PalmSource Drops Mac Synchronization in Cobalt 333
Gear_Media writes "Originally posted at PalmInfocenter: 'In a surprise announcement at the developer conference, PalmSource revealed that Palm OS Cobalt will no longer offer synchronization with the Mac. This marks a departure as previous versions of the Palm OS had long shipped with Mac compatible hotsync software.' Smart move? I think not."
never mind (Score:2, Funny)
Re:never mind (Score:3, Funny)
So, to complete your analogy, would the Mac be a metaphor for women?
Re:never mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily (Score:3, Interesting)
Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:5, Informative)
"Fortunately, a third party company, Mark/Space [markspace.com], has pledged to make a version of their Missing Sync client for Cobalt. It will be released later this year in anticipation of the first Palm OS Cobalt devices. Missing Sync for Cobalt will enable users to connect and synchronize information between Palm OS Cobalt devices and Macs running Mac OS X via USB, network, WiFi or Bluetooth."
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:4, Insightful)
I think consumers have gotten used to getting free sync software. Unless a device has passed its EOL, I just don't see anyone paying for drivers or sync software.
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't be suprised if Apple itself or 3rd party OSS developers make conduits for iSync too.
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:4, Informative)
If you use iCal, you have to use iSync, because the HotSync client doesn't know much about the advanced features of the address book. iSync supports all the other crap you need to have to use a plam machine, too.
So Apple's basically doing the work anyway...why should palm bother rewriting their software when apple users already have a free app that does what HotSync does, but is more tailored to their needs?
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:3, Informative)
iSync is in the same boat - it will not support the Cobalt devices as it relies on the very application that PalmSource is not doing any further Mac development on.
Palm Desktop and HotSync Manager are two different applications. Thi
iSync is slow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mark/Space is already doing that (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but it uses a *BSD kernel and pilot-link works with both linux and BSD-based systems with USB syncing (according to the README.usb file included in the package)
In any case, this [free.net.ph] message suggests that pilot-link builds fine on OS X.
So there you go
Hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:2)
I say that as a Newton lover/user.
Re:Hmm.... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Qpmm."
I'll take "eat up martha" any day of the week, except - of course - that when I write "beat up martin" into my Newton MP 2100 I get "beat up martin"...
Might be because... (Score:2, Insightful)
They might be relying on Apple to take care of the software now. They have Address, iSync, Cal and other stuff that syncs with the Palm, so they probably figured, why not let Apple worry about maintaining this stuff instead?
Re:Might be because... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Might be because... (Score:3, Interesting)
The interfaces are open.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The interfaces are open.. (Score:3, Informative)
I believe a condiut only handles communication between HotSync and that application you want to sync with. HotSync is what actually handles communication with the Palm device. So without HotSync a condiut won't do much good.
HotSync is not rocket science (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Might be because... (Score:5, Insightful)
A reply mentions that you "probably" won't need the palm desktop any longer- but have we heard anything about this? Is Apple going to buy out Mark/Space's Missing Sync? Not likely. What is more likely is that Palm users on the Mac will have to *buy* a copy of Missing Sync just to sync their Palm OS devices with their Macs... Bleh.
Re:Might be because... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Might be because... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmmm... Palm Desktop was built from the code for Claris Organizer. I wonder if Apple can reinvent that wheel, or buy back PD from Palm?
Palm Desktop is great, btw. I used it (it's a free D/L [palmone.com]) for many months before I even bought a Palm.
Re:Might be because... (Score:5, Informative)
Syncing requires two components, HotSync itself and conduit(s).
HotSync handles the communication between the host machine and the Palm handheld. This includes handshaking, scheduling conduit activation, data transfer between the device and conduits, error checking, and logging.
The Conduits are what handles the data once it's on the host machine, chosing which records need to be updated on the host and client, backing up data, etc.
iSync's interaction with the Palm is as a conduit only. It still requires HotSync to communicate with a device. HotSync is developed by PalmSource and is provided as part of the Palm Desktop distribution.
There is an open source version of HotSync out there, I wouldn't think it would take too much effort to port it over to OS-X and adapt it to whatever changes Palm is making to the new syncronization process.
Stupid palm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid palm (Score:5, Insightful)
Cross platform stuff really needs careful design up front, the right choice in widget sets/dev tools/libraries WILL make the difference. Just ask the Neverwinter Nights folks, who even chose the wrong *installer file* format and got hosed at the end.
