Palm Disconnects Wi-Fi Team?

III, IIIx, H330, M515, Fossil, XPlore M68, M515

True. Most likely they outsourced more design functions to HTC and other companies that do thier manufacturing/design, becasue their own staff is inept.

Carl Yankowski!

[Cue gasps from shocked Palm insiders...]

Anyway. What WiFi team? It can't take more than a new IT grad and an office assistant can it. Heck just steal the code from that paperweight on the desk with "Tungsten C" stamped on it.

Pat Horne

No driver development would be necessary if that were true.

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

I still miss my Psion Series 5; really cool little machine.

For example, if the story is true is is Yet Another Datapoint that PalmOS is for REAL dead? That is, has PALM actually decided that there is no merit in making a compaability layer to some sort of Linux device but will go pure Linux instead?

I don't know!

Just another datapoint, I guess!

What foreign competition!?

PALM outsources EVERYTHING.

And does it to HTC, Inventec, Flextronics, etc etc etc ad nauseum.

Know where those companies are?

Sheesh.

What American company!!?

- Palm Inc., I thought that was obvious

What foreign competition!?

PALM outsources EVERYTHING.

- Sure they do, and so does everyone else. I'm not about to focus this conversation on who corporation should/shouldn't use outsourcing. I don't have nearly enough education or information on the topic to form a valid opinion, and odds are, you do not either.

Palm's a successful US company, competing with some serious international players. All I'm saying is support the home-team.

Tungsten T --> Palm TX --> Foleo-mini??(like an LD-II with a small attached keyboard??)

PALM is an international company incorporated in Delaware competing with other international companies.

When your products are designed, engineered, manufactured, warehoused, shipped from, and even programmed everywhere BUT the U.S. your company is NOT a "U.S. company".

1) They were over paid, and under delivering
2) They decided developing WiFi doesn't necessarily require a team of FTE's (i.e. it can be developed by a large group, then maintained by a few)
3) The current group was a very large operating expense for something that can be developed through contractors, then maintain by a much smaller team (similar to #2).

4) They had finished writing the WiFi stack for PalmOsNext and it is now in maintenance mode

IIIc -> M105 -> Zire 21 -> Tungsten T2 -> Treo 650

Now if they'd only act like it and compete. Palm continues to act as though they're entitled to our dollars without the burden of delivering what we actually want in the product.

Support the home-team... Meh.
Many of us here have, vigorously for over a decade. There comes a point where you give up hope, and reach the point of saying, Just die and move out of the way already, or at least sell out to someone for the slim chance they'll take it somewhere again.

How bad is it, when the 3com days start to look like the golden years.

Easy for me to say, as one from one of those "International" countries I suppose, but screw the home team. They struck out. For the good of the franchise, pack up the team and sell them to new management.

Stamp Nokia all over my TX if that's what it takes. As an end user, and as a developer, I want a thriving platform of relevant products that scratch the itch of both the masses and the vertical markets.

The current trend will have my PalmOS PDA's (and the software I love and rely on to get through the day) will be relegated to the same box as my Sharp Wizards.

How long have users been crying for things like,
-Can I just get wifi in my smartphone please?
-a 320x480 screen is more important to me on my smartphone than a chic-let keyboard.
-Can a brother get a firmware update with things like newer, maybe fixed versions of versamail, or various other updates. This is a software platform right?

Palm's answer, nope, can't be done.

Apple's answer, sure, here you go, an iPhone:
-a 320x480 screen
-Wifi when you need it
-A platform which will be updated along the way, making your purchase more valuable.

How many of those customers waiting in AT&T and Applestore lineups, could of been Palm's if they'd listened to what people wanted, and actually developed on the strengths they had going, rather than frittering them away.

How does the Zen of Palm look today?
Perhaps a little more zany then zen.

MS can take all kinds of jabs for the 5 year road to Vista, but what the heck does Palm have to show for the last 5 years?

I've gotta shake my head when some of my favorite PalmOS devices (not all made my Palm) relied on a Kernel from Kadak right here still my home town, Vancouver, Canada. They still are faster with graffiti and application switching, than my current PDA with 10x the memory, and CPU clockspeed, don't have any faster throughput to external cards, or network devices than the old beloved Pre-OS5 Palm's with only (real) serial ports, or CF slots.

We really seem to love our software or maybe the dream of PalmOS to still be here hoping.

I do think Palm can make a lot of money in new directions with PDA type devices, but not they way they're currently going. I posted a year or two back that it might be in the direction of affordable, durable smart tablets (Startrek like data pads). A market where everyone has a few of them around. Multi-pupose pads with low power consumption e-paper display, mesh network collecting info from your PC's, your phones, and other sensors. Pad's to display your paper on the breakfast table, your ebooks or RSS feeds on the coffee table, your recipes and grocery/todo lists in the kitchen on the fridge, a second display (pad on a stand or sitting on wirelessly on the desk) beside your computer for RSS feeds, email, stocks, whatever (much like the external Laptop displays coming out which show your Outlook mail and other info even when your laptop is off). Cheap enough that we have several, simple enough that the masses use them, unlike where PDA's have grown to with massive hardware stuffed into a box with a small screen because of the battery life, and we make it do *everything* because we can only afford one such device. Rather it should be much like the original Palm "pilot"s. Simple robust hardware, driven by smarter software running on something more powerful that pushes the info to the device.
That! I could get excited about, develop for, sell, take in any manner of crazy directions. Simple but innovative hardware that would really scratch an itch. Can that be said for the Fooleo? How many of those could you sell? Fell like developing for the fooleo? Want a few around the house?

Palm, get back to your roots and do something with them. Get back to solving life problems.