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Palm Kills Community Before It Begins
Former Fan of Palm writes to tell us that an enthusiastic, supportive developer community has fallen victim to corporate ineptitude once again. The preDevCamp started as a community-driven effort designed to mirror the iPhoneDevCamp based on the new "Pre" product announced by Palm. Unfortunately, suspicion and legal posturing seems to have gutted the founders of any and all enthusiasm they may have once had. When will corporations realize that community support is the best way to drive success? "As a corporation, I acknowledge that Palm's only responsibility is to its shareholders. There's nothing self serving or evil about that; it's how things work in big business. However there are many keen and willing developers out there, who have been waiting for the arrival of WebOS. A development platform is only a success if it is broadly adopted. Instead of embracing the grassroots upswell of interest in WebOS that preDevCamp fostered, Palm seem to be, at best, oblivious and, at worst, disdainful of the enthusiasm and good will engendered by these folk. I think they are missing a real opportunity to be involved in and to help generate the growth of a vital community."
Well, this is certainly an interesting article to be reading as I am looking for a replacement for my aging Tungsten E.
Guess who I probably won't be going with this time?!
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'm not sure Palm would want an IPhoneDevCamp-like group. Aren't those the guys that led the development of jailbreaks? Seems like a situation Palm wouldn't want to be in. Especially since the Pre is a survive-or-die product.
"There is nothing self serving---only responsibility to its share holders".
What a contradiction. Right action demands serving all people and the most in need first not shareholders. In plain terms a corporation is about the essence of pure evil.
If I'm reading correctly, Palm hasn't done anything.
It seems they signed some NDAs and had a meeting set up. Then one of the guys posted to Twtiter something about the meeting, and as a result Palm canceled the meeting.
That's it.
Am I missing something? If not, these guys are tards and making a big deal out of nothing.
There's nothing self serving or evil about that; it's how things work in big business.
There are people who feel that those two positions are not mutually exclusive.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
FACE PALM.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
I feel like we are reading here only the 50% of the history.
-Woof woof woof!
Ok. So some guys who don't have experience with WebOS want to do a "dev camp". OK, more power to them. Palm reaches out, wanting to encourage this sort of thing.
The blogger in the linked article then gets an NDA to sign for an upcoming meeting. And then the meeting is canceled... and because they canceled one meeting, obviously palm is "killing" a development community?
I wonder if Mr. "dancrumb" (Dan Crumb?) was just harping about the HTML + javascript model not being "real" programming, and the OS guys over at Palm realized that a community that didn't want to , you know, write web-style-apps for WebOS wasn't the first developer community they wanted to help?
I might be missing something, but the fact that they were even having a meeting with Palm would have been covered by the NDA, wouldn't it?
If they started talking before even the first meeting took place it's not surprising Palm pulled the plug.
It seems like these guys got overzealous that they had signed an NDA and were to meet with Palm, so much so that they couldn't refrain from posting a tweet about it.
It's likely that one of the conditions of the NDA was that they could not discuss the NDA at all. By claiming they had signed one, in preparation for a meeting with Palm, it was probably a sign that they couldn't keep their enthusiasm contained long enough to even meet with Palm.
This is speculation on my part, but this is how it seems reading the article. When dealing with corporations and NDAs, one must be careful what one does - the old adage: "loose lips sinks ships" comes to mind.
I think the preDevCamp guys are over reacting. At least they are getting some acknowledgment from Palm. Let Palm release the damn thing first then have them focus their sites on the community. If the platform is solid and open, people will flock to it, with or without preDevCamp. dam
Useless sig.
You CAN be responsible to your shareholders THROUGH supporting a developer community. In fact, causing this "bad will" by not being supportive is an act of complete irresponsibility to your shareholders, because this move will damage the bottom line.
...that shareholders are irrelevant if they aren't getting paid through the money that consumers spend. So, if that's really how a company feels--that they only need to get down on their knees to fellate those few individuals who purchase their sock--then I have a simple solution. Stop giving that company your money.
Vote with your wallet, folks. I've been saying that for years.
Be quiet! Companies are evil! This is yet another example of "corporate ineptitude" for all the enlightened Slashdotters to shake their heads over. Didn't you read the summary? Stop thinking!