Re:Stupid palm (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that their developer tools appear to be migrating away from CodeWarrior and toward Eclipse/gcc/etc. (not Visual Studio), that doesn't seem likely. (Go here [palmsource.com] and scan down to "PalmSource Offers New Software Development Tools" for more info. They don't yet have it available for download, though, or I would've already snagged it.)
Re:Stupid palm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid palm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stupid palm (Score:4, Informative)
PalmSource Cheif Competitve Officer, Michael Mace, has issued a statement direcct from PalmSource regarding the issue in the article comments, "PalmSource is fortunate to have a great Palm OS developer community who provide solutions for Macintosh compatibility today. Palm OS provides an open and flexible architecture and allows its licensees to decide whether to ship a Mac compatibility solution with their Palm Powered device. (One such solution is provided by Mark/Space.) We are continuing our efforts with Apple to provide compatibility between Palm OS and Macintosh."
Let's see where this goes...
isync (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:isync (Score:3, Interesting)
3% less profit who cares.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:3% less profit who cares.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:3% less profit who cares.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:3% less profit who cares.... (Score:3, Informative)
If we assume that the total non-Mac installed base is merely equal to the number of PCs sold in 2003 (using the Gartner preliminary estimate), then there are roughly 170 million non-Mac machines in the world today.
So even if we assume average Mac users buy a computer every five years and the average
Re:3% less profit who cares.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's quite possible for a disproportionate number of Mac users to be Palm users; in fact, it's pretty likely that Mac users use Palms at a higher rate than Windows users, because Palms work better with Macs than the competitors to Palm do.
However, "a significant number of Palm users own Macs" doesn't follow. If a town of 150 people in Angola had 50 Ford F150 owners, sure, the residents would have a disproportionate number of F150s. Despite that, it's not tr
Re:3% less profit who cares.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ. MissingSync/PocketPC is a hell of a nice piece of software, and isn't even the only game in town for Mac/PocketPC syncing.
Palm f'ed up by not including Mac support of some kind into Cobalt or the HotSync component. They're just removed one more differentiator between themselves and their largest competitor.
Rather than being able to market "The flat-out best PDA for Mac users who are going to buy a PDA", they've made a clear and bold statment that no longer will they support users who haven't already paid a nice big tithe to Palm's biggest competitor.
Once again for the business school dropouts: PalmSource has taken one simple step to ensure that every one of their customers has given PalmSource's #1 competitor money first.
Way to go, guys.
Newton II? (Score:5, Interesting)
On one hand, I think that is unlikely because, unlike the MP3 player, the PDA market is swamped and Apple can't make that much of a splash.
On the other hand, Apple has relentlessly marginalized 3rd-party developers in the past few years. That's not necessarily a bad thing (many of the iApps are great products), but I can see other 3rd-party developers getting scared.
However, all in all, I think Palm is just being stupid.
Re:Newton II? (Score:4, Interesting)
I just don't see Apple putting all that money into reinventing, modernizing and re-doing the NewtonOS. Far more likely is that they'd take something and OEM it- like Dell, Gateway and others have done with PocketPC and Sony and others with the PalmOS.
Don't get me wrong- I only just switched away from the Newton OS to Windows CE a year ago, with some experiments in between. The Newton rules all in most respects, still more useful than most Palm or PocketPC devices today as a true "assistant" and a computer.
Re:Newton II? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, I'll never buy a 240x320 device, not these days. PPC makers should really get with the times- the Toshiba e800 being the one exception. But at least 320x480- come on guys!
And yes, that "smart minimize" (ha!) button is one of the worst things I've seen in *any* UI. But, it's easily fixable in a transparent way. I used to use Magic Button [trancreative.com] on a PPC 2k2 de
Re:Newton II? (Score:2)
Don't count them out. All they have to do is make it LOOK really cool(but Malibu Stacy has a new hat...). They also might be developing some cool voice controlled PDA that would work while standing next to a shuttle launch. Or how 'bout a heads up display?
Re:Newton II? (Score:5, Interesting)
What Apple did was figure out how to do it really, really well. They found a reason that people would pay more money for their product. Wasn't the iPod the first very-large-storage MP3 device available? I'd expect them to do the same with a PDA - possibly attempting to re-think the entire device.
I've used Palm-type devices for several years now, and tried CE for a while. All of them have been a series of compromises. Palm is shackled with needing helper apps to interface with MS Office stuff, plus (at least on the models I've owned) has really bad screen resolutions. CE also had tradeoffs, which explains why I only owned my Toshiba for 48 hours. Maybe Apple will do a take-no-prisoners PDA?
