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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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
Please keep in mind that contrary to popular belief, Libertarians are not in favor of completely unregulated markets. Rather, they support the least amount of regulation that works. For example, I think just about anybody today with half a brain or more recognizes that the "financial industry" was out of control and requires more regulation... Libertarian or not. Most intelligent Libertarians also recognize that a reasonable set of antitrust laws are also necessary.
Ever consider how many people would have not bought an iPhone if it was 100% impossible to "jailbreak"?
Ever consider how many people have not bought an iPhone simply because for it be useful, they would have to "jailbreak" it?
My blog
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.
You have the NDA?
Palm has a huge stake in the Pre. Right now the company is ridding on it and it has not been released yet.
Again it is all just fluff and bother for now. These guys just wanted to get in first and become the place for Pre stuff and probably generate ad revenue.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
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
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.
Rather, they support the least amount of regulation that works.
By that definition, everybody is a libertarian, they just define to work differently
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.