Palm Changing OS Strategy

profet writes "CNET.com is reporting that PalmSource plans to change its OS plans and simultaneously develop/release OS 6 and continue development on OS 5. The names shall be changed to reflect that they are both current. The plan is to have OS 5 for low end devices ($100 price point is a goal), and OS 6 for high end devices. This is a drastic change from their current practice of having one current OS drastically customized (read: hacked) to suit the manufacturer's needs. It looks like PalmSource is aiming directly at Symbian's success with Nokia's series 60 platform."

Cool, erm...

[Ravensign]

I thought this was a really cool article, then I realized its not 1998.

Does Palm have any kind of momentum at all anymore?

Re:100 bucks for Palm OS?

[certsoft]

Seems to me there should be a moderation option of "Incorrect". About all you can do now is moderate it as "Overrated".

Uh, I think you have it backward...

[WIAKywbfatw]

If all I need is just a PIM (calendaring, contacts, notes, money, short messages), then what would be the reason to choose PalmOS vs Linux on PDA?

If all you need is just a PIM (calendaring, contacts, notes, money, short messages), then why would you ever consider choosing a Linus over PalmOS on a PDA?

PalmOS is built for the job, fast enough to do what you want (and more), power efficient, etc.

Stop looking for a sledgehammer to crack a nut and give serious consideration to a Zire or Tungsten. Which one is best for you depends on how honest you are when you say you're looking for "just a PIM".

As a BeOS fan

[That's Unpossible!]

I have high hopes for PalmOS 6. Combine guys that created a great OS with some of the minds that created a great handheld, and ... my fingers are crossed. Does anyone have any details on v6.0? Screenshots? Technical specs?

I envision a white device with yellow borders... ummm.

Gadget lust and price points

[Grrr]

I want to root for Palm. Really.

Even broke down and bought a used IIIXE... which died a month later. I know there is much newer tech out there now, and geeky individual buyers are not the preferred target market. I could probably get this doorstop fixed - but my cell phone and Blackberry are covering the basic PIM and game bases.

And I've never had to reboot the piece of paper in my wallet with all the phone numbers on it. Even a phone with an OS of any complexity makes me nervous. Again, I know they don't care about incidental sales...

This is a toy I would like to be able to con myself into "needing" -but at $300-$400 and formidable network access charges, it isn't that inconvenient to check e-mail with the cell phone or haul the laptop around.

While there many not be many people with the same mindset, I wonder if a $100 price point (for a device with some expansion capabilities) wouldn't get people like me off the fence.

<grrr>

Re:linux PDA?

[zulux]

If all you need is a PIM - Palm is definatly the way to go.

I *love* my Zaurus 700 series- it's fun to SSH into a server with 80x24 characters and a real keyboard , but for PIM stuff, it's slow and clunky.

Developers, developers, developers, developers

[Imperator]

PalmSource has made a mess of the platform from a developer's perspective. It used to be that all Palm OS systems were more or less the same--slow 68k processor, very small address space, small 160x160 monochrome touch screen. As the technology moved down in price, Palm OS systems started to get improvements like faster ARM processors (endian change!), more memory, and high resolution color screens. The problems are several:

• The hardware became too varied. Palm OS form resources use absolute positioning, so it's not easy designing a form for different screen resolutions. Having multiple copies of each form is a pain in the ass, both when creating the forms and when writing the code.
• The APIs became fragmented. Until recently, every device manufacturer with a resolution above 160x160 (or a collapsable input area) had its own API. Some developers of 3rd party apps go out of their way to support all of these--but most just support none.
• The development tools became too complicated. POSE was great, but now every device seems to requires its own emulator or simulator. Not every simulator makes it to every development platform. It becomes a pain in the ass to test for all the devices out there.
• Backwards compatibility was either overpursued or underpersued. For the former, consider sysAppLaunchCmdFind. Find is enormously painful to support--no globals, no exceptions, etc. But with the amount of memory in today's machines, there's no reason this launch code can't be accompanied by globals. Then in apps I can't be bothered supporting Find in, I'd be more likely to write the code--though it would only run if I had a launch flag to tell me my globals are present (sysAppLaunchFlagNewGlobals | sysAppLaunchFlagSubCall). For a lack of backwards compatibility, look at VFS.

So in summary, life has been frustrating for Palm OS developers. But the real losers here are the users. What used to be a vibrant community of 3rd party developers has somewhat dried up. People simply aren't writing as many good, device-neutral Palm OS apps as they used to.

