Visiting PalmSource, Sony and Nokia

[Andy Sjostrom]

Things are slow on the news front. It can only mean one thing: companies are busy getting new products ready. I thought that if news won't come to me, then I'd have to come to news. A while back ago I toured the lands of mobile device makers to find out what is really going on. My first stop was PalmSource. I wondered why David Nagel, president and chief executive officer of the Palm OS subsidiary of Palm, has been so upbeat despite financial woes. I found some interesting bits:<br /><br />• Palm OS 5 contains much more than publicly known<br />• The core of this new operating system is more modular than I had first thought<br />• There are very few Palm OS applications from earlier versions that are not running in their labs<br />• Its multithreading capabilities, support for new processors and faster memory chipsets made the test devices I saw fast. Very fast.<br />• What surprised me the most was the Pocket PC emulator state that I saw run both Windows Media Player as well as some of the coolest Pocket PC games.<br />• Before I left, I got to chat with a couple of their Enterprise folks and was shown some of the work that has come out from their IBM partnership. Main themes were new development tools and cross platform server connectivity.<br /><br />After my stop at PalmSource, I headed over to Sony:<br />• Their new devices all use the new Palm OS 5 operating system.<br />• The design prototypes I saw were all had silverish, rounded design and bright TFT screens.<br />• Sony has apparantly worked hard cramming wireless connectivity into their devices: I saw built-in WiFi, CDMA, and GPRS, and they talked about more wireless technologies just about to be implemented.<br />• During my short visit I didn't get to read the detailed specs on mother boards, memory, and so on. But from what I saw, they all moved. Moved quickly.<br />• The coolest demos I saw showed working integration between Sony devices and their home entertainment systems.<br />• The engineers in the inner most room I was shown worked on Sony Ericsson's new Symbian based and Java enabled mobile phones. If I'd use just one word to describe what I saw, it must be: multimedia!<br /><br />The last stop on my tour was Nokia:<br />• First, I spent some time talking with some "political chiefs". In summary, I understood that they are dead serious in viewing Microsoft as their chief competitor.<br />• The prototype devices and specs I was shown make their current flag ship, the multimedia packed 7650, look like an alpha test. Beta test, at best.<br />• Interestingly, I saw the same new development tools and server products that I saw at PalmSource... Secret partnerships, I wonder!<br /><br />Well, my conclusion is that the battle intensifies by volumes in the coming 6-18 months. What do you think?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/compete_01.gif" /><br /><br />(Obviously, this is just a THOUGHT, just my imagination. Nothing of the above ever happened. But don't tell Microsoft. I really want them to be <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=208">paranoid</a>.)

[PlayAgain?]

Are you psychic!

I think you are well on the ball with your comments on the 7650. While it is excellent as a PDA companion or an entry level device, it is not the Smartphone of the decade that the P800 is destined to be, and the new Symbian phone announced by Nokia today (Press Release (http://press.nokia.com/PR/200209/872842_5.html), Product Info (http://www.nokia.com/phones/3650/)) is likely to fall short of that mark also, but it is a step in the right direction.

What really worries me is that I agreed with much of what you said, even if it was 'made up'!

[Timothy Rapson]

Very clever writer.

[Ed Hansberry]

• Palm OS 5 contains much more than publicly known
Not likely. OS5 has been "gold" for 2 months now and in the hands of developers and OEMs. No way they could that many people be keeping a secret like that. They'd want to shout it from the rooftops to encourage people to buy Palm devices. Instead, everyone continues to downplay OS5 to keep expectations low.

[Andy Sjostrom]

Ed, with a little bit of fantasy. Correction. With lots of fantasy... :)

Main point is:
pace up
on your toes
don't take success for granted
and all that

[Inaki C]

Wow! that science fiction history recalls old Orson Welles radio broadcast.

[greenmozart]

You just made my day, Andy. Always nice to start the morning off with a good chuckle to clear the throat.

:lol:

[kiwi]

> What surprised me the most was the Pocket PC emulator state that I >saw run both Windows Media Player as well as some of the coolest >Pocket PC games.

PocketPc emmulator on a Palm???? Are you serious?

[Janak Parekh]

Come on guys, how obvious does Andy have to be?

Obviously, this is just a THOUGHT, just my imagination.
This is just a joke! Although I can't help but drool at some of the ideas... ;)

--bdj

[Marcel_Proust]

i'll admit to being caught on the 'pocketpc emulator' state for a couple of seconds in complete shock, before thinking, hey, wait a second....

[PPCRules]

My thought was "Wow, this site has a pretty good budget to be sending this guy around the world", as well as good contacts to get in all these places.

[fundmgr90210]

Ed, with a little bit of fantasy. Correction. With lots of fantasy... :)

Main point is:
pace up
on your toes
don't take success for granted
and all that

I agree with the virtue of not taking success for granted, but, in all due respect, what success? Like it or not, Microsoft is still being dominated by others in the PDA market. The Pocket PC division should have no problem keeping on their toes if they want their bosses to stay interested in keeping the platform around. Worse yet, PPC 2002 is widely regarded as a step backward even by Microsoft afficianados. And let's not even mention the X-scale debacle.

I think the only fantasy here is that the groups you "visited" are trying to catch up to Microsoft. But I like competition too, so here's hoping Microsoft gets it act together one day.

[Scott R]

I knew it was fantasy when I read this line:

"What surprised me the most was the Pocket PC emulator state that I saw run both Windows Media Player as well as some of the coolest Pocket PC games."

It would be hard to believe (if not completely impossible) that the OS5/CPU combo could run a PPC emulator at a decent speed. However, it is completely impossible to believe that Palm engineers would be given the task of creating a PPC emulator in the first place. This would be an awful lot of effort for minimal gain, seeing as the amount of PPC considering how limited the PPC software base is. My apologies if this offends anyone.

Scott

[Inaki C]

Perhaps making an emulator would not be easy, mostly because of the many components there are on Windows CE. However, these machines are so alike that it would be possible (and easier) to do a port of Windows CE with no much effort (provided the specifications of the hardware are open).

Perhaps that convergence of hardware will lead us to a scenary with only one hardware platform (say the Intel ARM saga) and different installable operating systems: Windows CE, Symbian,.... even Palm OS.