PalmSource officials insist there is a future for the veteran handheld operating system, but some industry experts say deploying Palm OS-based handhelds is risky. Access, which is best known for its NetFront cell phone browser, has yet to provide a detailed road map for Palm OS.
Access is a smart company. They have been pooling lots of R&D into embedded Linux and not PalmOS. Palmsource acquired China MobileSoft (Embedded Linux Company) to start putting a PalmOS “stack” running ontop of Linux.
This is not surprising news.
I’ll say this much. If PalmSource can pull off what Apple did in rolling out OSX, then we have nothing to worry about. We’ll have a solid hand-held operating system with Palm’s world-class interface, running on top of a solid Linux kernel. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
I’m hoping that Palm does switch to Linux, as a Zaurus user. Then it’ll be easier to convince the 30,000 Palm software developers to port their apps to Qtopia. I wouldn’t think it would require too much to support the Zaurus afer such a transition takes place.
It goes without saying that Cobalt (OS 6) is still missing in action.
One of the benifits of the Palm OS is that it is small and well designed (except for the hardware clock).
I don’t think that putting Linux on yet another device will provide any improvement in function. The Palm PDA is not ment to be a computer, it’s an accessory for a person with a computer. Leave the handheld computer function to the existing Linux/Windows types.
I’m really curious why OS 6 is still missing in action seeing it will run all Palm apps just fine in compatability mode.
Ciao.
P.S. The clock issue is that apparently even in OS 6, the hardware clock is still stored as LOCAL TIME. This means I have multiple applications which are time based asking me if they should reset the clock after a Daylight Savings time change. As a time is meaningless unless you also know the location of the time, a time event should really be a time/coordinate affair. This to me is pretty obvious since a Palm computer can be carried with you anywhere in the world. (Just had to get that off my chest.)
There is no Cobalt anymore. As a PDA OS, it is a dead project inside the company, pretty much.
The hardware manufacturers put a lot of effort into modifying and extending the earlier versions, most of that work didn’t transfer to Cobalt so no one licensed it. As the above poster stated, its dead.
Hi,
just a question, how much is PalmOS marketshare nowadays?
I remember in the first years after the compeeting Win version came out, it managed to hold strong to its market, but a quick google search gave PalmOS no more than 40% marketshare nowadays. Is that true? Does anyone have any better statistics?
Because if it’s true, I am very sorry for PalmOS but it looks like it is going to end like Netscape, or all the other software which dominated a market where Microsoft arrived late and sooner or later managed to control.
Diego
Is it me or many companies feeling the end coming suddenly go “linux is the future” before sinking in oblivion ?
It’d be nice to see more linux adopters with a business plan rather than linux buzz word panic….
>It’d be nice to see more linux adopters with a business plan rather than linux buzz word panic….
Either that, or adopt Linux BEFORE you sink into oblivion. Clearly, your previous proprietary business plan wasn’t working.
…it will be buried next to BSD (Just kidding!)
Hehe good one.
Palm and PocketPC sales have been unimpressive for the last couple of years; but it’s my understanding that the sales of Tungsten’s have been very good given the slump in interest in these platforms.
I’d hate to have to run Windows Mobile. I don’t want Microsoft in the palm of my hand; I want almost anything else there heh. Besides, all the PocketPC’s I’ve seen have been what I’d describe mostly as bulky and overpowered. I don’t care if I can play better games, I want a week of battery life instead of a day!
Of course consumers will have their frivolous and odd wastes of time and resources; but I imagine most PDA’s sell to people who actually want to use them for something purposeful and those people should be catered to.
I sometimes wonder if lowering laptop prices aren’t killing PDA sales. You can almost buy a laptop today for what a high end PDA cost 5 years ago.
ma_d: I sometimes wonder if lowering laptop prices aren’t killing PDA sales. You can almost buy a laptop today for what a high end PDA cost 5 years ago.
Honestly, I think you may be right about this. The fact is that some people want more “power” on the road than just the ability to write a few/many notes, keep a few/many contacts, etc. They may want the small size, but when push comes to shove they want a micro laptop or tablet PC. But getting a really good PDA (or “handheld computer”) can actually cost more than a laptop.
I was looking at some prices the other day and some costed $1000+ meanwhile on the next page they had laptops selling for $300+. While you can’t stuff the laptop in your pocket, it makes the price of some of these PDAs look absolutely ridiculous. Particularly when you consider what you can actually do with it. Gee, I get 128 MB (something like that) for RAM and storage, but I can stuff it in my pocket or I can pay 1/3 the price and get 256 MB of RAM and a 40 GB harddrive, etc but it’s a little bit more trouble to haul around.
Speaking of which… I vaguely remember people talking about PDAs with harddrives awhile back. How are those doing? I remember seeing a couple online, but I haven’t seen anyone using them or any in local stores.
I have both a PDA (Palm based; never got used to Zaurus as a PDA) and a laptop. I carry the PDA everywhere I go. I only carry the laptop on planned ocassions (work, to kill time sitting on train, etc.).
For me, they are different tools. Laptop is where I do my work (mostly). PDA is my “external memory”.
About RAM – you get much less, but you also need much less. Palm applications are measured in tens of kilobytes, not in hundreds of megabytes like PC applications. I have half of the RAM on my Palm TT3 free and the 128 MB card can hold 3 sets of backups plus more applications and still is not 100% used..
China is already the world’s largest single mobile market. Access need only tap into that and they’ll do quite well.
The writer is evaluating the success of palm os based on US companies. If access builds a market in china then they have a base from which to launch efforts to go after the global market.