[Deslock]

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

Just wanted to get that quoted so I could refer back to it after this is released. I seem to recall the same statements about OS4/OS5 compatibility, yet there were a lot of apps that had to be redone.

Ed might as well have written "I'm quoting you because you're full of crap just like your company was before and I intend to rub your face in it later." It would've been just as tactful. And it would've been just as off-base because for the most part, old PalmOS software *does* run on version5 devices.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

and here I thought I was congratulating PalmSource.

Writing an article depicting Microsoft as blazing a strategy and PalmSource as following in their footsteps seems hardly congratulatory to me. Perhaps it was that Ed ended his article with "Welcome to 1999 PalmSource!" that made me think it was less than complimentary towards them.

In any case, Microsoft's decision to write a different and incompatible OS for smartphones wasn't so much a blazing strategy as a necessity because of various reasons (such as PPC's GUI not being customizable enough to use effectivly on a Smartphone). The Treo600 proved that PalmOS is flexible enough for a smartphone.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

The Treo, despite all of the accolades from the press and loyalty from existing users, has not been a market success. It hasn't been a failure to be sure, but PalmSource now recognizes that to be successful on a phone, you must design for the phone, not take a PDA and "phoneize it."

How many have they sold? I read somewhere that demand for the Treo600 exceeds production. In any case, PalmSource planned on continuing OS5 development (as a phoneOS) before the Treo600 was released. Ed knows this because he wrote about it over 4 months ago! This news.com article doesn't really say anything new except that PalmSource is changing its OS naming convention.

Edit: I saw Steven Cedrone's post asking us to keep things civil after I wrote my initial message, so I toned it down a bit (though, frankly, I think some of Ed's comments are some of the most disrespectful and do not help keep the discussion positive).

[Deslock]

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

Just wanted to get that quoted so I could refer back to it after this is released. I seem to recall the same statements about OS4/OS5 compatibility, yet there were a lot of apps that had to be redone.

Ed might as well have written "I'm quoting you because you're full of crap just like your company was before and I intend to rub your face in it later." It would've been just as tactful. And it would've been just as off-base because for the most part, old PalmOS software *does* run on version5 devices.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

and here I thought I was congratulating PalmSource.

Writing an article depicting Microsoft as blazing a strategy and PalmSource as following in their footsteps seems hardly congratulatory to me. Perhaps it was that Ed ended his article with "Welcome to 1999 PalmSource!" that made me think it was less than complimentary towards them.

In any case, Microsoft's decision to write a different and incompatible OS for smartphones wasn't so much a blazing strategy as a necessity because of various reasons (such as PPC's GUI not being customizable enough to use effectivly on a Smartphone). The Treo600 proved that PalmOS is flexible enough for a smartphone.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

The Treo, despite all of the accolades from the press and loyalty from existing users, has not been a market success. It hasn't been a failure to be sure, but PalmSource now recognizes that to be successful on a phone, you must design for the phone, not take a PDA and "phoneize it."

How many have they sold? I read somewhere that demand for the Treo600 exceeds production. In any case, PalmSource planned on continuing OS5 development (as a phoneOS) before the Treo600 was released. Ed knows this because he wrote about it over 4 months ago! This news.com article doesn't really say anything new except that PalmSource is changing its OS naming convention.

Edit: I saw Steven Cedrone's post asking us to keep things civil after I wrote my initial message, so I toned it down a bit (though, frankly, I think some of Ed's comments are some of the most disrespectful and do not help keep the discussion positive).

[bdegroodt]

I knew I heard the sound of thread lock as soon as I saw this on the front page. Oh well...another debate that will have to wait.

While I can, the issue on demand exceeding production is posted on Handspring's site. The delays are pretty substantial (3 months in some cases), and that might be a cause for uptake not being as good as could be.

[Partita]

Handspring/treo600 doesn't even show up on top 5 smartphone radar.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jhtml?cont...4_02_02_142039

[goofrider]

Originally Posted by Partita

so far so good, all top PPC apps has been ported to smartphone. Is all POS apps compatible with that crash happy treo600? (eh hmmm, so much for not having incompatible user paradigm, or whatever that shiny new buzzword bingo you just said.)

