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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?"
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
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
What do you mean, "begin to sell their OS
separately"? Haven't you ever heard of
Handspring?
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
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'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.
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
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The official press release is at: palm.
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"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
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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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.
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?"
Well, technically, the OS and the device have already been separated a little bit. I can think of two different companies that use the PalmOS. Handspring and Symbol both use the PalmOS on their devices, and both of them have their own version of the operating system in order to support some of their added features. However, the strict PalmOS doesn't have these features integrated, so in order to get them you have to buy those devices.
Thus, what you have some is some forked versions of the same operating system (sound familiar?). With the Operating System division separated from the device division, it seems to me as if there is a greater chance for those features developed on other platforms to be integrated into the main OS.
Then, instead of having 3 separate versions of the OS implemented different features. You would have one version of the OS, implementing the whole featureset. Palm can then license out the whole OS to many different companies who have their own personal needs, and the developers for each of these different platforms will have one OS to develop for rather than 3 fragmented versions of the OS.
Hence, Palm is making a bigger play into the OS buisiness than they did before. By doing this, they are not only reaching out to customers to license from them (which they already have), they are reaching out to developers who now only have to track one line of the Operating System rather than trying to merge 3 separate Operating Systems which are almost but not completely unlike each other.
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.
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.
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.
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