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", eh?
I have concerns about libertarian "free market" ideals, but I think your comment pushes things way too far in the opposite direction.
I continue to be mystified as to why anyone would seriously consider the Pre over the new iPhone. The iPhone 3.0 http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/the_next_iphone will have twice or four times the capacity as the Pre for the same price (depending on how you wish to count Palm's rebate from the $299 upfront price). The iPhone has a thriving developer community that the will only expand when the iTablet finally gets released, and is unlikely to be duplicated by Palm, even if they stay ion business, which is far from a given.
And finally, the iPhone works worldwide, while the CDMA Pre is a US/Canada only device. That in and of itself decides the choice for me.
Palm lost the plot years ago, when they decided they wanted to make a laptop replacement to compete with the Pocket PC... even though they were kicking the Pocket PC 4:1 in the market even years after the iPaq allegedly "legitimized" the Windows Powered handheld.
They could have had Palm handhelds PROFITABLY for sale for $40-$50 in every grocery store in the US, if they'd followed the price-performance curve down to mass market levels. They could have sold entry level models for cost to school districts and replace the Ti-83 and equivalents in classrooms, and everyone would be using Palms and Palm Powered cellphones... but no, Compaq/HP had the ARM-based Pocket PCs and Palm wanted that last 20% of the market... and lost it all.
Palm allowed Sony to produce hardware, but did not control the software end of that situation.
As a result, my Sony "Palm" device not only became incompatible with the desktop computer I was using, but it also corrupted the data on both the Clie and in Palm Desktop.
After this disaster, I use a plain cell phone ( non-smartphone )
and paper notes. It will be a cold day in hell before I use, let alone buy, any device sold by Palm or Sony.
What made them think this was a good idea to begin with? After more than a DECADE of customer abuse and putting the interests of their corporate partners ahead of their users (with the predictable result - shrinking market share) Palm DESERVES to die...
I'm not sure a canceled meeting is newsworthy, but I do feel like Palm isn't bending over backwards to help developers.
There's still no SDK (I applied to be part of the second limited release - no response), and the SDK ain't exactly complicated - it's javascript - they don't need to do much else than provide the standard packages and put in some new keyword highlights, and get an simulator out. Also there's zero published documentation - I only get PDF updates from the O'Reilly book chapter by chapter as it's written, and even the emulator to get PalmOS apps on WebOS is third party.
Palm has enough competition with App stores - everyone from Blackberry to SymbianOS is getting their hands dirty with App stores this year. Palm's strength is its developers, and it seems they're going to just let this whole advantage go as they dribble out the SDK at a snail's pace.
When will corporations realize that community support is the best way to drive success?
When it's true.
Sorry nerds, the best way to drive success is to dangle shiny bobbles in front of the plebes, and charge them out the ass for it.
Deal with it.
How many times have we heard this mantra,"When will corporations (insert any other bureaucratic organization here) realize.."? And will we ever stop repeating it?
not to worry, clearly these jokers are very well equipped to relaunch under a new name: devHissyFit
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The OS still sucks. I'll stick with RIM/Blackberry (which also has an active and seemingly open developer community) until a Android phone I like comes along.
And where do you get "most open phone OS"?
Quack, quack.
I had a phone conversation with Pam, Palm's VP of Developer Marketing last night, and I can assure you that communication has NOT broken down between them and preDevCamp. It's unfortunate that whurley, Giovanni, and Dan had such a bad experience, but for business reasons Palm has to maintain tight secrecy until the phone is launched. The best course of action in this case is not to scold them for what they can't do for us, but work together and adjust expectations accordingly.
Pam was very eager to know what we need to have a successful event, and I expect to have their full co-operation going forward. It just needs to be a bit more on their terms than whurley, Giovanni, and Dan anticipated.
There's a thread open regarding preDevCamp on the Palm Developer Network forums with at least three Palm employees actively participating (VP Pam, Community Manager Chuq, and Chuq's boss). Maybe yesterday's news put the fear of God in Palm, but they're definitely willing to work with the community to ensure that preDevCamp is successful.