Treo 600 isn't having any more compatibility problems with POS apps as, say, Windows mobile 2003 devices with PPC (CE 3.0) apps.

the point here is that, any given PPC apps still has to be ported to Stinger manually, and the porting require some level of UI redesign. All POS apps run as-is on Treo.

Originally Posted by Partita

This is news. You guys have strategy?... like what strategy? Is it the 'please please buy our stuff, or the free market will die.' strategy or is that ' we don't need no stinkin' feature. Zen and simplicity are all user need' strategy.

oh wait, wait. another strategy. Split, merge, buy back, stock offering, reverse split, sell more stock.. (or also known as wall street hail mary move)

Flamebait. 'nuf said.

Originally Posted by Partita

I tell you what your strategy sounds like to me.
OS 6.0 is too friggin bloated and can't fit on smartphone ROM plus low power CPU. lol.

constant user experiance my foot. If it breaks compatibility and have different UI look, then there is no user paradigm or any other paradigm.

You wanna talk about bloated? PPC is bloated. That's why MS had to trim it down to fit on a smartphone in the form of Stinger.

At least OS 5 can fit on smartphones and run efficiently. None of the previous version of PPC can be comfortably fitted on a smartphone.

Yes, size and CPU horsepower are real limitations in smartphones. Neither Palm nor MS can overlook that.

Originally Posted by Partita

so you have two user paradigms. Hey sounds good. everybody ought to have their own paradigm too. Are you going to have another version for Car stereo, watch and embedded device? come on, Microsoft has them too. yay....

No, having 2 concurrently supported generations of the same OS is NOT an advantage. Supporting Win9x and Win2K/XP at the same time is NOT an advantage. Supporting Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X at the same time is NOT an advantage. It's a neccessity business strategy imposed by the current state of its intented market.

When an OS move from one generation to the next, the transition is always gonna be painful. Palm is remarkable for trying to maintain as much backward-comptaibility as it can. Microsoft has never been kind in that regard with PPC. Each of the transitions from CE -> PPC -> PPC 2000 -> PPC 2002 had each created a large number of incompatible legacy apps.

Originally Posted by Partita

do you actually believe your own drivel? So how do you explain that user cannot instal same software from one handheld to another, or how one handheld has different UI than the other?

Palmgear.com already has more compatibility symbols than pan galactic street signs, and now with this new paradigms Palm plans to add yet another 'flexibility'?

I have word for you: "platform fragmentation"

also check out what your goofy boss said about your type of move when done on WM. (welcome to eat your own word planet.)
http://www.businessweek.com/print/ma...3861037.htm?mz

As I mentioned, Palm OS 5 isn't having any more compatibility problems with older apps than, say, Windows Mobile 2003 with PPC (CE 3.0) apps. In fact, over 90% of POS 2.x/3.x apps runs on OS 5.

Over the course of PPC history, it has fragmented itself over and over again.

However, most POS apps will still run on both OS 5 and OS 6, PDA edition or smartphone edition. The OS will be slightly different but the apps will be (mostly) the same.

Originally Posted by Partita

Handspring is dead. quit pretending it is not. GSL phone is a no sale, and Kyochera latest phone is recalled for tendency of spontenous combustion. Samsung? anybody actually buy that dragonball phone?

well, after hitting such low point, of course just about anything will get better I suppose. What happen to SonyEricsson? Did you get sued yet?

PS. what's with Palm and the word 'Paradigm' did you just done reading Thomas Kuhn book or something? I hope this last longer than 'Palm economy, data centric, mass customization and Palm wireless ecosystem' or any other Buzz word bingo you've been throwing.

GSL PalmOS phones sell rather well in Asia, so do Samsung PalmOS phones. Most of Asia is traditionally less resistent to new technologies and competing platforms.

The Motorola MPx200 isn't as well-received as you want to believe either. So don't be so damn hypocritical of your competition when your prefered platform hasn't really got the lionshare either, because it has equal numbers of issues.

