ACCESS Licenses Handwriting Tech for ALP

Well, I don't know if I'm right, but this seems, that Zi and Decuma will be just an option, not the compulsory text-entry way for the deveopers. I understand the pre-integrate thing the way, that ALP will just be Decuma and Zi ready, am I right? This would mean then, that they still can have some proprietal text entry method as well as they can "license" some other ones. In fact, it will be the device manufacturers, who will pay the royalties for the Zi or Decuma integration.

Or am I wrong?

So why do you come back to post on this 9-day-old news item? Move on, moron! :-)

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Does it make you feel important to say things like that? I sure hope so. I'd like to think I brought a tiny ray of cheer into that tiny, benighted soul of yours. :-)

Thanks for reminding us that because Gekko isn't interested in ALP the rest of us should be content to be ignorant about it as well. Just like the other thing you're so fond of reminding us of: because Gekko uses a Treo 650 no one need ever concern themselves with other devices that they stupidly believe meet their needs better. Not sure what we'd do without your wise and benevolent guidance!

Happy New Year to all!

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

News flash: You're not the universe. :-)

But you sure do a nice job pointing out that it's your own posts that are irrelevant to the discussion here. I guess my work here is done.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Asking a serious point in an amicable manner, just how relevant is ALP now that the largest PALM OS device manufacturer has the source code to the current Garnet?

The fact is that Palm is the largest manufacturer of Palm OS devices than all the other companies combined.

The two burning questions are whether:
1) ALP can appeal to a wider range of licensees or at least enough to sell a greater volume of devices than the previous Palm OS licensees. (Arguably PalmSource's offerings failed to appeal to enough licensees for it to remain as a viable independent company).

2) If ALP will ever be appealing enough to Palm with its current strategy of two operating systems: Windows Mobile and Garnet.

These questions remain unanswered and thus ALP remains relevant to Palm. There is the added factor that should Palm decline ALP then it raises a potential conflict of interest for ACCESS between how much support it gives to Palm with Garnet and how much to other manufacturers with ALP.

Food for thought during the season of goodwill towards all.

It's always kind of amusing that on the one hand PICkers wring their hands about Palm's small share of the smartphone market and then in the same breath act as though ACCESS is going to be in trouble if they don't get Palm to license ALP.

Both are rather provincial points of view, IMO. ALP could be a huge success without shipping on a single handset within Palm's primarily North American market. Japan alone dwarfs the US smartphone market and China is dwarfing Japan. Both China and Japan are strongly oriented toward Linux.

ALP's relevance to people who use devices from Palm will be the role it plays in keeping up innovation in the Palm OS software market. As long as ALP devices and Palm devices share a common API, each one's success helps maintain the ecosystem of the other. Whether you ever use or even see a phone running ALP you'll stand to benefit as a Palm OS user from whatever success ALP enjoys.

Which isn't to say ALP won't at some point gain traction in markets where Palm OS is popular, just that that isn't the measure of ALP's relevance to Palm OS users.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog