Are Palm Planning a Treo Running Symbian?

[Jonathon Watkins]

<i>"This all feels a little dubious. . . . that Palm engineers have built a prototype of a Treo running on Symbian. Certainly makes sense that Palm’s engineers would build a few to see if it could be done, but will a Treo running on Symbian ever see the light of day? . . . .[T]he problem is that the Symbian Treo isn’t as good as the Windows Mobile version because Nokia is holding onto some “core Symbian code” which apparently is needed to make the phone work better."</i><br /><br />I think it's best to firmly file this flight of fancy under 'rumour' for now. Choice is good, but having the same mobile hardware device running three different OS's? It's taken Palm a while to change their ways, but this plethora of potential OS options is getting silly. Do you guys think there is even a slim possibility of having a Symbian Treo to add to the Palm and WM powered devices?

[Menneisyys]

[T]he problem is that the Symbian Treo isn’t as good as the Windows Mobile version because Nokia is holding onto some “core Symbian code” which apparently is needed to make the phone work better."

Well, I don't know much about Symbian, but I don't think Nokia should be THAT silly. They should have learnt from the history of Apple/Palm. (That is, not allowing everyone produce Symbian-based phones will most probably leave to the same fate as that of Palm.)

I may look around in the Finnish press some day on this question.

[Michel]

In theory it makes sense: Palm is a hardware company, and as such, has the goal to sell as many devices as possible. So if I would have to put my money on it, I'd say yes: it's possible that Palm is investigating putting Symbian on the Treo.
However, that doesn't mean I we'll ever see one on the shelves, there are many things that could put Palm off; e.g. if the statement that 'Nokia is holding onto some "core Symbian code" ' is true, I could see Palm backing out if it were to jeopardise the whole user experience. Because that is what the Treo is all about: awesome usability.

Personally, as a 650 owner, I would love to see UIQ on the Treo, more so than WM (no offense to the people here).

[IpaqMan2]

I have never seen Symbian as a powerful platform.. maybe I am wrong, but the OS seems to do well in an applience setting, like inexpensive and dumb down versions of smartphones. I can't see this being an OS that will work on a Treo, at least not in it's current market settings.. Now if they made a "cheap" Treo with the Symbian OS for maybe like 200 bucks... perhaps that would work and it wouldn't be for the OS.. but because of the Brand name of the Treo.. but that's it.

[dazz]

No way!! Palm is already splitting a rather small engineering team in half in order to develop for both the WM and Palm OS. They would just not be able to handle adding another OS into the mix.

Besides, there would not appear to be a reason to do this. Palm wanted to be able to reach deeper into the enterprise using WM. What would they gain from adding Symbian??

[Phillip Dyson]

Ed was asked this question at the last press conference. And while corporate denials don't mean much, his denial made sense.

Palm should absolutely make sure that they are not painted into a corner with any OS company, but that also doesn't mean that they're going to run with the flavor of the month.

Palm has cast their lot with Windows Mobile but their still packing their reserve chute with PalmOS.

Symbian is merely the poisoned pill if they're ever captured.

I think my post might explode if I try to fit anymore analogies in it. :wink:

[dazz]

I hate to be brutally picky but it is bugging me everytime I read the title of this thread. It should be "Is Palm" not "Are Palm".

I know, picky. :roll:

[martin_ayton]

I hate to be brutally picky but it is bugging me everytime I read the title of this thread. It should be "Is Palm" not "Are Palm".

I know, picky. :roll:

I think this may have been raised in a 'weekend' item a few months back. In The UK people tend to think of companies as the sum of their employees and therefore refer to them in the plural (hence 'are' Palm) whereas in the US companies are regarded, and referred to, as single entities (hence 'is' Palm). I'm English: I acknowledge the logical correctness of the US position, but I will probably always stick to the English usage.

[dazz]

Really? I had no idea that was the case.

It's just one of those hang-ups I have. There are a few things that irritate me that I see written too often. I’m not even close to being perfect with spelling or grammar but it seems there are a few basics that are consistently gaffed.

It’s okay. I’ll live. :wink:

[TheZodiac]

Symbian smartphones alawys seem to run under lower power CPUs.. I wonder if it WERE to be made, if they would jump to an xscale or Aalchemy platform. IT certainly would take the OS to another level speed wise.

