07-08-2005, 01:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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PalmOS Is Dead
PalmOS, as we know it, is dead. We reported last week that PalmSource had halted all non-Linux development, but at the time I didn't fully grasp what that meant. I am still not sure I do, but after thinking about it for a few days and reading additional reports, it is clear to me that the operating system we are all familiar with, the one that is for personal information management, portable computing and wireless connectivity is dead.
PalmSource is focusing entirely on a flavor of PalmOS for Linux, but they are also working on feature phones with the help of their China MobileSoft acquisition, those phones that, while they have a lot of smartphone-style features, are essentially locked. Beyond ringtones and backgrounds, you can't just pop over to Handango and download software for it. What you get out of the box is what you live with. I am sure PalmSource will give it as much a look and feel of the classic PalmOS UI, but for most of us, that just won't be the same. They are targeting this OS to be complete in Q3 of 2006, which means it will be early to mid 2007 before the first phones start shipping. I fully expect this will be what LG will do as a new PalmSource licensee. I am not expecting a new Treo competitor from LG.
Once PalmSource gets the feature phone OS out of the door they will wrap up the full blown OS that everyone has assumed will be some powerful 32bit multitasking OS sitting on top of Linux. However, that will be 2007 at the earliest, so you could be looking at 2008 before devices would be ready to ship. 2008! 8O Will anyone care by then? You have Palm aficionados that could be in serious jeopardy hoping their current device lasts that long!
Meanwhile, you have pa1mOne, soon to be just Palm, creating the latest revision of FrankenGarnet which seems to get more unstable with each release and causes more headaches for developers as pa1mOne is notorious for not cluing people in on what changed. I thought it was an eternity waiting almost two years between the release of Pocket PC 2002 and Pocket PC 2003. I couldn't imagine using an OS in 2007 that was hatched in 2002. Between technologies like wireless USB, 802.11n, EDGE, EVDO, over the air video and stuff I haven't even heard of yet, there will just be too many things that a five year old OS can't handle. A perfect example is Skype. There is still no version of Skype for PalmOS. Garnet just can't handle it. Ten months after Skype for PalmOS was just around the corner you can't hardly find the word "Palm" on the Skype site. I would argue there were mobile technologies in 2002 that Garnet, also known as PalmOS5, couldn't handle, but I digress. :wink:
You think pa1mOne will wait until 2007 or 2008 for a new OS? Or do you think there might be a Palm device in your future, running Windows Mobile? I see the latter as far more likely to happen versus seeing FrankenGarnet 5.99999.
Michael Mace, the former PalmSource Chief Competitive Officer, was terminated. Chris Dumphy is no longer there, along with 16% of the workforce. PalmSource itself isn't dead. Far from it. But it is now no more than an embedded operating system maker that will fade from the consumer's memory faster than "New Coke!"
For years, Microsoft has seen its major threat as Nokia - years before even that article. It was pretty clear once the original iPAQ 3600 was released and Palm kept fumbling the ball on great features that Palm simply didn't have the internal resources to move the aging platform that ran on a Kadak provided kernel to a full blown operating system that could hope to do what devices based on Windows CE were capable of. Even Sony couldn't stem the inevitable decline of PalmOS's market share.
When someone has a monopoly people scream that without competition the consumer loses. Well, in general I agree. Don't worry though. Microsoft's toughest opponent in the mobile computing hand-space isn't Palm. It hasn't been since 2001. Microsoft has been shooting over their head at Nokia. Don't look for stagnation anytime soon.  Oh yeah, don't look for a Palm revival anytime soon either. :lol:
I guess I will have to re-evaluate what I use "The Competition" forum for. I am by far the most prolific poster of new items in here and most of those are about Palm. I probably need to get up to speed on what Nokia is doing with Symbian. Doesn't mean I will never post about Palm again. Come on! There is just too much fun in it. :wink: But in all honesty, it just isn't serious competition for the Windows Mobile platform.
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07-08-2005, 01:19 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,887
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Re: PalmOS Is Dead
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Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry
I guess I will have to re-evaluate what I use "The Competition" forum for. I am by far the most prolific poster of new items in here and most of those are about Palm. I probably need to get up to speed on what Nokia is doing with Symbian. Doesn't mean I will never post about Palm again. Come on! There is just too much fun in it. :wink: But in all honesty, it just isn't serious competition for the Windows Mobile platform.
