Access Discusses the end of the Palm OS

shoty1054

New member
Article is available here. 3:45PM PST - Article has been pulled but you can see the remants of it at Engadget or rabroad.

Ok, can I say it now........I told you so? :D

Based upon my take on the above article - it's going to migrate to an interface on Linux, which may not be too bad but you developer types better start getting comfortable with Bill and his band of Renton Rascals.

These may be sad times but as I've said they are also inevitable times.
 
I'm relishing in the fact that I stated it would be the end. The demise or shift to Linux will mean that the Palm OS will become less useful because it will probably not be on devices that I'd prefer to use.

Sharp uses Linux and some Motorola phones (I believe) and there are certainly others - but since it's a Windows world that we live in - then the demise of the Palm OS was somewhat inevitable although not expected, by me, this early.

True, Palm still has Licenses till 2009.....what does that mean: It means they can continue to use it, or not, if they so choose till that time. The migration to WM will facilitate a quicker demise.

I suspect we may see a beefed up LifeDrive and some other devices from Palm but the TX may be the flagship for awhile, in the form of a PDA device. It may very well be the last major device for 2 or 3 years.....oh wait 3 years will put us into 2008, nevermind. :D

There will be shift towards Windows Mobile device "faster" now by corporations thus accelerating the Palm demise. No corporation is going to invest in a Palm based Enterprise solution with the uncertainty of the term of service and more importantly, long term support.

There is some blustering going on that Ed Hardy from rabroad is stating that Palmsource is trying to get the article (in the hyperlink) pulled. No matter the damage of this "test balloon" has been done......tick tick tick, dead.
 
Looks like they pulled the article. Oh well. When the Ceo doesn't believe in his own product that is about it. I had friends at work that have or had the pc pda's and that is what made me go palm. I wonder what the new treo will cost. If it is 500 to 700 you might as well get a laptop and a nice cell phone. I still have a leather daily runner, and it is starting to look better every day. Might start a new trend. Russ forever picking.
 
Exactly. They didn't get what they paid for; they got a pantsless, gutless weasel sellout, and therefore (I guess) "deserve" the self aggrandized doomsday prediction.

Nothing HAS to be sad - they need a CEO. Right now they're without one. There's nothing "chief, executive, or officer" about somebody that claims the buyer has better stuff and they (and we) had better all just go to the local store and get the biggest jar of vaseline sold, because we're not even gonna get kissed first.

Put some extra cash aside, watch the prices on the TX, and continue to use your faithful apps. I will. Nothing wrong with using "old" technology that works - and for that matter if you don't need the Palmized aps then grab a Dell Axim and don't feel ashamed. Just remember to use what's best for you - for me it's an older technology with the apps I need. I'm grateful for the "backward" TX - at least my stuff still works and now I can focus on Firefox development instead of spratting. I won't miss a beat. Neither should any of you.

I called for Linux based OS two years ago, by the way. I just want the devices available with retro compatibility - which Linux could probably afford. It would also make it easier for us to tweak apps to our liking.
 
I have just sent the following italicized message in varying forms to a dozen major developers:
--------------------------
Dear xxx: (intro comment)
I would like you to check these 3 threads in order:

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61649
http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61614
http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61315

I would request that you weigh in on this, especially on first link.
Is there some way you could merge with other developers and BUY this thing before it sinks?

I'm emailing other major Palm developers tonight and asking THEM to weigh in on this; someone has the $$$ to buy Palm OS as it stands. How about forming some consortium to purchase Palm, or what's left of it?

Apple, Natara, Mozilla, Tealpoint, Iambic, Handmark, Brayder - YOU - and others - there's some money there "added up;" there has to be a way and if necessary I'll lead the charge. I've done it before.

--------------------------

I would "request" in the strongest terms that ANY of you who actually CARE about Palm OS with pull or friends among developers contact them regarding this issue as I have done above. I am making further enquiries tomorrow and have asked developers to post thoughts/comments here on this thread.

This isn't over. Not by a long shot if I (we) have anything to do with it. SOMEONE will or should purchase the "shell" of what's left and get the oars out of the boat.
 
PTL,

Far be it from me to discourage the masses to weigh in on "saving the Palm Planet" but let me add something.......

