Palm to go Linux

jetkins writes "The Melbourne Age reports that company officials announced Tuesday that Palm will move to a new Linux-based platform 'to help the company compete better.' The move was announced 'during a meeting with analysts in New York, where they also discussed the company's business strategy and refused to talk about recent rumors of a possible buyout.'"

Comments

Wonderful Triple OS strategy

[d0n quix0te]

Let's see Palm OS, Win CE, and now Linux? Sounds like just the way to lose even more developers.

This is Palm's management clutching at straws.... what was that comment about the iPhone from the Palm CEO? Sad to see a once pioneering company being run over a once beleaguered company.

RIP Palm... here lies the Filofax of the late 90's.

-S

Re:Wonderful Triple OS strategy

[hey!]

Speaking as a mobile developer, while a RAD system would have its uses, the problem with making a RAD for mobile development is that mobile applications (like web applications) require different paradigms and attention to different details than desktop apps.

The closest thing to a mobile RAD right now is Visual Studio targeting the compact framework.

The problem with mobile apps is not laying out screens. In fact, I think sound UI designs don't fit into the VB form model at all, and not just because they conflate business and presentation logic, a philosophy I agree with but am not doctrinaire over. It's just too easy to paint a form which works very well on a desktop or laptop that is awkward on the PDA; the natural tedency in such cases is to blame the PDA form factor, not inappropriate design.

But the biggest problem of all is how the mobile app fits into the entire information "ecosystem". What does the app really need to accomplish, and what information does it need to do it. While this is true of any app, mobile applications are different, and in my experience much more easy to make errors of judgment in.

Remember the days of horrible flash abuse on the web? Now imagine a world where most people had never seen a better model than that.

No, what the mobile app field needs is an influx of ingenuity. There have been some impressive efforts at enabling less skilled developers to field mobile applications, this is not a viable growth strategy until those developers have well worn application models that they are copying.

WRT to Linux, while I don't believe in one size fits all, I think its clear we aren't talking about anything like any of the common distros. We're talking about a different user interface on top of the Linux kernel. I doubt we'll see X for example. The user will have no idea he is using Linux. A properly configured Linux kernel should be a very good choice for a modern PDA, given the computing power and resources available, and the requirements. It might not be the best choice for a real time embedded system with much greater resource constraints.

Re:Handhelds and PDF?

[tmasssey]

I've owned a Treo 300, 600 and 700. I've read PDF's on all of them.

HOWEVER: It is not easy. The best is the 700. The high-res screen (320x320) makes a big difference. But even then, you're talking about using a device that has a screen that's 2 inches x 2 inches to try to read a document formatted for 8.5 x 11. The whole idea of a PDF is to preserve precise paper-based formatting. Working with that on a handheld is awkward at best.

Your best option is to convert the PDF to text and read the text on the PDF, using some sort of eReader (Plucker or ,A HREF="http://www.isilo.com/">iSilo come to mind). I read lots of PG material that way, as well as IBM Redbooks that I've converted to text.

Re:interesting++

[Lumpy]

nope. The Nokia 770 is way better hardware than Palm has ever produced, same as the Sharp Zaurus line. Nither one has came to the front as the holy grail.

Both are awesome, and honestly do thigns that all other PDA's dream of. But it all comes down to one simple fact.

The biggest buyers of PDA's are executives and they dont care to run a SSH session, sniff wifi packets, watch movies, or hack the planet... they want complete integration with their outlook application and email.

and they chose blackberry because it's the only item that has the complete integration that works right. (not that I'm a fan of the blackberry, but adoption and useage of it is way WAY greater than pocket windows and palm put together.)

Re:Nowhere else for Palm to go...

[alucinor]

"There would have been no cheap Linux today if Microsoft hadn't flattened/commoditized the computer hardware market by the start of the 1990's."

Because somehow Microsoft doing this inspired Linus Torvalds to create a MINIX-like free kernel for research purposes?

Or because Windows made x86 popular (rather than the other way around)? Yet I still don't even see how that would've mattered one way or the other to the creation of Linux.

Re:There can be only one!!!

[grapeape]

I would argue that excessive integration has ruined the PDA/phone market. For every person I know that actually uses the bells and whistles on their phones I know 10 that don't do anything beyond a contact list and phone calls. I am evidently in the minority but I would rather have several devices that do their job well than one that does them all half-assed. I have yet to see a "music" phone that was really a decent mp3 player, I haven't seen a "game" phone that was really a good gaming platform and I have yet to see a Smartphone that hasn't made extreme sacrifices in order to cram its functionality into a postage stamp screen.

I've gone from palm to windows mobile to a smartphone and finally to a blackberry. In going from platform to platform I have had to make concessions and sacrifices for the sake of convenience with my latest move I just ditched all the functionality for decent email and phone support. The integration push has killed the pda, Palm and MS just dont know it yet.

Re:Old News???

[Moofie]

The anti-integration grognards always crack me up. You are aware that you're sitting in front of the most multi-function device ever conceived of by Man, right?

Convergence is not the problem. Poorly designed convergence is a problem. There is no technical reason why a phone shouldn't be a perfectly good music player. There's no reason for a PDA not to include phone capabilities. It's free pie. The hardware is basically the same stuff.