Comments on: PalmSource and RIM to Jointly Develop BlackBerry Support

Yep. RIM has terrible devices, Palms have terrible wireless services. Combining the two should be great! I can't wait. :)

Hopefully it will work on my Treo 600.

This is a good mix. Palm has had strength in its handhelds and massive developer base. RIM has a very good server and push design that was initially resisted by Palm Zen types but is now viable since the battery and storage technology is finally around.

If you have ever tried to write a RIM Blackberry application, you know how poor the development enviroment is. Thus, I see an extension of the exchange manager that will incorporate push calls to access the Blackberry network.

Now, what I want to know is if RIM will license their patented keyboard geometery to Palm OS licensees?

Agreed! This is just what I've been waiting for. This has great potential!

"...that was initially resisted by Palm Zen types..."

I don't recall this.

Scott

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>"...that was initially resisted by Palm Zen types..."
>
>I don't recall this.
>
>Scott

Oh yes it was.

Pretty much "push" was almost hated among the first Palm developers. The idea if an outside influence changing data on a handheld was not considered a good thing. This lead to not being able to trigger a HotSync from the Palm Desktop to this day.

Any data change was to come from the user of the Handheld and not an outside source. It was mostly concern with data being misused, espically with the concern of wireless handhelds getting spammed with useless data.

Thus, this goes directly against RIMs push server design of a handheld being notified by a central server and data being sent to it without user direct control.

With the CPU, memory and power all an order of mangitude better in performance from five years ago, push network design is now viable for some users.

Will we see a Blackberry branded Palm OS device or a Palm OS 6 smartphone running a push thread? I'm sure there is product planning meetings going on now.

Isen't the whole 'allow remote data to change states on local device' concept what got IE/win95/98/ME in so much viral trouble?

I woulden't be so worried about getting spammed by remote systems ("Would you like to accept 'M33T H0T CHIX NOW!!!!1!!' into your datebook file?") as I would about them triggering a remote full synchronize - Imagine how handy the full content of your PDA would be for somebody looking to commit identity theft, or maybe just to make your life miserable for the hell of it?