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In that case you may want to focus on mobile-embedded LINUX.
Even Nokia has made it clear (with their actions) that they see Symbian as inadequate for high-end devices (like their web pad) and are starting to migrate *their* gadgets to Linux.
For my money, the high-end alternatives to WinCE for mobile computing, going forward are:
1- XP & sucessors
2- Generic Linux
3- Linux hosting emulators (Palm, possibly Symbian)
4- Legacy Palm
5- Sony PSP
If the promised cheap XP mini tablets do materialize for the 07 time-frame, we're likely to see the 07-08 market split along the lines of 60% Windows Mobile/CE, 20% Full windows, 20% everything else.
As for Palm one, I am not holding my breath waiting for them to sign up for CE. Gotta remember these folks are mostly ex-Apple engineers.
They'll do Linux before the do Windows Mobile/CE, business case be damned.
ABMers never change their stripes.
And in this case, adopting Windows means going toe-to-toe on an even playing field with Dell marketing and HTC engineering, among others. Given the quality of hardware Palm has been dishing out (never mind the OS) I don't think they'd relish that fight.
I think that in the non-phone market, Palm is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
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07-08-2005, 01:54 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,734
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Being a bit bored waiting for WM5.0 I regularly post on POS web sites. Here's a recent excerpt from a Micheal Mace interview.
Some choice but relevant Micheal Mace quotes:
http://www.allaboutpalm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44
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Linux, in particular, helps with developing new product categories because a lot of consumer electronics companies are already working with Linux. So we're talking with them. However, I don't want to hype expectations about that -- just the talking process can take many months, and even if they sign up for a license, then they have to develop their product. That process takes at least eight months, and sometimes closer to two years if it's a phone and has to be approved by a carrier. The more innovative the product, the longer it takes to develop.
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So even if someone signed a new license today, it might be mid-2007 before they'd ship a product, if it's something really different and innovative. That's just how the industry works.
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Especially as we move into phones, the adoption curve for new versions of the OS gets longer and less predictable. If you want an example of how this works, check out the number of Symbian phones that are still shipping with Symbian 6 and 7 even though the OS is now on version 9.
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At the time we announced Palm OS Cobalt, a couple of licensees had very aggressive plans to ship it quickly. Subsequently those plans changed. I think it was a mistake for us to try to predict hardware shipment dates for Palm OS Cobalt, and this is why we're trying to avoid predicting when hardware incorporating Palm OS for Linux will ship. It'll be there when our licensees ship it.
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In general, our partners understand these schedule uncertainties, and they prefer that we don't try to predict hardware dates.
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When is PalmLinux REALLY expected to be finished as a stable OS?
We're targeting Palm OS for Linux shipment to licensees in the first half of 2006. Please also read my comments above about the difficulty of predicting shipment dates.
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So no LG Garnet phone until 2007-2008, or 2009 if its Cobalt?
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When will PalmOS 5 be EOL?
We're not doing significant additional development on Palm OS Garnet today. But licensees can continue to ship it as long as they want to (see my comments about Symbian 6 above).
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Definitely Garnet then
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Can you tell us how many developers/software engineers that palmsource has and the breakdown of what they are working on? How many are working on cobalt? palm linux?
We have about 500 people, most of them engineers. They are spread across three development centers, in France, California, and China. China is the center for feature phone software development; France and California are working primarily on Palm OS for Linux.
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vs MS's 1200 engineers
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What kind of perks or benefits are offered to palmsource employees to keep them and keep them motivated?
All the usual computer industry stuff. The motiation's not just financial, though -- a lot of us are here because we really like the mobile market and want to help shape it.
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After the latest round of lay-offs I bet they are not very motivated now (accept by the very real fear of losing their job!)
Surur
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07-08-2005, 02:10 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 87
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What truely killed Palm overall is the split between the companies. Pa1mOne and PalmSource were one company, however are now two. Therefore, the hardware based Pa1mOne should work on hardware deployment only and PalmSource should be the OS. However, Pa1mOne refuses to use the newer Palm OS 6 because they can "make due" with OS 5 plus 50 million hacks (stability being the casuality). To put it in lighter terms, Pa1mOne wants to control the OS even if that means they are stuck at OS 5 forever.
It is a pity... the Palm OS was quite a competitor back in the day. The OS had some innovative features and concepts. However, due to this nice internal fight between the two halfs of Palm, they pretty much destroyed themselves.
