make them more competitive, and least in the eyes of the potential buyers. I expect to see some convergence between the hardware from Palm and the bunch.
I've had worse experience with Palm customer service. After breaking the digitizer on my IIIe, my only service option was to get a refurbished unit for around $100 or buy an overpriced replacement digitizer for $50. My solution was to buy a compaq ipaq 3100. Compaq support is great, but I despise PocketPC (and dont want to fiddle with linux on my pda)...
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Palm didn't buy Be's assets in order to get into the desktop OS market. Quit whining that they won't license the BeOS already, ITS NOT WHAT THEY EVER WANTED TO DO.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
If I may ask... are you happy with your Pocket PC? The extended warranty runs out on my Palm IIIx in Dec 2002. I know that my luck, the thing will go belly up mere days after the warranty runs out. As I originally thought that I'd be buying a replacement now, I had been looking at Pocket PCs, but found them way too expensive (my price range would be $200-300 and thus I'd have to look at older Pocket PC models) and actually a bit too powerful (believe it or not... can I still call myself a geek after that comment?). I use my palm pilot as a glorified appointment book and also keep my personal writings in it (via Smartdoc). I think the major thing that really appeals to me about the Pocket PCs is that I can run a version of Word on it.
--=Major
One useless man is called a disgrace; two are called a law firm; and three or more become a Congress. -John Adams, 1776
...its dead. Quit bringing it up.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
The QL was misdelivered and mismarketed but what killed Sinclair waas Clive Sinclair losing his personal fortune on the Sinclair C5 then selling his name to Amstrad who just used it to market a few more versions of the Spectrum then run it into the ground.
The QL was far aheaad of what PCs were offering at the time (as were the Amiga and Atari ST)
Rich
The QL had a couple of fatal flaws. First the display model was almost impossible to use for games. Second the microdrive was no substitute for a floppy drive. On top of that they had no strategy for attracting developers, the keyboard also sucked and being unable to buy one without a nine month wait hardly helped.
The problem with the car was not the effect on Sir Clive's fortune, it was the effect of the shoemobile on his reputation. The idea was so ridiculously underbaked he became a laughing stock.
In the end a drop in the price of the Atari ST stole the market, a much better machine for the same price. I even got a monitor thrown in with mine for the same price I paid for the QL.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black ! Did you actually TRY and register ... check this page out ...
Palm OS Developer Program
...
I think the problem is the original poster didn't discuss the SDK in terms of their OS Development Program. But those of us who actually know what's going on figured this out.
Palm are in a hole because Microsoft are producing a pocket computer while Palm are producing a single purpose appliance.
Let me see:
-I can play chess (and around 10 more games).
-I can check the underground routes in 20 different cities.
-Appointments.
-To do list.
-Low res color digital camera.
-Scientific calculator.
-Birthday reminder.
-Password manager.
-Phone book.
-Currency converter.
-Forth interpreter.
-Email.
-I can write quick, small memos.
-Palmasutra.
Single purpose appliance. Your definition of "single purpose appliance" must be quite amusing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Although in geenral I tend to agrre with you, one should always remember Netscape: Netscape was sinonymous with browsing and browsing is what popularized the Internet. There was a time when nobody in his right mind would have though that Netscape will become aalmost an irrelevance (I think they are ready to fight back, but it took them almost to disapear to do so).
One should not underestimate the power of monopolic companies that have the muscle to comercialize subsidized crap to get rid of competitors.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the UK as far as I can tell PalmOS devices have as much shelf space in the big chains as WinCE stuff and the UK is home to a quarterly Palm magazine (which until last year was run almost add free, a clear indication of the amount of following the platform has).
Unless you have two or three reputable sources to back up your comments it seems like wild speculation (either way, I can't swear that what you are saying is not the case).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Does this mean (especially with the soon to be released ARM compliance) that we could see PPC's running PalmOS?
Yes, Mr Kettle, I have registered. I have been a registered PalmOS developer for almost 3 years. The only difficult part of the registration procedure was signing and faxing the registration agreement so that I could access the PalmOS source code (not the SDK and not needed by most developers).
However, the original poster was talking about the SDK, which requires no registration. You do have to register if you want access to the PalmOS ROMs, but even that isn't very difficult, especially in comparison to trying to get a Handspring ROM, or worse a Clie ROM. But, all you need to do PalmOS development is the SDK (although the ROMs are very useful).
Before the split, Palm wasn't using it's products to boost each other. THE product was the hardware AND software combo.
Anyway, that's beside the point, I wasn't even talking about them leveraging products. Ugh.
~ now you know
Are you sure they're learning from Apple's mistakes? Dave Nagel (Palm Software's new CEO) was in charge of software development at Apple for quite a while. Check out this little tale.
Erm.. Sort of.. I'm with you on mainly using it as a glorified address book.. I guess it's ability to play mp3s is cool(with my compact flash adapter), but I feel that something is lacking from the user exerience.. Plus, in my experience, I have to sync with my computer before my battery drains, or i'll lose my settings and data. Which is annoying if it happens often (it does to me..). I could back-up my info on a flash card, but the CF adapter makes the unit bulkier. I guess I can't have everything I want.. I am considering selling the 3100, and re-buying a palm and separate mp3 player. I guess I am not totally satisfied with my palm III (poor digitizer construction) nor ipaq (bad Windows Pocket PC user experience and data loss resulting from battery drain.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.