Interesting development, regardless.
Re:Newton II? (Score:3, Informative)
The Creative Nomad beat it to market, but even with gobs more space than the 5GB first-gen iPod, it was also much larger, less reliable, slower to start, and painfully slow to load up that first time. The iPod, by comparison, was smaller, faster, and easier to use.
In the PDA market, though, it's a lot trickier. Apple took the MP3 player and boiled it down to what they thought users wanted: a portable jukebox that
Publish the protocols (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand their approach though. If they release their own sync software they end up with a bunch of extra tech support calls.
Re:Publish the protocols (Score:2)
But they don't now, so why would they start doing so? Sure, someone can reverse engineer the protocols- and over USB, it's been a bitch for the pilot tools folks- but that's a big investment. Sure, folks have done it- see Mark/Space's Missing Sync. But they want money for their efforts, which isnt' a surprise.
Shouldn't Make a Difference (Score:2, Insightful)
Who needs a palm? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I really cared about sync'ing with a lousy palm I've got Virtual PC on my iBook already.
Re:Who needs a palm? (Score:5, Insightful)
An honest question for you Mac users (Score:3, Interesting)
Are there any PDAs that work well with Mac? Given Apple's success with iPOD, I can't help but think it would be a great move for them to produce an equally-sexy PDA.
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:5, Funny)
Best. PDA. Evar.
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's the iPod. Not a "real" PDA, but you can load it with your calendar, addresses, and other such data for reference on the road.
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:5, Informative)
www.markspace.com
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be mislead by just because it's a Microsoft product - PocketPCs work well with Macs.
I'm using an HP iPAQ 2210 with my PowerBook right now, and it syncs very well through iSync thanks to the addition of some software from mark/space [markspace.com]. It even allows you to mount the PocketPC's storage devices as volumes on your Desktop in OS X, which I don't think you can do in Windows.
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, you can do that in Windows. Open up My Computer, and there is an icon in there called "Mobile Device." In there you have access to the PocketPC's internal storage as well as anything external- SD, CF, etc.
Re:An honest question for you Mac users (Score:5, Interesting)
hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody got himself a woman...
It's a great move if they want Apple to compete (Score:2)
Palm vs. SE P800 (Score:3, Interesting)
Devote those resources to Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
handing over the reigns to apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully Palm will give Apple lots of support in the future -- and together can build something much more stable and well integrated than any Palm built effort could have produced.
See ya, Palm! (Score:3, Funny)
I've also owned and used various DayRunner paper organizers.
One of these will be usable with my wife's iMac and can hold a checkbook, paper receipts, and business cards. The other plays solitaire.
Goodbye, Palm - it's been fun.
Fink (Score:2)
Of course I don't know because Fink bails on me every time I use it and trying to to download the Apple Developer tools from connect.apple.com hasn't worked since I started trying to Saturday. Used Safari, FireFox, and Mozilla and none of them work. Any ideas?
Just to clarify (Score:5, Informative)
Without Hotsync Manager, iSync does not work. So unless you want to spend more money, you will not be able to sync the newest palms with your Mac.
That's a shame because at my school district we were looking at rolling out a Palm program to help teachers stay organized. Now that Palm made this decision, I don't know what we're going to do.
I've already sent them feedback, but I'm not holding my breath waiting on a reply.
Re:Just to clarify (Score:5, Interesting)
Ignore the trendsetters? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's not trendsetting that counts, it's profit. (Score:5, Insightful)
the usb market probably would have grown and done it's thing without the imac, but you know what? the instant the imac came out, the usb market exploded. yes, it's because all of the sudden there was a captive market of imac owners who needed printers and slow-ass usb hard drives, but the point was the imac was a major product whose sheer popularity created an entire market for usb devices.
the same could be argued for digital video editing--until apple created a market for 1394 minidv cameras by shipping millions of copies of imovie, no one was doing it at home except for uh, you, with your 1989 amiga. cut-ting edge, my man.
and i clearly had a centris 660av with a 25mhz 68040 and DSP chip that could capture s-video out of the box in 1993. it was just a pain, because the computer couldn't talk to the camera very well--there was s-link, but it never worked right. apple made it all just work(TM) and that's kind of what people give them cred for, y'know?