Corporations maximize shareholder value, and then we, as shareholders, determine whether that value is used for good or for evil. Sorry- not all of that was directed at you, just the definitional part at the beginning.
I think a lot of companies fail to realize that short term profit maximization often is contrary to long term profit maximization.
Sure, they could make a lot more money being bastards to their community and suing their customers and competitors, but over long term they will loose "good will" and suffer long term profits.
Personally, I'd rather own shares in a company that treats its employees, customers, and community with respect simply because that will mean they'll be around in 20 years with maximized gains.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Idiot writes blatantly false Slashdot headline.
Another idiot(the OP) without bothering to read the bullshit story sees this as opportunity to spew random garbage supporting their retarded agenda.
A bunch of other idiots with mod points who didn't bother to read all the posts shooting down the bullshit story summary and went right ahead and modded up the OP's inane ramblings.
Welcome to Slashdot.
Very true, and I wish more large shareholders--pension plans, for example--would do so. The problem is when a majority shareholder wants a large, short term profit and pressures the company to maximize short term value. The board can hide behind the business judgement rule, but then the shareholder will replace them with someone who will maximize profits in the short term.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Hopefully this action by Palm will severely limit the amount of developmer response, and Palm will learn a harsh lesson.
Palm sabotages itself by making stupid and shortsighted decisions that are likely to cost them in the long-run? Where's the news here? This has been Palm's m.o. since the mid-90s... Is it any wonder that they continue to be an 'also-ran' in a market which they used to dominate? Next.
---As my daddy used to tell me: "You gotta be smart before you can be a smartass."
In enforcing their precious NDA, hasn't Palm just turned off the entire community and made their NDA moot? It seems to me that there are too many alternative phone O.S's to risk alienating their community over trivial matters. In fact, this looks to me like they have things to hide.
NDA never mentioned talking about the meeting. Palm just got some major pucker factor.
The summary is a little inaccurate if your read the underlying blog it links to. Mod me down if you think I am nit picking, but "legal posturing" is not exactly a fair characterization. Its not like they threatend to sue, they just canceled a meeting.
These guys signed an NDA, then turned around and tweeted to the world that they had a confidential meeting. Maybe Palm over-reacted, but its kind of dick move to tweet about a confidentil meeting.
I created a small community site focused on webOS development and so far Palm has been pretty much hands off, as I expected they would be. Chuq, the Palm developer community manager, has posted in the forums a couple of times, but I believe it was primarily because I had asked people to discuss whether they had been accepted to the Mojo early access program and he was just letting people know that they were watching, in case anyone was thinking of breaking their NDA. But other than that they have been content to let us exist peacefully, promoting the webOS platform in the absence of real developer tools. I hope this whole preDevCamp debacle boils down to a simple misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion. It would be a shame for the platform to die when it has some genuinely innovative features. More competition pushing the envelope is always good.
when they made it ridiculously hard to develop apps on any platform other than Windows...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
While the number of applications available for Blackberry has been growing their success was not because of the number of applications but the quality of the core system, phone/email/web etc. Instead of going after Apple and their app store Palm might rather be wanting to specialize, like Blackberry did, to refine, and dominate the business user market with good core functionality.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
Sounds like they'd be a good fit for Creative Labs.
Palm has gone the way of all cool tech companies that get taken over by suits and forget their markets. Instead of spending the time to invest in a next-generation handheld - the palm V, in ~2000, and figure this out then they did more of the same, and released bigger, power sucking devices that forgot the real utility needed.
I owned a USR Palm, a Palm Pro, a Palm III, a m500, a m505, and a Tungsten. I loved their early API. Now.. why bother?
The Pre has no chance. If they cared about their shareholders, they would sell the company and refund the money with a "Sorry for being stupid" letter.
Apple has provided a unified platform, a brilliant storefront, and hardware people are willing to pay a premium for - providing them the margin they need to stay ahead of the game.
Palm's advantage is what, exactly?
..don't panic
Palm Business Model - have one great idea, milk it to death, shoot self in foot, repeat. Non back-compatibility of WebOS and crap like this story make me believe that the Treo in my hand will be my final Palm product.
I've used it both on touch screen and keyboard driven phones and each time it's led to a Basil Fawlty-esque anger management problem on my part.