The Palm OS as it stands is not "wireless" friendly. Sure you've got a TX and a LD with builtin Wifi but both are tweaked to the gills without much battery to support it. The Treo was supposed to allow for the Wifi card promised a year ago.....hasn't happened. Why? too many conflicts etc. And Blazer is a joke of browser which was one reason why Access bought Palmsource was to take the browser and OS to the next level.

So that said - who is going to want to support a standalone OS that only works on Palm devices and can't be "retrofitted" or flashed the ROM to accomodate a new version.

Palm devices (except the Treo) is losing market share to MS based devices, Symbian (largest share of the European Market), and all of the other "phone" based OS out there. That plus, who wants to build a chipset that's going to work with the Palm OS?

This chipset issue is fairly huge in my mine - not all chips will run the Palm OS and as such your building chips for an OS that has minimal market share potential for the future since devices are converging. A future Palm OS chipset would have to have wifi builtin and not a seperate chip in order to succeed; ala MS Mobile devices.

I don't like it anymore than you do - but as I've stated before - the only market share that is increasing is converged devices. That's who the chip manufacturers are "going after" - that's their bread and butter for the future.

If Cobalt had made an appearance - it might have been able to hold off the Windows Mobile devices - but a TX should have been released over a year ago......if your efforts to save the Palm Planet might have a chance to succeed.

The nail has been 'set' the hammer has been cocked and it's on it's way down to strike the head - your efforts are going to have to stick your hand in the way of the hammer in order to keep it from being driven into the coffin.....but no matter what....it's going to hurt.
 
http://www.rabroad.com/article/Palm_OS_Is_NOT_Dead

What's wrong with you? "Save the world?" Not quite. A cynical, blustery and silly notion of you, really. "Masses?" maybe. I'd rather be one of the masses than an elitest defeatist - who is so determined to be right you'll insult anything and anyone that disagrees with your relishing the defeat of a product this forum is dedicated too - and who are you calling "masses?" Those supposedly less educated than you or just a bunch of "idiot developers and Palm users?" We're not exactly chimps out here, and I have it on good authority that the Access browser works GREAT. It should have been on the TX. Two developers have already contacted me, and they are extremely positive. There is some suspicion that the article's writer was "paid," if you get my drift. You know anything about THAT?

As far as "hammers" I've brought a few down myself, so that veiled threat doesn't really do much to deter me or the many Palm users that will take exception to "everything is awful and there's no way out."

I'm personally disappointed in you, Moose and I'll leave it there. I couldn't be less interested in a "point/counterpoint" with you from here on out. Good luck with any product decision you make and I'd appreciate - even by silence - your not raining on the parade of those who would like the product WE USE to hang around a while. If it's all so "over," then I expect we won't be seeing you here. What's the point? Converting the "masses" to PPC? Who elected you God and executioner, anyway?
 
My comments were not meant as a personal attack - they were meant as a point that even if you contact the software developers and they are enthusiastic - it's the hardware manufacturers that you have to fight.

I'm not advocating shifting to PPC but since most of the net agree's that the TX is ok but should have been out at least a year ago. Hardware - or lack of it from Palm - is going to drive the OS away not the lack of software developers for the Palm OS.

PTL, sorry you took it personal - it was not meant in that fashion.

P.S. Sony and Tapwave (hardware companies) have both exited the market. Why? And Sony was much more progressive with devices then Palm ever thought about being. Couple that with Palm getting into bed with MS on the Treo with Windows - you may not be able to get a device that will have a pure Palmsource OS on it.
 
Tapwave exited the market because they made the mistake of making and marketing a truly great PDA primarily as a game console, rather than primarily as a PDA, and they made it look too much like a game console for many people's tastes. A more business-like version would have sold like hotcakes if it was marketed as a metal-bodied HiRes+ two-slotted Palm OS PDA with 8mb of dedicated graphics RAM and stereo sound (and 128MB of RAM, for the Zodiac 2), with Bluetooth. I'm pretty impressed with my Zodiac 1 so far even with the funny shape.
 
Im shocked. Our biggest 2 Gurus are in conflict. Is this forum in shambles? I hope not. I hope that everything happen because we all still care for Palm. Hope.

Just thought to weigh in with some points. PTL and Mooseman, have you ever wondered why Sony did not make it? According to Jeff at 1src*, I dont know if you buy into it, its because they innovate too much. They do not built to suit a particular need. Rather they built just for the sake of being in the fore. Palm is a different company. Palm provides solutions to what we need, and I certainly do not mind Palm being behind, that is, technology that does not border on bleeding edge that can hurt the company. Of course we used to lament whenever Palm comes out with a PDA, that is lacks this or that, or that or this. But do we really have a use for such state-of-the-art tech?