(interesting note about multitasking: when apple went to OS X, preemptive multitasking meant that the age-old behavior of all processes screeching to a halt when the mouse button was held down was finally done away with. there was actually a massive outcry because people in realtime production environments had used this little limitiation to their advantage, essentially starting and stopping the computer as they needed. i just thought that was interesting.)
Mark/Space will solve this problem (Score:5, Informative)
Sun trademark? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is more like, a computer maker creates an OS and calls it Linux, or a guy named Smith opens a restaurant called McDonald's.
no more palm for me (Score:2, Informative)
This is a dealbreaker for me. I was actually about to upgrade my Palm M505 to something newer/fancier, but if it doesn't work my iBook, that's it.
It also makes you wonder about the health of Palm as a company; are the Windows CE devices finally starting to take over the market and push Palm out ?
Wow. No mac support? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, most companies are jumping into the ring on Mac support because of OS X being so versatile. Seems strange, but like I said-- you'll still be able to sync your Palm pilot, just not with their software.
If anything, it's bad PR and just another reason to ask yourself why you really need a PDA anymore. I believe a good cell phone with iSync would take care of it.
Not necessarily all that bad (Score:5, Informative)
The first version of Palm Desktop for Mac was terrible. Then they bought Claris Organizer when Apple no longer needed it after killing the Newton and de-emphasizing Claris products other than FMPro. At that point things were OK, but really Palm just picked up Claris Organizer for cheap. It wasn't a real commitment on their part.
From then until OS X they really did nothing for the Mac desktop. Then they came out with an OS X version, but no new features (no network sync, no WiFi sync, etc...). Now they've given up altogether.
Mark/Space makes pretty good stuff so far, and their support has been very good. There's some question of whether or not they can handle the scale, but I'm sure they'll make a greater effort at pushing the Mac 'Palm' desktop forward than PalmSource has. In fact their first release will have more improvements than PalmSource has given us in years (WiFi sync, Ethernet sync).
The longer term issue is whether or not third party conduit makers stop supporting the Mac because of this move, even though Mark/Space has said they will make a conduit manager that works with everyone's conduits.
But in terms of development focus on the desktop and conduit manager itself, I'd expect Mark/Space to make more progress than PalmSource ever has.
Competition from the iApps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it's better than dropping it in carbon freeze, I guess. Oh, wait. Different thread.
What probably happened was that Mac users are probably moving to the free Apple stuff like iCal and iChat and iWhatsis instead of Palm Desktop, and then by extension they'd be required by the userbase demand to make the Palms sync with the iApps. So they said, "Feh... whateva..."
I would almost wager on Apple putting a Palm sync feature into the next releases of their iApps. At this rate Apple might wind up making all the hardware AND the software for Macs.
Not that I'd turn my nose up at iBryce. C'mon, Apple. Everyone's grandma wants to do 3D rendering with deep texture editing.
Betting on Apple. (Score:2)
Treo 300 syncs fine (Score:2, Informative)
What is Palm thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Palm might be counting on third-party software to cover their Mac users, or counting on iSync. In this case, they blew it big-time by not making that clear.
Or, Palm could have decided that they just don't need any Mac customers, and didn't give much thought to how their existing Mac customers would feel about it. This would be amazingly stupid.
I don't see any evidence that the second one is true; I'm sure it's the first one. Palm has been pretty good in the past about supporting their Mac customers; why would they suddenly abandon them, just when they are trying to win mindshare for their new Cobalt platform?
Hmmm, I just checked. Missing Sync costs $40. I'm starting to think "amazingly stupid" again.
Thinking about this some more, Apple customers are unlikely to embrace PocketPC. Maybe Palm figures those guys will buy Palm PDAs even if Palm doesn't do anything to support them. That's playing with fire, if true. If you drive customers away, it's hard to get them back.
What Palm ought to do is make sure that Apple has all the data they need to make iSync just work out of the box with all new Palm PDAs. This ought to just mean keeping Apple up to date with some information. Easy, inexpensive. And they ought to brag to all their Mac-using customers that they are doing it!
And if Palm wants to walk away from their Mac desktop application, they should either gift it to Apple, or open-source it, not just throw it in the bin.
steveha
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously Mac Users are not a viable market (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose there is a third option, and that is that Palm is aware of some new product that Apple is preparing and doesn't wish to commit resources to the development of a software package that may be trumped by some new Apple product. This doesn't make that much sense, in that Palm was able to wipe the floors with Wince, developed in house by MS. In that situation Palm couldn't give up on such a huge market segment and remain in business. With Apple, they could certainly give up on such a small segment without much concern. Apple has done so much with its branding that there is a risk that even if Palm could create a better product for the Apple market, it might not matter in the minds of Apple users.