Re:What's not mentioned

[t0ny]

It looks like PalmSource is aiming directly at Symbian's success with Nokia's series 60 platform

Looks more like PalmSource is aiming at finally doing something besides losing money and market share.

With all the buzz surrounding their product, PalmOS could have been the one OS to rule them all (all the small devices, that is). Instead, they waited until tons of other people made the kinds of moves they should have been making (handspring especially).

Speaking of Handspring, if I were them I would have flipped off Palm and purchased the PalmOS after they spun it off into its own company. Why they need Palm (and more importantly, its bumbling executives) weighing them down is something I cant figure out.

Well, to be pickey...

[Ghengis]

having preemptive multitasking, or multitasking period is NOT a requirement for being an OS. Neither is having memory protection. All an OS has to do control (allow) execution of programs and *may* provide various services such as accessing hardware. Now, this doens't mean that an OS without multitasking or memory space protection is any "good", but it is still an OS.

Lust or Love?

[SuperKendall]

Of all the people I have ever seen buy organizers, I recall only one that has bought and used a PocketPC for longer than a few months (as in - carried with him/her frequently).

I have had my Palm V for years and years now, and it has been with me every day.

The PocketPC appear to have some nice features, but after you settle down and just want a no hassle device that works without fuss (or a lot of charging) people often head for a Palm, even now.

Compare apples to apples please

[Anonymous Coward]

It cracks me up to see all these PocketPC fans compare their latest big, heavy PocketPC beast to the ancient Visor Deluxe or Palm IIIXE. Those machines are at least two generations old!

I had just about given up on Palm -- until I got hold of the new Tungsten T3.

The Tungsten T3 has a gorgeous aluminum case with the same form factor as the classic Palm V-- meaning it will actually fit in your shirt pocket, and it runs at 400mhz with 64mb of RAM. It plays movies, it plays mp3's, has a built-in voice recorder, bluetooth, and plenty of other *actually useful* features, plus a huge library of software.

So please, if you're going to compare, be fair.

Playing words

[varjag]

Since when an operating system have to have preemptive multitasking?

Primary function of an OS is to provide operating environment for applications, that is: handle I/O, interface to hardware, do some common low-level operations. Other features (e.g. any form of multitasking, memory management, GUI) can be included or not, based on specific needs.

And you know what? For an organizer, preemptive multitasking isn't anywhere near top priority: typically one uses a limited set of applications for very short periods of time, one at a time. Convenience and responsiveness are far more important.

Palm was designed to be a handheld organizer, and it is very good at that (even the early models). However, with time people pushed it much further, way beyond its original goals, hence it is worth updating.

Am not a typical Palm user, and often whished for Palm to have multitasking (e.g. I sit in IRC and suddenly need to look up someone's address), but for most Palm users it is not an essential feature.

BeOS

[octal666]

I've heard PalmOS bought a while ago the old good BeOS, might it be they are planning to use it as the new PalmOS 6?

By the way, just yesterday I bought a Tungsten T2 and it's my first PDA, and the first thing I see this morning is Palm is changing something, I've broke in cold sweat while reading the story. Slashdot is going to kill me one day.

Simple reasoning behind the scenes

[Jouni]

It's very easy to see why Palm would be doing this - there is a fairly big stock of devices out there.

Touting the new OS 6 as the best thing since sliced bread would make it extremely hard to ship pre-6 devices, both for themselves and all the licensors. So understandably they have to downplay its meaning to avoid sitting on warehouses full of Tungsten devices nobody wants to buy.

It's somewhat amusing that the only named benefits they can find for the old OS is smaller footprint and cost. :) If there are two real market segments for the two operating system versions, they would be "people frustrated with crippled non-multithreading 16-bit legacy OS" and "people who just don't care". Unfortuntely, you can't sell Tungsten @ 400 USD for the second group.

I will hold my judgement on whether Palm OS 6 really is the savior of Palm, but as with any projects this magnitude, expect this too will take a while to mature.

Jouni

Re:What's not mentioned

[panoplos]

And this is just the type of product segregation they don't need.

In fact, Symbian already went this route with their, now defunct, DFRD roadmaps, targeting various form factors for handhelds. They determined that they themselves were not capable of resourcing the R&D necessary to meet the specific needs of their Licensees and soon ran out of funding: they concluded that it is even presumptuous to suppose one could even truly understand what these needs are!

It is a disastrous business model to assume it your responsibility to innovate and steer a market segment that you really have a very limited scope of influence in.

Some things are best left to the experts...