It looks great, but in my experience it's always been too slow to respond to user commands, a better PDA than phone and the most annoying thing (that I've ranted about before) is the fact that it constantly pops up windows to tell me it's found a wireless network, or that a memory card is full, or... in the middle of a call, in the middle of writing an SMS, nope, it doesn't care - here's my modal window for you to disrupt your day for the 27th time.
For Slashdot I'm actually probably not that anti-MS - my company's an MS partner and I run Windows for servers and PCs (while preferring Linux - I was brought up on Solaris and HP-UX so...), and I even did Windows API programming back in the days of NT, but as a phone OS, CE / Mobile currently sucks.
Now my new Blackberry Curve - man alive I never realised a phone could be a PDA and work at the same time.
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
The Palm Pre-gnant is pre-tarded, and I'm pre-fectly pre-lighted to see it pre-cluded from pre-vailing in the marketplace.
Have you seen how many apps are out ofr Symbian now vs just 4 years ago? They GUTTED their user base when they started to charge for it. You still can't get a developer to reply to you unless you pay them a butt load of cash. Palm did the same think Nokia has done. Their developers are not allowed to release software for their own store site, they are NEVER going to develop a good UI that rivels the G1 or the iPhone.
Not to mention the SDK is a pice of crap. My Windows Mobile 6.1 phone is not great. It randomly freezes, apps sometimes drain the battery, but when I can fire up a copy of C# express and make an app, it makes up for all of it.
Sigh. Sad part was I was really looking at a Palm Pre because of the WebOS. Seems like thats off the table. God I wish the G1 came CDMA.
I'm going to preface this comment by saying that I'm more or less an iPhone fan. I think it's a great convergence device, that it deserves a lot of its hype, that Cocoa Touch is a pretty awesome development platform, and that anybody who pooh-poohs it (and in particular, says stupid things like "It's just a fashion accessory") may be mentally handicapped in some way (and there are a lot of people regularly posting on Slashdot whose handicap is more or less that they can't understand that a product may have real merit if it doesn't fit *their* priorities).
That said, when I first saw the Pre previews, I was pretty impressed about a number of things:
1) Built with multitasking as a core design element. Whether that turns out to have negative tradeoffs (say, with battery life) is an open question, but it's pretty interesting. iPhone OS 3 will have push notification, which sortof enables similar things, but it's looking like Palm will beat them to market.
2) Hard keyboard. It's pretty much a personal preference thing (some people like the touch-screen keyboard just fine, some people just don't care), but for those who really want physical buttons, it's potentially compelling.
3) Development platform. HTML/CSS + Javascript API? If you're a web developer -- and there's more than a handful of those -- you now have a platform pretty much made for you, minimal investment needed. This is the first concept I've seen that I think is going to really challenge Cocoa Touch in terms of popularity with developers, and it has potential to be huge. Oh, I suppose Android might be bigger, if for some reason this flops, but if I were betting, I'd put my money on Apple and Palm. Plus, it can run existing Palm apps, giving it a legacy application base from the get-go.
4) Sprint's Data Network. Arguably, it has broader coverage and performs better than AT&T's, which makes sense, given that Sprint's been serious about data for a long time now. Heck, EVDO-Rev A almost has low enough latency to support VOIP, but the bottom line is that smart phones also tend to be bought for data-centric uses, so a really strong data network is a big bonus.
5) Swappable battery. Not just useful when you decide two years down the road you don't want to send it in to the manufacturer or DIY hack. Also nice if you'd just like to have a little extra juice.
All of this might not add up to a decisive edge in the market against some other impressive products, including the iPhone. But a lot of people -- particularly here on slashdot -- make the mistake of becoming blind to the iPhone's merits because its feature set isn't precisely targeted to their preferences... especially if they've got some other product in mind which is more closely matched. That's exactly how you want to think about choices on a personal level, but when you're thinking about industry-level trends, it's a mistake, and it's pretty easy to see that the critics of the iPhone are pretty much wrong when it comes to the market success of the device. The Pre is not the iPhone, the iPhone has a lot going for it, you may even really love the iPhone. That doesn't mean the Pre's feature set might not be appealing to other people or make it a huge success. There is room enough in this town for more than one smartphone.