Re:Obviously Mac Users are not a viable market (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obviously Mac Users are not a viable market (Score:3, Insightful)
For all of its faults, the one thing that MS has done correctly, is come out with easy to use development tools for its OS. Supporting Windows is a breeze, from a developers point of view. The MFC, DirectX, Visual Studio all are top class tools for development. The code isn't optimal, but it's easy to put together.
I really don't think that this is a realistic reason for PalmSource to drop support for Mac.
Re:Obviously Mac Users are not a viable market (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple may have had a bad history in the past for supporting developers. That cannot be said today.
Re:Obviously Mac Users are not a viable market (Score:3, Informative)
Mac Users are Devoted Palm Users! (Score:3, Informative)
Palm's products have a huge base of Mac users. I don't know what the hell they are doing with this, but it has to be one of the stupidest business decisions(SCO aside) that I've ever seen in my life.
My Windows XP using friend called me 3 times before I got his call, and he was urgent to tell me as I entered the supermarket about this...I tried to restrain my foul language in such a public place. He couldn't believe they are doing this either.
Mac users make up about 3% of the total PC market, and more than 3% of Palm users are Mac users, I guarantee you that.
Apple sells Palm handhelds, for God's sake!
Don't be surprised if HP(Apple's new partner, they are now bundling iTunes) lends Mac OS X support to their iPaq line somehow, Apple will surely be scrambling to get some handheld native on their system.
I own some shares of PalmOne, thankfully this is more PalmSource...but get ready for a dive, Palm, you dumbasses.
You're thinking too hard! (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Apple is working on a PDA product of their own based on OSX, Palm got wind of it and decided to jump before they were pushed. Newton II? Odds are against it, but how much more work to add a bigger, 65K color screen to an iPod and brush off Inkwell, which is already in the OSX product? Sync with OSX, sync with Outlook, which explains the lack of an Appleworks 'Office' killer and the integration of Entourage to be used in the Enterprise. Now that Pocket Windows is in cars and smartphones, Gates is willing to cede some marketshare to Apple, whom he thinks he can control better than Palm.
2. The number of takers for Palm's Cobalt is so low that they can't afford the engineers to do the Mac sync. Remember, if you make PDAs like a Clie or other product, you probably purchased a license for Version 5 of Palm OS. If nobody is buying Cobalt (Version 6) you have to make cuts somewhere, and they are making it here. They can easily add it back in if enough Cobalt licensees ask for it.
Now - do a Google check. You will find that none of the usual suspects has agreed to build a new PDA using Cobalt - everything being announced is based on the current Version 5. Palm is in deep doodoo - they haven't sold any Cobalt licenses and have to trim back. Time to sell the Palm stock?
jpilot (Score:4, Insightful)
palm and mac os X (Score:3, Insightful)
Update: Palm Addresses Mac Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
PalmSource Cheif Competitve Officer, Michael Mace, has issued a statement direcct from PalmSource regarding the issue in the article comments, "PalmSource is fortunate to have a great Palm OS developer community who provide solutions for Macintosh compatibility today. Palm OS provides an open and flexible architecture and allows its licensees to decide whether to ship a Mac compatibility solution with their Palm Powered device. (One such solution is provided by Mark/Space.) We are continuing our efforts with Apple to provide compatibility between Palm OS and Macintosh."
This last statement is the most promising. Assuming it isn't empty spin, further support for Palm devices via iSync seems probable (provided the HotSync manager issue is addressed). I can't imagine Apple will let a core part of their iSync hub disappear. But we have only the above to speculate about. Perhaps Apple will make some sort of announcement. Once again, speculation.
Still, I feel Palm's decision is a foolish one. I am a Mac user mostly, and when I hear somebody isn't going to support my platform of choice I get angry - feel betrayed - dread the smug comments from my Windoze using associates.. All in all, I am left uninclined to further support that company. For instance, my Clie 710C is getting long in the tooth. I've been eyeing Tungsten PDA's for a few months and was initially excited about the Cobalt announcement. A part of me wants to look elsewhere now just to spite them. Maybe an iSync compatible cellphone might be my next purchase?
