PalmSource Chief Financial Officer Steps Down

PalmSource has announced that Al Wood, chief financial officer and treasurer, has left the Company to pursue other interests. Wood joined PalmSource as its chief financial officer in October 2002.

PalmSource also announced that Ira Cook, vice president of finance, has been appointed principal financial officer while the Company conducts a search for a new CFO. Cook joined PalmSource in 2003 as vice president of finance. From 1989 until 2003, Cook held various senior financial positions at Borland Software Corporation, including worldwide controller and most recently as vice president, tax and treasury. Prior to Borland, Cook spent ten years in public accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant.  

"We thank Al for the contributions he has made to PalmSource and wish him well, " said David Nagel, PalmSource’s president and CEO. "He played a key role in our separation from Palm in 2003, as well as in our equity offering earlier this year, which helped strengthen our financial position." Nagel continued, "we believe that Ira’s experience in public accounting, tax and treasury combined with his role in implementing Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance procedures at PalmSource will make for a smooth transition as we conduct a search for a new CFO."

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Rats Jumping Ship

Gekko @ 12/3/2004 4:50:15 PM #

The CFO sees all the inside numbers and this guy obviously didn't like what he saw. This is not a good sign!

DEATH SPIRAL!!!

"Death can come swiftly to a market leader. By the time you have lost the positive-feedback cycle it's often too late to change what you've been doing, and all of the elements of a negative spiral come into play." - Bill Gates, "The Road Ahead", Chapter 3

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Wollombi @ 12/3/2004 5:34:51 PM #
Not necessarily. That's a large amount of speculation you're doing there.

_________________
Sean

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Rome @ 12/3/2004 8:41:44 PM #
From WSJ....sounds like Al was "encouraged" to resign.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK -- Shares of PalmSource Inc. (PSRC) slid 8% Friday after the maker of operating systems for portable electronic devices said financial chief Al Wood resigned, only a month after Chairman Eric Banhamou stepped down.

In a news release late Thursday, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company said Wood resigned effective Nov. 29 from the post he has occupied since Oct. 2002 to pursue other interests. He will be replaced by Ira Cook, the current vice president of finance, until the company finds Wood's permanent replacement.

In August, the provider of software for mobile information devices said Benhamou tendered his resignation as chairman, cutting further corporate ties with PalmSource's former sister company PalmOne Inc. (PLMO). PalmOne makes the handheld devices that run PalmSource's software.

PalmSource officials couldn't be reached for comment.

Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Jamie Friedman reiterated a buy rating on the stock after the announcement, but lowered his earnings and revenue estimates for fiscal 2005, and cut his price target to $23.

Based on his conversation with the company's chief executive, Dave Nagel, last night, Friedman wrote "there was nothing 'special' to motivate this resignation."

However, he added, "At this stage in its life cycle, PSRC requires management with telecom-specific relationships and business development skills that Wood was unable to provide," for which reason he thinks the company is targeting a new CFO with a telecom pedigree.

He also suggested that Wood's departure might have arisen from contentions related to unsuccessful licensee negotiations.

"We believe that one of PSRC's major licensees known to have exited the market was not bound by a top-up obligation, which we had been led to believe by the prior management," Friedman wrote in a research note Friday.

The analyst couldn't be reached for clarification or disclosures.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Admin @ 12/4/2004 1:18:02 PM #
thanks for posting that. Let's hope this is a change for the better.
RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Rome @ 12/4/2004 1:24:31 PM #
I really don't think that this is that big a deal. Wall Street almost always over-reacts. CFO at a small technology company, especially one in an emerging market like smart wireless devices, is usually not as criticial as a CFO at a more mature tech company. Case in point: Palmone's CFO, Judy Bruner, left P1 earlier this year, and P1 hasn't really missed a beat so far.

Now, all we need is some new licensees and some new Cobalt products!!!

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Pride Of Lions @ 12/4/2004 2:20:27 PM #
::Case in point: Palmone's CFO, Judy Bruner, left P1 earlier this year, and P1 hasn't really missed a beat so far.::

I consider the T|5 a missed beat. I gave my money to TapWave instead.
POL9A

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
NewtonDKC @ 12/4/2004 8:52:55 PM #
"We believe that one of PSRC's major licensees known to have exited the market was not bound by a top-up obligation, which we had been led to believe by the prior management," Friedman wrote in a research note Friday."