[goofrider]

Ed, as much as I love reading your site for the latest PPC news, it always made me sick to my stomach when you trash-talk Palm OS, spinning the facts beyond the orbit of Saturn, twisting facts into outright lies, purposely quoting or interpretating other sources inaccurately all in the spirit of perpetuating your prefered platform.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

While Microsoft does have some Pocket PC Phone devices, which are a full blown version of Pocket PC with phone hardware, they have all along known that having a separate OS written from the ground up would be needed for cell phones, and they knew it for several reasons.

The biggest reason for Stinger: resources. PPC is too bloated for affordable smartphones. Even a 300MHz ARM CPU and 64MB RAM is considered low-end in PPC world. Such specs will result in $500-700 phones.

And it's obvious that Palm understand that OS 6 will also be too bloated for smartphones (and they admittedly implied so in the PR). Hence they choose to continue to provide OS 5 for smartphone manufacturers.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

Pocket PC is a great platform for mobile computing, but PDA software isn't necessarily the best for all forms of mobile computing. The UI should be single finger navigable with one hand. You should never need a stylus to do things on your phone.

Um, hey, genius of MS eh? In case you forgot, the Symbian camp was the first one who realized that, and rewrote EPOC with several UIs: Series 60, Series 80 and UIQ, each targeting a different user paradigm.

The crown for pioneering 10-pad single-finger smartphone UI is neither MS nor Handspring, it's Nokia's Series 60.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

The Treo, despite all of the accolades from the press and loyalty from existing users, has not been a market success. It hasn't been a failure to be sure, but PalmSource now recognizes that to be successful on a phone, you must design for the phone, not take a PDA and "phoneize" it.

What exactly define a market success and what is failure? Wide open statements that's largely unsubstatiatied here and left to interpretation.

Neither you and I have any hard numbers to substantiate such arguements, so can you do me a favor and not making empty statements like that? It's irresponsible journalism.

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

So now PalmSource heads down the path Microsoft blazed back in 1999 when they realized that the MS SmartPhone OS, then called Stinger, couldn't be a Pocket PC stripped down. It had to start fresh, building a UI that was familiar to Windows and Pocket PC users, but 100% dedicated to a voice centric device. PalmSource's phone OS will build off of the core from OS 6 (which will be renamed) much like Microsoft's software starts with Windows CE, but the end result will be quite different. Different enough, I suspect, that a new software market will have to be developed just as Microsoft has had to nurture for the SmartPhone platform, one that has no touch screen, one that will need a comparatively tiny screen, a smaller RAM footprint, a less beefy processor, etc. Welcome to 1999 PalmSource!

This is a prefect example of how Ed can spin the facts and make inaccurate implications out of them. There's so much inaccuracy, misquotes, and misleading facts.

MS didn't ship Stinger in 1999, it shipped it in late 2003, while Nokia shipped their first Series 60 phones almost a year earlier. MS is as much a follower as anyone else.

Much of the UI redesign surrounding Stinger is primarly a limitation of PPC and its assumption of a 320x240 screen. Unlike PPC, Palm OS was originally designed for 160x160 screens, and most apps continue to assume that as the minimum resolution.

The phone-centric UI, however, was an idea began with Series 60.

However, Ed suggested that PalmSource is developing 2 versions of OS 6: one for smartphones and one for PDA. This is INACCURATE and MISLEADING. It never stated nor implied that in the PR nor the News.com article.

What the article said is that PalmSource is supporting OS 5 and OS 6 concurrently. OS 6 will be used for PDAs and high-end smartphones, and OS 5 for low-end smartphones. The decision to continue to support OS 5 is because OS 5 is less resource-hungry and more reliable, and it will result in cheaper handsets than OS 6, a very important factor in the smartphone market.

However, the upcoming OS 5 Phone Edition will NOT differ greatly from OS 5 now. It'll be just like the current version of OS 5 on the Treo 600. OS 5 Phone Edition is a version of OS 5 will its apps optimized for one-hand operations, otherwise it'll be identical to the OS 5 we have now.