But since I do own a Clie, and already own Missing Sync, I have already gotten used to zero Mac support from the parent company. I trust Mark/Space to fix this problem for future versions of the Palm OS. But other people won't feel the same way. Mac zealots especially. Is it good business to anger even a small percent of your customer base? Shouldn't the "working with Apple" comment have come along with the bad news? Seriously stupid business move, IMO.
~Doug!as
Death of a great PIM (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not too worried about the syncing aspect of this, as Apple or other developers will step in to fill this gap. What is sad, however, is the end of development of Claris Organizer/Palm Desktop.
I've used Palm Desktop continuously since 1998, when it was still Claris Organizer. The application has hardly changed at all in the intervening years, but in my view it remains the most elegant PIM available. It's also remarkably feature-complete for such an old product.
"Palm Desktop 4.0" brought OS X compatibility and some terminology changes ("Contacts" became "Addresses", "Tasks" became "To dos" etc.), but beyond that it was the same app. It even retained the scripts to open URLs in Cyberdog [cyberdog.org], or create form letters in MacWrite [wikipedia.org].
Now that the product has been orphaned, I'll probably switch to Entourage, which I find nowhere near as elegant. What are the chances Palm could be convinced to open-source Palm Desktop and allow it to live on?
Re:Not a smart move? Are you sure? (Score:2, Interesting)
In other words: a highly attractive market. Especially for high cost PDAs, gadgets etc.
Re:Not a smart move? Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to that that they need to dedicate developers to supporting a platform that less than 5% of customers use.
I'm sure that was their logic, but it's short sighted. Palm competes directly against Win CE--Mac users are a natural customer base. Case in point: I've been shopping for a cellphone/pda. Guess which ones I'm not looking at any more?
Re:Not a smart move? Are you sure? (Score:2, Informative)
Windows.
So this may not be as short-sighted as you think. Let's say that they have 6 engineers responsible for the Mac sync software, each making 50,000 dollars. That works out to 300,000 dollars a year in savings if they don't have to hire those engineers. It actually works out to more than that when you take into consi
Re:Not a smart move? Are you sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that some small third-party developer has been able to do this in the past (and probably will do so in the future) points to the fact that this is a trivial thing to do. The only cost to Palm is in tech support (which may be the real reason they dropped support, not the development costs.)
Assuming that Palm really can save maybe a million dollars a year by not developing for the Mac, and in doing so, they alienate about 50% of their future Mac business, AND that Mac users are represented in their customer base at about 5%:
$80Mil sales/yr *
4Mil *
Assumed cost savings by laying off Mac engineers: 1 Mil/yr
Projected loss by laying off Mac engineers: 1Mil/yr - 2Mil/yr = (1 Mil/yr) decrease in gross sales revenue.
Like I said, the real cost probably isn't in the engineering, even if you're real conservative about the cost of the engineering talent. It's probably in the tech support (Palm has outsourced their tech help line to India [macintouch.com], so this probably has something to do with it...)
Re:Not a smart move? Are you sure? (Score:5, Informative)
Percentage of Mac users who own a PalmOS PDA: 12%
(source: Apple)
Lost market for Palm: 3 million customers
Re:Don't need it, use iSync. (Score:3, Redundant)
What the hell are you talking about? (Score:5, Informative)
They have ignored the OpenSource community, and now they are snubbing Apple.
Palm has ALWAYS BEEN SUPPORTIVE OF OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPMENT. I take it you have never actually DONE any palm development. There is a completely (f)ree toolchain available for the Palm devices, and it's why I use it. Palm does not have the resources to support the smaller market of linux (and mac, I guess) users. They have always been willing to work with developers and release information - at least so far as I've seen.
Please cite examples if you are going to make statements like the above.
If they choose not to write a conduit, then the information will be available to do so. My guess is that Apple will include palm syncing in their next iSync update as a internal thing, and this miffed PalmSource for some reason. (the iTools already do much of what Palm desktop does, better).
Re:What the hell are you talking about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because they use gcc/POSE/etc. does not mean they "support" Open Source development. In fact, quite the opposite. They tried to absorb those projects, and failed, because of the huge number of Free Software users and developers supporting them in their absense. In fact, Palm has been using OUR hard work for their own profitous gain. Now that has stopped.
We're already replacing the need for their tools, step-by-step, because they refuse to help us and cooperate with us. We're not asking for the source code to the OS, just the API to the subsystems they use, so we can extend them into other areas, thus reinforcing their market and their device sales.
They don't seem to want to help us, so our motivation to keep helping them, is significantly lower.
The solution, support a different vendor, one who does support our goals and our hard work.