Comments on: The Early History of Palm Inc

A new tech focused history website SiliconUser is offering guided tours down Memory Lane, with the publication of part one of a new article series detailing the early history of Palm and its founders. Beginning with Jeff Hawkins' early days at Tandy subsidiary GRiD and the birth of his fledgling Zoomer concept, and following through to Palm's sale to U.S. Robotics, the article is excellently written, well-researched and a fascinating read for those not completely au fait with the Palm's history and early beginnings.

It's interesting to compare the early, risk-taking Palm of yore with the play-it-safe, incrementally-upgrading company of today. Back in those pioneering days, success was a do-or-die proposition for Palm: if they didn't aggressively pursue their dreams of a product with "Zen", they were as good as finished - and they knew it. Now, the company that practically defined the PDA market is content to release, year after year, minor updates to the product it acquired over four years ago (the Treo 600), and seems happy to continue milking its rusted-on collection of die-hard PDA fans in the age of the smartphone.

 Piloting Palm?

abosco @ 10/22/2007 7:25:07 PM #

Read that if you want the history of Palm. That's quite a read with a ton of 11th hour changes.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

 RE: Piloting Palm?

PacManFoo @ 10/23/2007 9:27:43 AM #

I'm waiting for the Mel Brooks version of History of Palm Part 1.

PDA's Past and Present:
iPod Touch ???? Maybe soon.
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100

 RE: Piloting Palm?

mikecane @ 10/23/2007 11:42:55 AM #

I'm Footnote 13. So if Mel wants that to appear in the film too, he better come up with the Big Bucks.

 The Head Shot that will now kill Palm

mikecane @ 10/23/2007 11:49:06 AM #

Asus -- of $400 Eee PC fame -- is planning to do LOW-COST HANDHELDS.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20071022PB202.html

(linkswipe: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20071022PB202.html )

I'm saying it right now: They will run the ALP OS.

Now imagine a $99 handheld with instant PalmOS app compatibility.

Palm is dead.

Colligan, you won't have a chance to resign. You will be FIRED.

Please go join John Sculley in obscurity.

 RE: The Head Shot that will now kill Palm

mikecane @ 10/23/2007 12:50:46 PM #

Dammit. My linkswipe source c&p got munge in translation. Source was:

http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2007/10/asustek-plans-l.html

 RE: The Head Shot that will now kill Palm

twrock @ 10/23/2007 7:21:00 PM #

I'm saying it right now: They will run the ALP OS.

That'd be great, but I'm thinking quite unnecessary from ASUS perspective. They obviously already know how to put together a Linux OS. Still, I'd be very happy if that is how it turns out. We'll see.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/ or http://www.mepis.org/

 The Transaction has taken place

SeldomVisitor @ 10/24/2007 4:32:40 PM #

PALM has sold about 27% of the company and the return of capital has been funded.