IBM Selling Palm's Handhelds Again
For years, IBM sold handhelds that were basically Palm Inc. models except with an IBM logo and a black casing. In February, the company decided to stop this practice. However, IBM has just announced that it will begin selling the full line of Palm's handhelds. However, these won't be re-branded under the IBM name; they will be regular Palm handhelds. This is an important announcement for Palm as it is working very hard to increase its sales to companies, many of which buy from IBM.
"As we continue to make strides into the enterprise, relationships with business leaders like IBM strengthen our position and help us to better serve all our enterprise customers. Being chosen as an IBM supplier of handhelds is clearly a compliment to our technology and reaffirms our role as a champion for the mobile enterprise," said Glenn Cross, a senior VP in Palm's Solutions Group.
The financial terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.
IBM and Palm also will work together to integrate Palm handhelds with IBM's WebSphere Everywhere Access business platform. They will develop Palm OS versions of secure e-mail and Sametime instant messaging apps that will work with IBM's platform.
Related Information:
- PIC: IBM to Discontinue Palm Clones
- PIC: Palm Forum
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RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
And i'm happy for Palm, Microsoft is being a little to greedy by trying to take away shares from Palm, but in the longrun i think Palm users benefited from that. (Palm OS 5)
RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
I am not sure if OS/2 is available anymore in any incarnation, but it kicked ass at the time, but ultimately failed to capture the desktop market.
IBM now do Linux, and Windows.
In a similar vein, they had the Palm, rebranded as a WorkPad, then dropped it and our now pushing Palm's again.
Expect no loyalty. If the market demands it, they will jump to the darkside and integrate closer with PPC (or Linux - the IBM Zaurus???). Its all about business and building relationships.
Token.
RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
I suspect PPC makers are losing money on their devices, and MSFT is using the Desktop OS as a stick to get them to keep making the PPC devices.
RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
OS/2 was out BEFORE the split. Microsoft sold MS OS/2 and IBM sold IBM OS/2 right up to version 1.3 - it was after that point that that the split began. Microsoft used to support OS/2 command line applications in Windows NT. Why? Because there were still MS OS/2 1.3 users out there that needed support for their home-grown apps. I don't want this to get too far off topic, but I felt it necessary to correct the comment above. (Oh, and I do actually work for one of those two companies, and did when the split came about, by the way, so I know what I'm talking about)
Cheers!
P.S. An updated version of OS/2 Warp is being sold as E-commstation currently.
RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
This is certainly good news for Palm's thrust into the corporate marketplace. Actually having some Palm OS devices on the market would help too but that should be soon in coming.
Once we have the PalmOS 5 devices the next hurdle will be how do PalmOS 5 apps stack up against the PPC .NET Compact Framework apps.
RE: Things are really looking up for Palm
The reason OS/2 never really took off was that it was 6 months late in coming to the market, which by then Windows had had a "more or less" firm hold on the market.
Anyways, FWIW, a majority of ATM's still use OS/2 Warp as the base OS since hardly anyone uses OS/2 Warp anymore and its considered "more secure" from fraud from hackers and such because of the lack of knowledge of OS/2.
-PZ
The financial terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.
Nice one Guys!
http://piersbell.tripod.com/
RE: Nice one Guys!
The IBM philosophy is to work with anyone if we can make money from it, but also to work with everyone. You could say we're agnostic when it comes to making money :-)
This is not an exclusive deal, don't be too surprised if we do the same with M$ and Blackberry, whatever it takes to get WebSphere to be the center of the corporate Webiverse.
How to Integrate Palm to IBM WebSphere?
when it mean integrate, will it be wirelessly or just the typical remote hotsyn?
RE: How to Integrate Palm to IBM WebSphere?
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