Now that Palm has incoporated some really nifty and pragmatic features like the non volatile memory and wifi, it should be cheered upon by us, the ppl who even cares about the OS, ppl who knows what goes into our Palms. Because that can only mean one thing, Palm is trying to, and I believe it can reach out to more ppl. Just take for example, the Z22. I believe it will sell just for one reason: NVFS. My less geeky sister and mother often laments that Palms are not practical for the general consumer because they require a charge to maintain memory. Now no more.

Jeff also mentioned that Palm was becoming a VAR (value added reseller) meaning tHey do not and cannot solely rely on one product, in this case Palm OS. As a VAR, it would mean the more variety the better. That's what I loft about the new Palm. No longer as Palm as before. But the question that I want to ask is: why do we all choose a PALM over a ppc or a linux-based PDA? I would think that its because of the Palm experience, and if Palm can replicate the experience in Linux, so be it. (But NO WM. I hate monopolys. I hate domination just because they think they have a superior OS when they dont!)

That said, I support PTL's move to wanna do some bit in saving what we all know as Palm. I've fallen so affectionally in love with them since day one. I really hope I can do something for the cause, if there ever was one.

*http://www.1src.com/scripts/show/1278-The_TX__the_Z22_and_Why_Palm_Doesn_t_Make_Ferraris.html
 
Check out www.palmsource.com and click on linux community. The way it reads cobalt os will be layered with linux. They do not say much more. No time frame. Of course we have been seeing the cobalt is arount the corner for a time now. I guess the hard thing for me is when the new combo products come out developers will make programs for us to use. After paying for the os version of the product(s) that I like, I will have to pay again for the same basic program for the windows base platform because you can not just transfer the programs. If you are a new(never had a pda) buyer it is fine. What about the rest of us. I do not like the idea of buying a bunch of programs again that I really like. May be that is a thought to developers. Give us the same programs for the new product at a small upgrade fee. This alone will hold some of us back from buying. I guess we will just have to wait till we can play with one to see if it really is worth it. You won't get the old 320x320 or 320x480 with the windows product. Just my thoughts. Russ. :confused:
 
T3Gunner:

I don't think PTL and I are in that much conflict.....this is an emotional issue and as such it's good to talk through it.

Your comments about Sony being too innovative and the VAR are probably dead on. And now that Palm no longer is in control of the OS, they do need to partner with other companies to insure survival. Palmsource is no longer in control of the OS either now that Access has purchased it.

The real heart of the problem goes back to when the two companies seperated.

But from a hardware side (VAR) Palm can't rely upon the OS past 2009 since that's the length of the contract. And if Access chooses to piggy back it onto a Linux based setup then the hardware is going to have to change.

A software developer (I'll pick PTL's favorite, TealPoint) will have almost no say in what direction Access takes if there is no hardware to support it.

Palm will dictate what direction they take on the hardware side (VAR). And business will drive a big chunk of that direction.

Palm devices were originally marketed to individuals - The Treo 600 and 650 (the biggest sellers) are more business oriented. And who controls business software? Your only allowed one guess.

Now enter in Access - they need to capture some of that business market and the 2nd player in that field is Linux. The hardware will have to change in order to capture that segement.

Any effort to save the true Palm world will have to be directed at the hardware side. And by definition now - Palm is a VAR and they'll go with whatever platform affords them the best market share.

As G.P. points out - it may be that the OS will get tweaked to run on top of a Linux based device - but since Sharp just released a Smartphone (linux based) that would be my guess who the hardware supplier of choice will be for the first "trial" of the new Palm-Linux device.

If Palm and Palmsource had never seperated and they released a device that was truely business friendly (would sync 100% to Outlook) then we wouldn't be having this friendly discussion.

There have been alot of comments about retraction, misrepresentation, misintrepreted, payola etc - but I still haven't seen a single "fact" from Access, only from Palmsource.

Was the press release a "test" balloon as I stated somewhere else? I'd bet somewhere in China - there is a guy sitting at a computer Googling to see how many positive or negative comments have been stated and by whom - and they are listening and will be deciding as a result?