PalmSource currently has no plans to maintain a separate smartphone platform. OS 5 Phone Edition will run the same POS apps as we do today, and will have the same look-and-feel as OS 5 today. Likewise, OS 6 PDAs and OS 6 smartphones will run the same OS and same apps. OS 6 will be a unified platform. This has always been PalmSource's official OS 6 strategy.

Internally, the difference b/w OS 5 classic and OS 5 Phone Edition will be simliar to PPC and PPC Phone Edition, it's mostly in the apps and some added phone-centric functionalities. What OS 5 is on the Treo 600 today sets the basis of what OS 5 Phone Edition will be, since PalmOne will submit the phone-centric enhancements it made to PalmSource, and PalmSource will integrate them into OS 5.

One last time:

• There will be no separate smartphone platforms for Palm OS.
  
  There will be no separate UI design for Palm OS 5 Phone Edition
  
  Palm OS 5/6 PDAs will share the same UIs and APIs as their smartphones counterpart and will run the same apps as their smartphones counterpart.
  
  Palm OS 6 will be a unified platform for both PDAs and high-end smartphones.
  

[/list][/list]

[mangochutneyman]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

Same here. No BT, no Verizon. I'm not ditching my Pocket PC anytime, but I wouldn't mind a Treo 600 for certain applications... although I personally liked the XDA a lot.
--janak

Just curious...what particular applications are you referring to? :?:

Anyway, what about the rumored Treo 610 with high rez screen and BT? Would you consider the Treo then? It would be interesting to learn what exactly it would take to make a hardcore PPC aficianado actually jump ship to a PalmOS based device like the Treo! :wink:

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by goofrider

It's irresponsible journalism.

I'm not a journalist.

MS didn't ship Stinger in 1999, it shipped it in late 2003, while Nokia shipped their first Series 60 phones almost a year earlier. MS is as much a follower as anyone else.

True, and I never stated otherwise. I played with a Stinger in 2000 though and it had been under development almost a year at that time, so that makes it 1999 when the decision was made to start from the ground up.

Much of the UI redesign surrounding Stinger is primarly a limitation of PPC and its assumption of a 320x240 screen..

Wrong. It was all about one handed operation, not the resolution. It would have been comparatively easy to do a new PPC driver at the smaller resolution.

[Partita]

Originally Posted by goofrider

Treo 600 isn't having any more compatibility problems with POS apps as, say, Windows mobile 2003 devices with PPC (CE 3.0) apps.

the point here is that, any given PPC apps still has to be ported to Stinger manually, and the porting require some level of UI redesign. All POS apps run as-is on Treo.

is that so? try telling that to the treo600 user mass how they can't run almost all game dsigned for OS5.0/T. (and that's just small case)

At least OS 5 can fit on smartphones and run efficiently. None of the previous version of PPC can be comfortably fitted on a smartphone.

Yes, size and CPU horsepower are real limitations in smartphones. Neither Palm nor MS can overlook that.

and thank gawd nobody is trying. otherwise smartphone would experiance exact same pathetic problem treo600 is having, namely non industry standard screen.

CPU/ROM horse power? the Mio3890 runs on 200mhz Xscale on 32MBROM, more than enough for PPC.

No, having 2 concurrently supported generations of the same OS is NOT an advantage. Supporting Win9x and Win2K/XP at the same time is NOT an advantage. Supporting Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X at the same time is NOT an advantage. It's a neccessity business strategy imposed by the current state of its intented market.

yupe, like I said, OS 6.0 is too bloated to fit OS5.0 hardware requirement. So you guys have to keep using OS5.0. If it is simply an upgrade, just flash the treo600 and install the OS6.0 on it. Like Microsoft did with smartphone 2k2 -> 2k3, of XDAI with PPCPE 2k2 to WM 2k3. What's this all the talk about flexible choice.

If the OS is so flexible it ought to fit old hardware, period. Are you saying OS6.0 can't run on treo600 hardware? lol. now THAT's funny!