THe palm treo in itself is a nice hardware playform and form factor. I think versions running all major smartphone OS's would only be a good thing.

WinMo, Linux (midori?), Symbian 9, Palm OS, which a future release would be based on Linux/Java... so, why not. Many manufactures have differnt kinds of phones running differennt OSs, but they always seem a bit different.. so why not the same form factor with a different OS.. oR, a choice of loadablre OSs.

I always said, I love my treo (600) would be cool with Windows.. and now its here.

I always like my S60 Nokia 3650 also.. though it would have been nice with a keyboard and touch screen capabilities. So why noy a S90 treo? or As they said, Symbian 9?

WHY NOT :)

[Eriq Cook]

Of course not. I could never see this coming. Symbian would be a step below Windows Mobile AND Palm OS. Having a Palm running Symbian would turn it into more of a cell-phone than PDA-Phone. What were they thinking?

[Jonathon Watkins]

I hate to be brutally picky but it is bugging me everytime I read the title of this thread. It should be "Is Palm" not "Are Palm".

I know, picky. :roll:

I think this may have been raised in a 'weekend' item a few months back.

Bingo. Darius wrote up a decent post (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39718&amp;) about it. It's just one of those funny 'two countries divided by a common language' type of things. ;-)

PMs are also a good way of pointing out any possible typos, rather than cluttering the forums. :wink:

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Really? I had no idea that was the case.
Yeah. It was Darius that had an off-topic post several months ago on the differences betweek UK and US English. Actually, even before that, Darius and I were in an IM chat session when I called him out on the same thing (I saw a post of his that treated a company name as a plural noun) and then he educated me on how they speak in Australia.

I tell you what. I saw the title of the post and immediately thought the same thing again until I saw who posted it.

Globalization is a beautiful thing, ain't it?

Anyway, back on topic, I can't see Palm ever going with Symbian. I don't see any value proposition that this would hold for Palm. It's a weaker platform than the Palm OS with far fewer applications written for it. That is UNLESS Palm were considering getting into the more traditional cellphone market, creating basic cellphones with very basic cellphone functionality.

[dazz]

Actually, the Symbian OS, at least the UIQ variant is quite powerful. I reviewed a Sony Ericsson P900 some time ago and thought the OS was quite decent and well suited to the form factor. You would be amazed at the jog dial. You can scroll it up and down and press it in but can also click it forward and backward for additional one-handed capabilities.

Still prefer the WM OS but Symbian's UIQ is no slouch.

[sub_tex]

Having a Palm running Symbian would turn it into more of a cell-phone than PDA-Phone.

Not sure what symbian phones you've been using, but the latest high end nokias as well as the UIQ ones from SE all can pull off everything my treo can, minus the touchscreen specific things.

Nokia's s60 UI is known and loved by many. The UIQ UI isn't so widespread, mainly because other than the SE devices, who else uses it?

Personallly I think Palm was looking to go with s60 since it has the widest application base. But s60 is Nokia's thing, not Symbian.

And I can see Nokia saying no to them on licensing it.

[bbarker]

Globalization is a beautiful thing, ain't it?
And thank goodness you spelled "globalization" with a "z", US fashion. :)

[Darius Wey]

Really? I had no idea that was the case.
Yeah. It was Darius that had an off-topic post several months ago on the differences betweek UK and US English. Actually, even before that, Darius and I were in an IM chat session when I called him out on the same thing (I saw a post of his that treated a company name as a plural noun) and then he educated me on how they speak in Australia.

You know what? A lot of my recent posts treat companies as single entities just to please the majority of readers who read this site. Pull me aside and talk to me in person, and you'll notice that I still speak English the good old-fashioned Australian way. ;)

And why have I done the former? Because no amount of off-topic posts (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39718) will avoid threads such as this where someone drags it off-topic to talk about some grammatical point. No offense directed at you, Dazz. I just find it funny. :P Since one of us has to bend to conform to societal standards, I figured I'd do it.

[dazz]

No offense directed at you, Dazz. I just find it funny. :P Since one of us has to bend to conform to societal standards, I figured I'd do it.

None taken, Darius.

Sorry about derailing this thread with such trivia, but I had no idea that there had already been numerous discussions about doing this and that Aussies use the plural form this way.

So, anyone want to talk about the ridiculous theory of Palm using Symbian OS? :wink: