An eWeek article reports that “more than a year after PalmSource Inc. released its Palm OS Cobalt operating system, only one handset manufacturer has announced plans to bring a Cobalt-based device to market.” This is despite the fact that version six of the PalmOS has been in developers’ hands for more than a year. But even PalmSource’s corporate sibling, PalmOne, has no Cobalt-based devices in sight.
I guess the don’t want to succeed. If they don’t get moving Palm will dissappear.
Either it is simply waaaay to good, which means it will die, just as every other system that showed too much promise. Or it is simply too bad to be useful. But which one is it?
Obviously way too good. They where incorporating elements of BeOS.
It would be nice to have a BFS filesystem on a handheld smartphone. I’m kind of disappointed none of the Palm Treo’s use Cobalt. Seems like Symbian is still ruling this sector of the market. I heard they’ve made Gasse (sp?) the former Be CEO head of Palm. Maybe he’ll ask for 30 billion dollars (Dr. Evil math) this time round for a buyout.
As the news said, why isn’t even PalmONE developing any OS 6 devices, AFTER A YEAR??
This is just sad.
Someone should buy back BeOS (and all of the BeOS engineers) from Palm before it dies. Palm bought BeOS and then did nothing, I know somone could use those very creative engineers. Personally, I think Sony should buy BeOS and make it the default operating system on their Vaio line (after updates from the somewhat finished BeOS 6 and all of the open source BeOS projects). Just my 2 cents.
On the one hand we have PalmSource in an obvious, undeniable death spiral down the black hole of insolvency; and on the other there’s PalmOne, with nothing but crap in the pipeline–gosh, **can’t wait** to see the Tungsten T6; I hear it has cup holders (plastic ones, anyway)–and feasting off the slow-rotting remains of HandSpring, which they acquired two years ago. PalmOne is inovating like Microsoft, except they don’t have a monopoly, and the resultant double-digit year over year losses in market share, unit shipments, revenue,… will be asymptotically approaching 0 in a couple years. As soon as the Treo loses its cachet with the smartphone crowd, they’re toast.
I agree fully with all that you said. This is a huge concern. How can a company like Palm simply be so Non productive? Have they fired everyone and have like 10 people remaining to get the last money out before everyone realise Palm has no future.
For me personally this is partially a disaster. I always preferred Palms tool compared to Symbian+Smartphones. I must also say they had a huge advantage as their product was so much more advanced 2 years ago. In 2 years practically nothing has happened… sure PalmOS 6, which no one uses (not Palm themselves neither). Handspring ideas got released and nothing new is announced. This is painful and sad and a loss for anyone interested in IT.
The brains who made BeOS, today develop for other companies, like Apple or Danger.
OH MY GOD IT”S THE CURSE OF BEOS!
Seriously, though, I would buy a palm just because it has Be code it in, what a shame
As computer components continue to decrease in expense and increase in power, and as smartphones become increasingly err… smart (and in some cases given away by phone companies), the days of the traditional PDA become fewer.
When Palm bought Be, it should have started to design a high-end PDA/low end laptop, using the BeOS (which would continue to be developed). This laptop/PDA hybrid could have been priced at around $500 and targeted at students or those just wanting a lightweight computer to listen to MP3s on, browse the internet with, run office software (a new version of Gobe productive), and play some basic games.
If such a device existed now, it would probably have:
i – A 1024×768 12 inch screen;
ii – A wireless card;
iii – The capability to connect to a mobile phone network;
iv – 128 Mb RAM;
v – A 20 GB mini harddrive;
vi – A Radeon 7000;
vii – A pen for text input;
viii – A headphone jack;
ix – A USB port;
x – An ethernet port;
xi – A built-in speaker and microphone.
A device like this would be perfect for cash strapped students, the developing world, and people spending large amounts of time travelling. The OS would be stored on a built in memory card, and software updates would be provided over the internet.
Additionally, with little extra expense, Palm could have continued to produce a version of the BeOS for retail.
I am just astonished at how little they have done with the BeOS. Buying Be seems to have been a waste not only for the BeOS community, but also for Palm itself. What have they gained from it? Nothing!
I personally think that Palm now have to concentrate on their smatphones.
I also think that PalmOne themselves are thinking the same and if they aren’t they ought to – fast.
Look at the Treo 650 (I have ordered one and am waiting for it now). No WiFi, no G3 – not even enough memory for a modern smartphone. I still want one. A 1GB SD-card helps a lot. I don’t need G3. EDGE is enough for me for road warrier connectivity. I’ve got my server set up with bluetooth (100 m range), so I can get on the net at home, and at work, I’ll just set up the same on the Linux server we’ve got there, so I’ve got connectivity enough.
But I buy it for another reason. I’d NEVER buy a MS smartphone, and I haven’t been able to find any smartphone other than Palm (and the loathed PocketPC) that can run a decent database app (HanDBase bu DDH software)- i might be wrong, but please don’t tell me, ‘cos I’ve allready ordered it.
Anyhow, I think Palm is far from dead if they can only understand that the Tungsten age is allmost over – people want all that, but not two devices. It will have to be a smartphone.
I also think that if Cobalt is good enough, fall or early winter is soon enough.
Didn’t Palm sell BeOS (or a copy of it with limited rights) to Yellowtab who are now building Zeta on it?
I bought a Tungstun C, which they still sell however there very few addons for it. There is also no visible upgrade path for the OS. I bought my father a T5 for His Birthday and the OS its running has a plethora of new features and it has nearly the same hardware as my C, however there is no OS upgrade for the C.
the treo is selling well and palmone supposedly has a line of treo devices coming including cheaper ones. They’ll do okay.
Palmsource..don’t konw. The palm on linux business model and focus on china is a good strategy but its something they should have done several years ago. They are late and that in itself can kill you.
Basically the future of palmsource boils down to how well they do in china and how well chinese cell phone makers that use palm do outside of china.
[quote]Didn’t Palm sell BeOS (or a copy of it with limited rights) to Yellowtab who are now building Zeta on it? [/quote]
It’s my understanding that YT is distributing Zeta based on a pre-existing liscense from Be Inc.
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Too bad Palm doesn’t have their s*** together. I just bought a Dell Axim, my first PDA. I searched for a Palm unit using the new Palm OS6, and was disappointed to not find one available. Their loss…
-Bob
I’ve been waiting to buy a PDA until OS6 was released. Now that it has been so long I am starting to lose interest in any PDA. I don’t understand why even Palm is not supporting the OS6. Then there was an article a couple weeks ago about Palm supporting LinuxOS instead? Are they going to focus shift to Linux?