P.S. T3Gunner - have you ever wondered why Palm hasn't yet produced a device that has a radio (phone) and wifi? But MS has been able to do it? Over a year ago - Palm promised to have an SDWifi card for the 650.....by end of the year or early January......nyet! I'm no software engineer but it might not be feasible. It was supposed to be part of cobalt? Maybe the hardware isn't compatible and maybe.....well I could go on. It didn't bode well for the current platform of devices.

If the Treo with Windows has a radio and wifi as surmised......
 
OK. I've calmed down. This might be rambling and I apologize in advance.

By June of next year "WifI" will be the dial-up of wireless. Verizon already has EVDO for $60/mo, and other competition starting in January. Right now you need a "card;" in March laptops ship with EVDO built in. They are not going to include Bluetooth (security problem wrought, which is why Verizon defeated "other than Motorola" bonding), WiFi (slow) and EVDO. They'll pick one.

So Wifi is already moot. I said, a week after owning the 505 5 years ago - "Man alive, I wish Palm would make a PC." That may be the new "hardware." A Fujitsu LifeBook on steroids - with EVDO. Doesn't say much for the handheld "market," such as it is - but if you want spreadsheets on your belt and an organizer, and use the laptop for internet - then you're done. Palm obviously aren't interested in Bluetooth or WiFi, as they developed both too slowly to be any good. We're approaching the end of "WiFi as cutting edge," which is proably good since Palm "skipped it" altogether.

That doesn't mean they can't produce a handheld for everything OTHER than surfing, which is basically what we've HAD ALL THIS TIME ANYWAY. The TX and LifeDrive are sorry advances but they're here and that's that. What's "around the corner" is in complete limbo and frankly a lot of us are tired of waiting.

Here's my personal plan of action:

1. I'm actively seeking a proggie that reads spreadsheets (xls or open office) from a Card. DrBaer asked about something releated to this yesterday, and got me thinking.

2. Yesterday I loaded Ubuntu Linux. Split the harddrive, W2K on half, Ubuntu on the other - 1.5GB total install including almost everything I could want save Docs to Go conduit. Yes, it has Palm synch with it and open office 2.0.

I have summized that Linux is great, and can't figure out what the fuss is about trying it or switching. You tell people "I'm going to try Linux" and they look at you like you're wearing a tinfoil hat and just got off a space ship. It's a breeze, intuitive, and all I need to figure out is what the hell's a tarball and how do you install a program. I won't need many - and especially the 14 security apps and trojan hunters I need with Windows. If this is the way

/palm(source|inc\.|LLC|Ltd)/

(sorry, you almost have to write it as a regular expression these days - I wonder if their employees actually know where to show up in the morning) -

plan to proceed, and you can skin your device any way you want - that isn't a bad thing. My huge "boiling point" comes when

1. We're calling it the end 4 years early and the other shoe hasn't dropped
2. When I'm told "technology moves at the speed of business" (three little letters to refute that . . . . "GNU," which has better stuff than commercial business software)
3. We all lay down like lemmings and wait for it.

Tealpoint will manage if Palm OS switches to Sanskrit - they're collectively GOD. Other developers might spring up. Freeware might once again have a rebirth. Sure I'm miffed at the Palm "CEO" (still have to laugh at that) - but perhaps he's Nicholson at the Water Cooler in Cuckoo's Next "At least I tried, G.D. it - at least I did that much." We should give him til January, even if it's one more worthless, fruitless WAIT. He doesn't have much longer than that before he'll sell what's left to K-Tel Records and clear out his desk.

That's pretty much my slant, too. We can all try. I have yet to hear from the majority of developers I contacted over the weekend - if they're asleep I'll find 12 more. And 12 more after that. And then we'll investigate class action to get our money back for peripherals, hardware, software and broken promises over 5 years. I'm not giving up. Ever. Ever. Call me nuts - they did the same with Barnes Wallace in WWII - who said we could develop a "bouncer" to take out German bridges and dams hidden by mountains. Four failures. And then it bounced. And they came down.

Anybody with an injection mold can make "hardware." I'm rooting for the Japanese because 1) their stuff doesn't BREAK, and 2) Apple (would have been my first choice) seem to have the attitude of "own whatever they put on it and keep charging 'em." Don't try to put an i-tune on a Windows device, unless you get the freeware "code stripper." I don't have first hand experience - I don't own an IPod. Seems to me if Japan own Access and the "source" or the "force," they might as well make the light-sabres as well.