Tweet, tweet.
As a corporation, I acknowledge that Palm's only responsibility is to its shareholders.
It's funny how people sometimes do not think around the next corner. Most of the time, I see half-baked thoughts, that never got thought to the end, because... well... thinking is uncool??
What do they think, that the shareholders want? More money.
And how to they think they get more money? By having more customers, who pay more.
Well... why would potential customers buy more from them? Because they offer them what they want. (Aka realize their dreams and hopes.)
But nowadays it's all: Just screw 'em over, and then bind them with the most expensive hidden fees, plans and contracts.
I remember, how an ex-coworker of mine took over the shopping portal of a large Internet portal. He single-handedly made it boom like crazy.
People wanted to know, how he did it.
His secret? Make them happy. Even if it costs more in the beginning.
Not only did he try to fulfill the wishes of the customers. No. He also made all the business partners / suppliers happy. They had a wish? He was there. He gave them little presents. They gave him some. (Like better offers, better deals.) It was like real friendships. Sometimes suppliers just called him to chat and crack jokes.
Others would have said, that this was bad. But he did not. He knew how to let it grow.
And he was proven right.
Nowadays he works for ebay, and has tons of cash. And he really earned it... instead of tricking people into traps. :(
The word earning really has lost its meaning.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
As one of the founders of preDevCamp, I have to counter the OP's ominous analysis of the situation. While this "seems to have gutted the founders of any and all enthusiasm they may have once had", I'd like to assure you that I still am enthusiastic for the platform. I still believe that bringing HTML/JS/CSS into the realm of mobile development will make a great impact on this field. I'm still committed to seeing preDevCamp through and making it the biggest and best DevCamp possible.
I thought this was a knuckle shuffle group accident !!
Corporations only feel safe when they are in control.
A group of self-motivated individuals working independently of the Corporation are THREATENING because they are not under any direct control by the company, and if their movement grows influential enough, it can start to dictate to the corporation what it ought to do. And those things might not be in the corporation's best interest. They might be in the interests of the people. (Horrors!!!)
And so, the corporation doesn't care if it destroys its market base through the issuance of infantile legal notices, because failure is worse than being under the yoke of humans. A corporation under human control is not a corporation at all. It is a co-operative. It's open source. It's pinko commie something or other. . . Whatever it is, it's frickin' scary to those who want to enslave others and enrich themselves and move into gated communities, (where apparently, the American Dream lives.)
--This is all especially so for a large and well-established corporate body. It can afford to lose a little business by pissing off the fringe of fans because it KNOWS it can simply program a bevy of mindless drones to become new fans; it's easy! Just give running shoes to inner city black kids, or whatever. That's the job of the Public Relations department, and we know it works, because people wear stupid clothes and eat toxic shit because they are told to. So really. . , fans? They're the disease! They're an unruly gob of humanity motivated by passion and not by corporate marketing science. Fuck them! In the schizoid world of the Corporate marketing world, the most intense fans are the worst kind of customer. They are motivated by Love! And everybody knows that given the choice between being Loved and Feared, the Alpha In The Room will choose to dominate rather than establish any sort of healthy human relations.
Sigh.
Establishing control over the weak is the post-coital pleasure for any large beast of prey. And Corporations are Sharks.
-FL
"I acknowledge that Palm's only responsibility is to its shareholders. There's nothing self serving or evil about that; it's how things work in big business."
Who writes crap like that? It may or may not be self-serving but most certainly *is* evil. In fact, it is by definition evil. A corporation can take no action based on morals- because its only reason to be is to create profit. Its *only* has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.
Think about that. If corporations could gut babies and sell their spleens at a profit they would- and would be *have to*. Certain legalities are the only thing stopping them- NOT a moral compunction that it might possibly be wrong to gut babies for profit...
The essence of evil is not necessarily wicked or bad actions- it is the absolute amoralism of the actions- regardless of their outcomes. Show me a corporation passing up on a buck to do something *good* and I will show you a shareholder lawsuit/laid-off CEO.
I was at an iPhone dev camp before the NDA was lifted. If people can make THAT work, the palm guys have zero issues.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I will be very impressed by anyone who proves me wrong!
Some people are cursed or blessed (depending of point of view) with big hands and huge fingers.
In this case, it's hard to hit the smallish button of micro-keyboards without regular mistakes.
Whereas the Graffiti is written with a stylus (or a fingernail's tip) and is less dependent on the size of the holder's hands.
As the other user said your mileage may vary. Some people do prefer different input methods than you and by cloning the blackberry's look, Palm lost an opportunity to be different and attract users more interested in bigger screens.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
kinda tired of this "the market cures all ills" philosophy. in my mind it's roughly equivalent to "we all die someday".
the freemarket works only when barriers to entry into a market are kept at a minimum. and nobody is allowed to reach a "too large to fail" size. it invariably breaks otherwise.
Sorry nerds, the best way to drive success is to dangle shiny bobbles in front of the plebes, and charge them out the ass for it.
Deal with it.
That might be the true reason why this story landed on Slashdot ... that we are not that willing to be charged out of the ass for shiny bobbles, and are actually trying to deal with it.
Me, I'm taking a good long look around the pda/smartphone market. Alas, what I have found so far is that the best thing out there is --well, was-- the PalmOS platform.
Now that that is thoroughly dying, what's the next best alternative?
OpenMoko?
Nope. It's a fine project, but really: it's not yet capable of even a simple phone call.
iPhone?
Nope. It's very much the aforementioned 'shiny bobbles' concept, and very closed to tinker with. Note that I'm not saying it's not possible, just that it's closed and you have to 'break' it to do it. Besides, you more or less need a Mac to develop for it, which is quite a steep entry cost.
Windows Mobile?
You're kidding, right?
Android?
Perhaps. I speak for nobody else, but personally I'm one of those luddites who some years ago began to be quite a bit uncomfortable with the sheer size and power of Google, so Android is not going on my phone.
Symbian?
Perhaps. It's not quite as closed down as the iPhone, and it does have a large user base, but 3rd-party apps and dev tools are still scarce compared to the PalmOS community. There's also some form of required membership or application certification that I'm not done looking into.
Others?
I'm sure there are some other platforms that I've not listed here.
"Good news, everyone!"
Palm released a blog post today saying that they are sorry they overreacted and are now working with preDevCamp. See it at http://pdnblog.palm.com/2009/05/a-predevcamp-update/
I acknowledge that Palm's only responsibility is to its shareholders.
No. As a corporation with limited liability for it's owners, the stockholders, it has the responsibility to improve the common or public good. That was the only reason businesses were ever given limited liability. Because they were anti-democratic Thomas Jefferson said of corporations: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I believe these countries have gurus who can grab open source software and end up build a versatile system. Who the hell needs Microsoft? It could be Jabber all the way. http://mazok.ucoz.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
it was a big misunderstanding that blew up. When the preDevCamp guys violated NDA, Palm said they wanted to cancel the NDA in total, canceling their private meeting. The preDevCamp guys seem to have interpreted this as Palm backing out of supporting them and each did smear posts. Palm, however, simply meant they wanted to work without NDAs and just use public information and do want to support preDevCamp. Palm and the preDevCamp guys have since worked things out:
http://www.precentral.net/rocky-road-predecamp-it-keeps-trucking
http://predevcamp.org/2009/05/23/palm-supports-predevcamp/
Incompetence enforcing closed licenses is not openness.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You type faster than you write because you are a nerd (no offence intended, clearly it is a matter of fact).
Palm correctly discovered that such input method was the most user friendly around.
Most people understand hand writing, even if you have to tweak it slightly to accommodate the device.
Unfortunately they followed the lesser players in the field ( up to the iPhone, whose text inputting is completely atrocious).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why do you insist about speed?
When designing a device you offer usability, speed is a nice thing to provide, but frankly one prefers to provide something familiar.
Keyboards, specially in such small devices, are not user friendly (they come in all kind of presentations, from T9 arrangements with predictive test, to QWERTY that is not quite the same, to worst arrangements (like all the letters in alphabetic order).
The Palm solution used what any newcomers would know how to do: writing. There should be no wonder the the Nintendo DS draws from that same conclusion in some of their most popular games.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.