When an OS move from one generation to the next, the transition is always gonna be painful. Palm is remarkable for trying to maintain as much backward-comptaibility as it can. Microsoft has never been kind in that regard with PPC. Each of the transitions from CE -> PPC -> PPC 2000 -> PPC 2002 had each created a large number of incompatible legacy apps.

you guys can't even maintain API compatibility across various model (Sony, treo, T|T, Zire) and you want to congratulate yourself on moving from version to version. 'mkay... if you say so.

incompatible legacy apps? what's that? download the freebie compiler and recompile. Big deal eh? little hassle to developer, but nothing painfull.

now you want to talk about 4.2 -> 5.0 -> 6.0, forward and backward compatibility? The big titles can't even run correctly between clie/tungsten/treo600... let alone jumping versions.

As I mentioned, Palm OS 5 isn't having any more compatibility problems with older apps than, say, Windows Mobile 2003 with PPC (CE 3.0) apps. In fact, over 90% of POS 2.x/3.x apps runs on OS 5.

Palm OS 5.0 isn't having any more compatibility problem...lol. 90% you said? to bad everybody is using the last 10% it seems.

Over the course of PPC history, it has fragmented itself over and over again.

right, and I am Elvis presley.

However, most POS apps will still run on both OS 5 and OS 6, PDA edition or smartphone edition. The OS will be slightly different but the apps will be (mostly) the same.

is that like 'sort of pregnant'? either it is the same or it isn't. and OS 6.0 apps won't run on 5.0. And I will guarantee you most of OS5.0 will breaks when put on OS6.0. (but of course you call that 90% compatible)

GSL PalmOS phones sell rather well in Asia, so do Samsung PalmOS phones. Most of Asia is traditionally less resistent to new technologies and competing platforms.

'rather well' , so what's that? like 12 dozens or so?

The Motorola MPx200 isn't as well-received as you want to believe either.

mpx200 isn't well receive? eh hmm, so how many units do yout hink this not so well received mpx200 has sold?

and how many unit the gloriously well recieved treo600 has sold?

shall we say 1:3 ratio?

So don't be so damn hypocritical of your competition when your prefered platform hasn't really got the lionshare either, because it has equal numbers of issues.

I am sorry, but Smartphone does have a bigger share than kyochera, treo600 and i500 combined. Although the lion share would be in Symbian hand, some 90-95%. Palm smartphone doesn't even register under any metric.

if you are talking about PPC vs. POS marketshare, last time I check POS marketshare is still dwindling while PPC is growing. lets talk about this 'lionshare' number again at the end of the year. This year POS will fall below 50% and PPC hits 40% and by early 2005 your lionshare will be in the minority.

What exactly define a market success and what is failure? Wide open statements that's largely unsubstatiatied here and left to interpretation.

let's just say treo600 is NOT the definition of success, and neither does T|T or OS5.0.

see, not hard is it?

[Partita]

There will be no separate smartphone platforms for Palm OS.

There will be no separate UI design for Palm OS 5 Phone Edition

Palm OS 5/6 PDAs will share the same UIs and APIs as their smartphones counterpart and will run the same apps as their smartphones counterpart.

Palm OS 6 will be a unified platform for both PDAs and high-end smartphones.

bwahahahaa........

so I was right.

this renaming of OS6.0 is just a gimmick to prevent people stop buying treo600 (or buying time until phone hardware catch up with the bloated OS6.0. ie. no no no this renamed OS 6.0 is NOT an OS 5.0 upgrade.)

Well it's official, this is just a rehash of 4.2 -> 5.0 situation.

now I am VERY curious about how bloated this OS6.0 is, considering common smartphone hardware has already reached 200mhz Xscale and 32MB rom. Boy if PPC can run on 200mhz xscale, this thing must be massively bloated.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by mangochutneyman

Just curious...what particular applications are you referring to? :?:

Not PalmOS apps per se, but rather "use cases". In particular, SMS and email where an integrated thumbboard would be useful. Apart from that, I don't have any intention of ditching my Pocket PC purchases.

--janak