PalmGear to Merge with PocketGear

Posted By: Kris Keilhack on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 9:10:59 AM

In another unfortunate acknowledgement of the continually shrinking revenue stream from anything tied to the Palm OS ecosystem, longtime online software vendor PalmGear.com is being assimilated into its sister PocketGear.com site. Initially mentioned in a small teaser graphic on the October 29th PalmGear newsletter, the announcement was fully revealed in a follow-up e-mail to newsletter subscribers on November 5th. The full HTML content of the e-mail notification can be found on the company's website.

The PalmGear e-mail states that PocketGear.com will contain "...an improved design, improved navigation and an improved shopping experience! In addition to Palm OS applications, you will also find software for Windows Mobile devices." The changeover does not appear to be going into immediate effect, as the company states that they are in the process of migrating all of the existing Palm OS content and customer accounts over to the PocketGear site.

No official word as of yet as to the reasons behind the consolidation but it is a cost-cutting maneuver designed to end the overhead and expense of maintaining two separate customer and software databases for both Palm OS and Windows Mobile software titles.

PalmGear and PocketGear are both owned by Motricity, a leading online content supplier and e-commerce provider for a variety of companies, including Alltel, Sony Ericsson, PalmSource/Access Corporation and Palm Inc. Motricity also owns the popular cross-platform e-book store ereader.com, which it purchased from PalmSource in 2003. Motricity was originally founded in 2001 under the moniker of PowerByHand.

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11 total comments

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And off goes another Icon in the Palm Economy

Gazpacho @ 11/7/2007 1:46:37 PM #

And no, it's not David Nagel this time.

http://foleocentral.blogspot.com

FoleoCentral is the news, opinions & review blog about the Palm Foleo Mobile Companion

Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

SeldomVisitor @ 11/7/2007 1:56:50 PM #

...with their new OS.

Uh huh.

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

hkklife @ 11/7/2007 2:44:10 PM #

At this stage of the game I really am resigned (and predicting it, in fact) to accepting the fact that there will be no backwards compatibility in the new OS. At best, it'll be like what Sony is doing with the non-60GB PS3 models---just spotty compatibility of the "big" titles.

Just let me preserve my PIM data by 100.0% and not ONE WHIT LESS!

It's looking more and more like Palm and Access need to acquire one another and throw their combined weight behind the Apple/Google/Nokia juggernauts.

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

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

mikecane @ 11/7/2007 5:09:38 PM #

Here, we went through all this with the Foleo discussion. It was argued to my satisfaction that NOT having backward compatibility would be suicide.

Then again, this is PALM, The Company That Kills Itself...

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

SeldomVisitor @ 11/7/2007 5:22:41 PM #

The problem, Mike, is not that not having backward compatibility will kill PALM, time will.

By the time PALM gets something useful out the door, backwards compatible or not, the world will have moved on totally from PalmOS.

The article under which these comments exist is a perfect example of that.

TreoCentral pushing "smartphone experts" or whatever their "sister" site is is a perfect example of that.

And PalmInfocenter doing their best to hide the existence of "Mobility beat" or whatever THEIR sister site is is a perfect example of that.

The world is moving on.

PALM should, too.

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

mikecane @ 11/7/2007 6:24:32 PM #

There will still be people who have Treos (or Centros). Some of those people will have creaky apps they like and want to use. Plus, as one of the devs here pointed out, they are still doing lots of custom PalmOS apps for businesses.

Anyway, I'm not going to go nuts over it, either way. Eventually I will have an iPhone and it will run real apps and, well, ta-ta Palm.

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

twrock @ 11/7/2007 8:32:08 PM #

Just let me preserve my PIM data by 100.0% and not ONE WHIT LESS!

From the as yet not announced Palm OSII manual:

To migrate all of your PIM data from your previous Palm OS (Garnet) device, follow these simple instructions:
1. Do not yet install the new Palm desktop software that came with your new Palm device.
2. In your old Palm desktop application, enable "Hotsync with Outlook". (Palm's own desktop software is not compatible with the new system.)
3. Start your old Palm desktop application and perform a hotsync function with your previous Palm device.
4. Uninstall all Palm desktop software.
5. Reboot your Windows computer.
6. Install the new Palm desktop software that came with your new Palm device.
7. Reboot your Windows computer.
8. Start the new desktop application, and enable "Hotsync with Outlook" in your new Palm desktop application.
9. Connect your new Palm OSII device via the included USB hotsync cable.
10. Perform a hotsync function with your new Palm device.
11. Follow the onscreen instructions and your previous PIM data will be migrated to the new Palm device.
12. If your previous PIM data is not properly migrated to your new Palm device, perform a hard reset on your new Palm device and repeat these instructions beginning with step number 4.
*Note: at this time the new Palm desktop software and hotsync function are not fully compatible with Window Vista. Using the new Palm desktop software on Windows Vista computers may result in unforeseen results. Please use Windows XP for full compatibility.

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/

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

twrock @ 11/7/2007 8:40:13 PM #

At this stage of the game I really am resigned (and predicting it, in fact) to accepting the fact that there will be no backwards compatibility in the new OS.

I'm not yet convinced by the arguments against built-in backward compatibility. The "perpertual license" to the Garnet code seems to argue against that view as does the inclusion of it in ALP and the existence of Styletap. Sure, if Palm wants to be completely lazy and start hammering nails into their own coffin they can skip on the backward compatibility. I suppose it's possible, just so stupid an idea that I can't yet believe it out of (even) them.

It's looking more and more like Palm and Access need to acquire one another and throw their combined weight behind the Apple/Google/Nokia juggernauts.

Does that read the way you meant it too?

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/

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

twrock @ 11/7/2007 8:41:30 PM #

"too", "two", "to", whatever.

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/

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

freakout @ 11/7/2007 9:37:12 PM #

And PalmInfocenter doing their best to hide the existence of "Mobility beat" or whatever THEIR sister site is is a perfect example of that.

Lol. No-one's trying to "hide" anything, SV. MobilityBeat is a very different kind of site: it's more of a Digg for mobile devices. "Mobileinfocenter" is the name of Ryan's overall network (encompassing PIC, Mobilitybeat, Mobilelinuxinfo and his consulting services).

RE: Oh, yeah...SURE Palm is gonna be backward compatible...

SeldomVisitor @ 11/8/2007 6:05:35 AM #

Oh.

Okay.

They did a GOOD job of hiding THAT one!

Giggle.

Palm Software on sale