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Palm Teams With Microsoft for Smart Phone
UltimaGuy writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that Palm Inc. is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. to launch a Windows-based version of the Treo smart phone, marking the first time the handheld computer pioneer will sell a device based on its former rival's software. 'In terms of the level of importance, this would be - in this space - the same thing as Apple announcing they were going to be using Intel processors.'"
I've heard over and over from people who've done some programming in this area that, although alternatives to VS exist they are either with far less features or buggy.
Mod me troll but I believe that VS IDE is probably the best development environment around, and it might me possibly one of the reasons why many programmers are still coding for windows.
I liked the Palm OS because I learned Graffiti when the original Palm came out. It really was a nice, no-nonsense OS, it did everything that I wanted it to do and left out features that I didn't need. I think that sadly many users don't care about the actual functionality, but want to have stupid bells and whistles; just look at the cell phone market today... people own phones that record video, record audio notes, have specialized ringtones, have flashing lights, have changeable faceplates, and can play games, but most of the time they can't get service inside a building... shouldn't that problem be addressed first?
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Palm split into two separate companies a couple of years back .
Palm Inc. (previously Palm one) does the hardware and Palm source handles the software side .
Palm inc. are still making PDAs using PalmOS but they decided to move their phones to Windows mobile.
I really hope the trend does not continue on to their PDAs , I do have high hopes for the Next versions of PalmOS( with a linux core) .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
You can hope, but PalmSource, the developer of Palm OS, was recently sold to a japanese company. It looks like a total rollover to me...
See This link.
I think the real problem is bells and whistles only get you so far. I think that's the reason most sell manufacturers are struggling for new ideas and having to go to things like iTunes; there are simply not enough devices they can cram into a cellphone and market anymore.
Sadly, Palm was one of the few companies that was trying to innovate cellphones. Though the Treo is clunky, it has real functionality that I would honestly use, and could be a lot better with compatibility with other devices. Though I think that the cellphone was a terrible addition for a PDA (why can't they be seperate devices and communicate with BlueTooth, is it really that hard???), I think that Palm made a proper job of trying to connect the two devices in a sensible way.
And yes, I agree with you on the antenna/amplifier part. There is really no excuse for cellphones being so bad inside of buildings except battery life might not be able to keep up with the devices, especially a SmartPhone that has an entire operating system including a huge power consuming LCD to drive. Hopefully as OLED prices come down it will help with the power constraints and the cell manufacturers will bring the quality back to where it should be.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
As much as I like my standalone palm, I could not deal with my cell phone crashing daily. If WM is more stable than POS (which shouldn't be too hard), then this may be a good move for treo.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
I don't know about you guys but I have developed quite many applications to Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone platform and also used the phone quite a lot and it is STABLE and fast. Nothing to cpmlaoin about. The windows that is in the device is huge improvement over their desktop version. As the Embedded Visual C++ is totally free of charge, then it is absolutely logical to develop the program to the smartphone platform. The effect works also oin the other direction: as developers coose smartphone platform, then there are lots of programs available and therefore customers prefer those phones as well. Add to the picture the fact that Microsoft will make the single operating system release for both PDA and Smartphone (Windows Mobile 5.0), the user gets familiar interface and also does developer. By releasing the EVC for free, microsoft basically killed the competition. There is no point to develop to Symbian as the API is totally different and same is with Linux. Smartwhone with timetested Win32 API rules the mobile world, like it or not. I as a developer have experience and I like it. The Windows Mobile is another masterpiece from microsoft, far from what they provide to the desktop.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - this is great news. There are many, many people who grew up with Palm OS. I have been using it since the Palm III days and in that period I went on the desktp from Mac to Windows to Icewm to Gnome (version 0.7) to KDE to Gnome and back to Mac OS X. I write faster in grafitti than on pen and paper. I have several Palm OS add on apps that I use everyday, several times a day. The Treo is popular because of the Palm OS not Palm (which why, as others have noted, the Apple analogy is way off - its the Mac OS X experience that people love, not PowerPC chips).
Palm as a company has grown to suck big time (it began with the 3Com purchase and it has been downhill ever since). When I had a choice, I avoided Palm products. The only decent Palm since the Palm V is the T3, but Palm support is less then useless (lot's of horror stories here).
Now that Palm has become just one more Microsoft OEM it will die a long, protracted painful death. But its customers like me, won't have to endure the death rattle. We will be able to go out out and buy Palm-enabled or rather ACCESS-enabled devices. And there is a great likelihood there will be many of those from multiple vendors and with multiple options.
Here's why: Let's face it - the PDA market is dying, and the cell phone market is rapidly on the rise. Does Palm/Microsoft really think it can compete with Nokia, Motorola, Sony/Erricson, Samsung and China Inc? How many cell phones do those companies sell? How many does Palm sell, with all the success of Treo? How many of the latter companies are using Microsoft's WinMobile? How many of those companies do/plan to sell embedded Linux phones?
In case you don't know the answers to the above rhetorical questions, it is likely the case that by now Motorola has shipped more embedded Linux phones in China alone than all the Treos out there. These phones will soon be available outside the US. Isn't it likely that these companies will add ACCESS as a feature/add-on to entice millions of Palm customers like me? When that happens, how many TreoNGs do you think are going to be sold? All of you can count on one hand.
So yes, Palm is dead. But fortunately, Palm OS has just been reborn. With it's old master dead it will take off even more rapidly.
Either way, though, this marks the end of Palm. I've never seen a company thats managed to 'cooperate' and 'codevelop' with MS without getting really messed
Apple: One of the Mac's biggest and most popular software programs is Microsoft Office. MS even went so far as to bail out Apple in the mid 1990s.
Adobe: Ever notice how Adobe works so well with MS Office? Indesign reads DOCs, Acrobat installs a custom Office PDF writer, etc. All due to cooperation between the two giants.