All we need is a belt-sized PDA capable of holding programs we use often, and even better - alter those programs to our specific needs. Linux would afford that, and it's stable as rock. I thnk "resets" would go away. Connecting to the internet is not going to a showstopper - I haven't seen ANYONE in the state of Califronia using a handheld with WiFi anyway. Laptops it is - with a Palm on their belt for "various organizational tasks." If Blackberry, Zodiac and various incarnations of Palm/Clie all "failed" at internet access - then those who really need it will go with the Windows Treo. So what? That leaves at least 85% of the population in "our camp," wanting a dependable organizer.
 
It is an emotional issue, in part because many of us, myself included, keep virtually all our personal data on one PDA or another; I happen to use a Tungsten E, which I sync with JPilot on my wholly Linux desktop machine. I will not under any circumstances voluntarily use a Microsoft product; I decided that in January 2002 and have kept my promise.

So I'm on the watch for an alternative when my Tungsten E bites the dust as it will someday. I find the current state of affairs beyond my poor ability to understand, as I have little business sense, and at age 65 no desire to acquire any (I have other things to do).

I'm very seriously considering going back to paper record keeping, and have found several good Web sites devoted to just that--featuring forums inhabited by highly intelligent people who finally got sick of the fickle software/hardware world. Some of them retain the use of PDA's but also use paper; others are paper-exclusive.

I do not want a converged device; I have never wanted a Swiss Army knife, and I don't want the electronic equivalent. OK, I'm particular about things. But that's how it is.

So unless a Linux- or other non-MS-based OS-operated PDA that is just a PDA (and not even wireless) comes along, and which is Linux-desktop-friendly, I will probably just say bye-bye to the PDA world when my Tungsten says bye-bye to me. Too bad, because I love using it. If nothing else, playing Solebon on it every night puts me to sleep.
 
Before we all freak too much about the move over to Linux, I think it's important to note that the effect of many users is likely to be relatively minimal.

In general the term "Operating System" is a bit fuzzy these days, as the phrase is sometimes used to describe only low-level hardware and resource management software, but other times also incorporates a windowing system, application services, and a graphical user interface.

On handhelds, PalmOS and Windows Mobile includes both low-level and high-level aspects. When someone writes a PalmOS or Windows Mobile application, that app uses the graphical user interface and application routines of that OS, and thus gives not only portability between all devices running the OS but a consistent interface for end users.

Symbian, on the other hand, is lower level animal. It handles the memory, timing, and hardware management for a phone, but every phone manufacturer writes its own custom code layer on top of Symbian. Applications are coded to the phone manufacturer's layer. That's why it doesn't mean much to say one is "writing apps for Symbian OS" because the apps have to be written for each phone's custom layer, which can be widely different from manufacturer to manufacturer.

When PalmSource announced its move over to Linux, it's important to note that they're primarily talking about moving the underlying management layer (from an assumably custom system) over to Linux in order to provide better stability from buggy apps and make it easier for phone manufacturers to write drivers and adapt their hardware to PalmOS. For the most part, the layer that applications use or that customers see should not change significantly.

It's a bit like the move from Mac OS9 to OSX, but better. When Apple replaced their OS9 aged technology with a slick Mach kernel, they fixed all the memory management and stability issues while providing a somewhat-kludgy emulation system for older software. PalmOS-Linux should do something similar, but they don't need to kludge an emulation system because PalmOS apps today are already running emulated on all current devices.

A few years ago, when Palm made the move from Dragonball processors to ARM-based ones, they ported the operating system to ARM, but devised an emulation system (PACE) that ran Dragonball (68k) code seamlessly on the new devices. They (Tim?) did such a good job, that nobody notices today. Virtually all software on current devices (with the exception of HotSync and Blazer) run under PACE emulation.

If PalmSource does a decent job with PalmOS-Linux, then nobody will notice either. The only scary thing was with PalmOS-Cobalt, when they made a big push to get developers to write new applications (so called "Protein" apps) directly to the new OS instead of going through emulation, something with high costs, minimal benefits, and something almost nobody asked for. Hardware manufacturers didn't buy it, nor did most developers, which is why Garnet is still King.

Hopefully, this time they learned their lesson and will make sure all apps will continue to run, compile, and be fully expandable in the future strictly from within the emulation layer. If so, they'll get better stability and flexibility, yet I think they'll keep their existing fans, developers and customers too.
 
Back
Top