1. Would you pay millions of dollars for a company, then declare its products dead? Would anyone smart enough to have millions of dollars to spend buying a company buy a company with dead products? Our opions aside, Access must think PalmOS has a future, or they wouldn't have paid what they did.
2. We'd better hope the PalmOS doesn't die. If you're out tonight enjoying a beverage or two, toast to PalmSource's health. We need a healthy, growing, competitive PalmSource that releases one great idea after another. The day that Palm dies, Microsoft will stop most R&D for Windows Mobile. Can you imagine being stuck with an XT box running Win95? That's where we'll be with handhelds. Two examples:
I was at a Microsoft function (four years ago I think) when Pocket PC 200? was introduced. After the program, I told the presenter I thought the emphasis was on fun and games, evidently leaving businesspeople to buy Palms. The feature set emphasized games, music and video, but Pocket Word is a horrible little program, and there was no Pocket Access or Pocket PowerPoint. I was told that this would be addressed in the next version. Well, we're just now seeing improvements in Pocket Office that should have been there years ago.
One of the MS WinCE department heads asked in an online forum (forget which one) what improvements we'd like to see in future versions. One popular request was the ability to switch screen orientation from Portrait to Landscape. Too expensive, too much R&D, too many problems, too little interest...we were told. Then Palm introduced the Tungsten T3 which could instantly change screen orientation. Couldn't be done, huh? Wasn't too long after that MS released PPC 2003 Second Edition.
I'm looking at a box on a shelf that contains a Compaq HPC that originally shipped with Windows CE v1.xx. I used that a lot, and loved that little device. Still, I wouldn't want to abandon my newer Pocket PC. I depend on my Pocket PC for many things when I'm out and about, I enjoy using it, and will buy one or more devices with WinMobile2005. Without competition, MS would likely be telling us why it would be too complicated and expensive to put Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in such a small device.
Take away the competition and most companies lose their drive to reach out, innovate, take bold steps, and improve. I own a small business, and when competition threatens I work harder, advertise more, try harder to motivate employees...I have to! The competition goes away, and I can relax a little. It's human nature. Kill off Palm and the most innovation we'll likely see is "A beatiful assortment of exciting case colors for WinMobile 2007."