I hope that eventually somebody will step up to the plate and give MS some competition again. MS doesn't do so well when they can be lazy.
As for "the competition", I think it could be a catch-all for all non-MS devices. Let's hope that a leader will emerge from that pack.
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07-08-2005, 03:02 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 39
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Like I said at Brighthand
This is it for me. I have had it up to here with PalmOS just like I will never buy another Sony product after the way they lied to me over the Memory Stick format going to 1 GIG. It's over.
My next PDA will be a PPC. Probably a Dell Axim X50v, hopefully they will ad a camera model.
Brighthand has a piece on how PalmOne can't afford to lose it's focus again. Well, for me it is simply too late. They have already missed any chance of being a permanent dominant force in handhelds.
As I wrote there (some points match up with Ed Hansberry's point here which is why I re-registered here to post this.):
.....All the talk about what Palm can and must do to succeed is too late....
Apple is still here for just one reason. They have and have had $Billions to spend on products that hit a niche market above Wintel. They might be able to fritter away even that market if they go through with this latest plan to run on Intel hardware.
Palm has no such war treasury.
I think of myself as a fairly typical handheld user. I am almost certainly going to PPC for my next handheld. Why? well, I want real files, real font, multi-tasking, standard top flight hardware, and such.
This is almost exactly what PalmOne could have produced if they had stayed combined with PalmSource and delivered Cobalt. But, what did they do? Wasted $hundreds of millions, splintered their user base, and gave up their market share dominance and name recognition. Why? To line their own executive's pockets with my hard-earned cash. I have enjoyed the good features of POS models, stability, quickness, even guicker resets. The latest models from PalmOne take up to 4 minutes for a simple soft reset. FOUR MINUTES! I can't go that. And the OS needs resetting more and more often, while each version of WM needs the same or fewer and fewer resets.
Sorry Palm. You could have stayed together and kept your silly executive stock manipulation plans out of this and had a nice set of feature phones, PDAs, and multi-media models out that were selling like iPods. Instead you went for the cash behind door number 2 and a fantasy market of OEMs. But, Apple (when they tried to license their OS) has already proven such a set of manufacturers would never appear.
I don't think anything Palms are or will do can keep them afloat much longer. Ed Hardy's Brighthand article talks of PalmOne pulling in cash hand over fist. That is nonsense. They don't have the money they need to bring out models competitive with those of Dell. They simply don't have the money. The OS won't let them do it. It would take a whole new OS or $200 million in development patches (which again, would make FrankenGarnet even less stable and standard) and there is no way PalmOne is going to do it. No way.
It's sad, but it is what it is. I still have my reservations about WM OS, and still wish for a good Linux PDA in the US, but I will have to take the least bad option of the bad options. Right now, it looks like PalmOne and PalmSource have taken me out their possible market by not delivering anything near the OS that others are offering.
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07-08-2005, 03:05 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 12
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Nokia mobiles are no competitor for me
They lack iSync compatibility in any way shape or form ....
For me - SE smartphones are more of a competitor and other than that .... the iMate JAM is a very nice device - make it UMTS - good bye Z1010 + UX40 ...
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07-08-2005, 03:34 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,520
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I read through the first 5 pages of the thread and I think their direction makes a lot of sense for them. This is all contingent upon them actually pullin this off.
Its debatable as to whether MS could infiltrate this "feature phone" silo PS is constantly talking about.
Apparently PS is looking to permeate every phone arena. Just from what I've read, I don't think the platform will sunset as all the predictions keep saying. They'll slump, then re-engineer themselves.
The thing that really interested me was the mention of an open development environment. Partnering with the Eclipse project seems like a very good move. Many companies have had great success by embracing the open source community.
[Slightly_OFF_TOPIC]
I've experienced these kinds of threaded interviews at other sites (including non-tech sites) and I really like the format. I think things like this would be a great addition to the ThoughtsMedia offering.
[/Slightly_OFF_TOPIC]
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07-08-2005, 03:59 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 516
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Well, this may be the first Palm-bashing article from Ed that I can't disagree much with. Things certainly look grim for PalmSource.
Ed, I'm not completely sure that you got your dates right, though. I was under the impression that PalmSource bought a usable OS from CMS and just needed to slap a skin and some Palm-compatible PIM-beaming capabilities to it. So, that feature-phone platform could be much closer to being ready. Of course, they didn't talk much about it at the developers conference because there would be no point. It's not based on the Palm OS and it's not even an open development platform. It's, as I understand it, just as I described above: the Palm GUI "look and feel" along with compatibility for sharing PIM data with real Palm OS devices.
