Symbol Waves Goodbye to PalmOS

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/11/10/HNgoodbyetopalm_1.html">http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/11/10/HNgoodbyetopalm_1.html</a><br /><br /><i>"Symbol Technologies has decided to discontinue its two Palm OS-based devices worldwide, bowing to European Union environmental regulations and a growing demand for Windows Mobile devices. The decision to scrap the Palm-based devices came late last year when Symbol began an overhaul of its product line, spurred by new European environmental regulations that took effect in July. The hardware of the two Palm products, along with other Symbol products, didn't comply with the regulations. Rather than cut some products in Europe while supporting them elsewhere, Symbol decided to discontinue the products across its line, said Marco Landi, a Symbol spokesman."</i><br /><br />They may build a future device with PalmOS if their users demand it, but for now, they felt it better to drop the 7 year old models. Thier clients want Windows Mobile and it didn't make financial sense to redo the PalmOS models to meet with the new European RoHS Directive, which limits hazardous substances a device can have. Apparently "Can't multitask" + "toxic" don't make for a great selling device. :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

I've definitely noticed that over the past two years I've seen less and less Palm OS-based devices in the hands of UPS, Fedex, and Purolator guys and more and more Windows Mobile devices.

[dh]

I work for a Symbol business partner and can say that they have done their usual crappy job of leaving their customers in the lurch.

There are actually a lot of businesses that use the Palm OS devices and Symbol gave them no notice at all that they were discontinuing the product in the US. They did make an announcement for EMEA, mainly because they can't sell them in the EU because of RoHS.

Although these POS devices can officially still be purchased through the end of this year, some of the parts such as the 4-slot serial cradles have not been available since early in the year.

So Symbol have a bunch of customers stuck with POS based applications and no-where to go. So these idiots want all the customers to drop everything and switch to WM. You can imagine the clients response that they are going to have to pay about $70k to re-do their custom apps and then start to buy WM MC70s that are more than twice the price of the old PDT1800 POS thingies.

I hope those Janam guys do well with their POS device. They could make a lot of people happy.