Cobalt seems all but dead and I think the simple reason there was that it didn't bring enough new to the table from a tangible feature perspective (for end-users) while introducing enough compatibility problems to cause a lot of work for developers to get their apps working on it. As a result, PalmSource's biggest licensee (palmOne) stayed put. This makes perfect sense given the newer management at palmOne which is more Handspring influenced. Handspring stuck with v3.5 of the OS on their PDAs while other licensees had long moved on to v4.x.
The OS formerly known as Palm on Linux seems to be a long ways off and is the mid-2006 deliverable that I think you confused with their feature-phone platform. Of course, while I believe that the Palm-skinned feature-phone platform may be close to being ready, I'm skeptical that PalmSource will meet the mid-2006 date for their "this is really the one guys" Linux-based product.
One problem that PalmSource faces is that they think too highly of their "world class" GUI. I've always been a big fan of their GUI but their GUI doesn't translate so well to smartphones or landscape-native PDAs. I think they recently realized that and that's where their "Rome" project comes in, which aims to take a fresh look at how the GUI should work non-traditional-PDA designs (with most of the focus likely being on smartphones).
As you said, the current state of Garnet on feature-rich devices is quite the mess. Where the Palm OS was once considered rock-solid stable compared to the PPC, the roles have now reversed. I recently started coding an app for the Palm OS and have had to deal with all sorts of compatibility issues between various 480x320-capable Palm OS devices. The app will work fine on my Zodiac, run upside down on the LifeDrive, and not run at all on the Tungsten T5. Oh, but it runs just fine on the desktop simulators for all three. I think the problem here is that in allowing licensees to tweak the OS to their heart's content, the situation for developers has grown uglier and uglier. It might not have gone over well, but I really think they should have required all licensees to use flash ROM and for PalmSource to OK all code changes and release updates that end-users could install, keeping everyone "up-to-date."
While I can't argue with your doom and gloom predictions for the Palm OS, I still see PPC/WM as severely lacking on the usability and GUI front. After numerous OS revisions, there's still too much screen real estate wasted on window elements (and now they've taken away more space by adding those two soft buttons), MS's official design guidelines still say it's wrong to use a real decent-sized OK button on a form and instead tell developers to include that horrid little round OK button in the title bar, there's no task switching "in the box", and the PIM apps still require far too many taps (and have other usability issues) as compared to even my ancient USR Pilot 5000's PIM apps.
As I've said before, when it comes to modern PDAs and smartphones, it's not a matter of whether the Palm OS GUI is better or worse than WM's. The truth is that they both suck. I'm always on the lookout for someone new to jump into the arena with an all-new high-end-PDA and/or smartphone platform with a designed-from-the-ground-up GUI and easy and open developer tools, but it still hasn't happened. I think that MS may get there, though. They've got a large enough userbase and group of licensees such that feedback concerning the GUI issues will get louder and louder and they'll hopefully put some real money and support behind fixing/revamping things.
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Tapland
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07-08-2005, 04:14 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 398
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I think that for me Palm was never really an option. When I got my first PDA a year ago I had around �200 to spend. At that time it would buy me a Tungsten E, a Tungsten T2 or an Ipaq H2210. The Ipaq just seemed much better value. A higher res screen, more powerful prosessor, more memory & a screen that wasnt half full of a graffiti pad (in the case of the T:E). It also gave me dual card slots. It just seemed a much better product. Now I have that H2210 and I have a mate with a T2 I can safely say the Windows Mobile was the better choice. You should see his face when I pull up BETAPlayer and play the Simpsons and all he can do is get some really bad quality music out of his speakers. Long live Wiindows Mobile (untill something better comes along at least.)
We can all see that the Palm OS is dead. After all wasnt there talk not long ago about a Windows Mobile powered Treo. Now that really would be good.
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07-08-2005, 04:24 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 91
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Treo 670
I currently own an I-mate Jam (HTC Magician) but I have come accross some pictures showing the new Treo -670, which supposedly runs Windows Mobile. The pictures look real to me and the shape of the devise is different from Treo 650. Does anyone have any information on this? Did PalmOne finally realize they may very well have the best devise yet? I wll swich from my Jam to Treo 670 as soon as I can get one.
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Linear Mode