Okay, forgive my ignorance of financial terms, but what is a "top-up obligation"? And I'm assuming the major licensee refers to Sony - so in what context is this comment made (i.e. someone in the know just translate the sentence as "Palm ____ ___ ____ since Sony was not actually bound by a top-up obligation as had been previously presented or insinuated." I could be totally wrong, but it jus sounds somewhat juicy. :-)

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
svrontis @ 12/5/2004 12:57:10 AM #
There is no set meaning for 'top-up obligation', though it is somtimes used to refer to a situation where X has an obligation to Y where Y's funds/assets/net assets fall below a certain level - eg, X is required to 'top up' Y's cash to a pre-agreed level. Anyway this is more a VC (or private equity) term rather than an item of industry-wide jargon. Any VCs out there care to offer an explanation?

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
tompi @ 12/5/2004 8:00:44 AM #
"CFO at a small technology company, especially one in an emerging market like smart wireless devices, is usually not as criticial as a CFO at a more mature tech company."

OK, so it's very critical, then: Palm is not a "small technology company" anymore, and they are not in an "emerging market" anymore either.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Rome @ 12/5/2004 12:43:29 PM #
Regarding top-up payment, most of Palmsource's licensees have an annual min. payment clause in their contracts with palmsource. For example, I am company ABC and I entered into a contract with palmsource to pay them 5% of my gross revenue from palm os devices sold or an annual min. payment of $5 million, whichever is greater. Assuming that I sold $80 million worth of palm os devices this year, I owe $80 million X 5% = $4 million, which is below the annual min. payment of $5 million. Hence, my top-up payment is $5-$4 = $1 million.

The major licensee the analyst referred to may be Sony, but it could also be Acer. Sony is actually still a licensee, since they sell Palm OS PDAs in Japan.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Gekko @ 12/5/2004 1:42:24 PM #
Well, it looks like Woody didn't jump - he was PUSHED.

Don't feel too sorry for him though:

http://biz.yahoo.com/t/27/2990.html

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Admin @ 12/5/2004 3:46:41 PM #
great find Gekko. Too bad nobody ever called me about the IPO.
RE: Rats strolling off the ship onto a luxury cruise ship
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/5/2004 4:29:19 PM #
What color was Woody's parachute? Looks kinda "golden" to me!

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/041203/psrc8-k.html

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?FilingID=2448583&Type=HTML

;-O

Still, a cool million $ in stock + a year's salary severance pay, etc is chump change for the average PalmSource and pa1mOne exec. David Nagel alone has cleared over 5 million in stock bonuses IN THE PAST 4 MONTHS! Take a look at how Palm's Apple Dumpling Gang have plundered the two "completely separate" companies in recent months. The links below are for MATURE audiences only. Please have all children leave the room prior to clicking on these links:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=PLMO

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=psrc

Seeing Palm execs gleefully sodomize pa1mOne and PalmSource while everything is imploding around them is truly disgusting.


And what is this mysterious "Omega Browser" Palm has paid for?



******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

Hey Ryan, did you hear about Palm's lawsuit with Acer?
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/5/2004 8:32:02 PM #
http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?FilingID=3310227&Type=HTML

Palm won $2.6 million from Acer. (But they probably spent twice that amount in lawyer fees...)



******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

Looks like Woody done good! Congrats!
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/5/2004 8:39:21 PM #
http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/doctrans/finSys_main.asp?formfilename=0001193125-04-207280&nad=

Severance Agreement:

"(i) one year of annual base salary payment in the aggregate amount of $250,000.
(ii) the acceleration of vesting of all shares underlying options to purchase common stock of PalmSource, Inc. held by you. ($??? Probably well over $1,000,000)
(iii) the acceleration of vesting of 23,605 shares of restricted stock of PalmSource owned by you, which will be transferred by PalmSource’s transfer agent to your account in accordance herewith. (i.e. around another $500,000)
(iv) the health, dental and vision benefits coverage for one year in accordance with the conditions set forth in the Severance Agreement (Woody's gotta stay healthy to enjoy all that loot!)

(B) the payment of 100% of the unpaid portion of the target level bonus under PalmSource FY2005 Bonus Plan in the aggregate amount of $100,000. (Why thank you. Does this mean PalmSource is meeting its performance targets? Dwindling licencees, PalmOS 6 dead on arrival, no licencees willing to touch PalmOS 6 with a 10 foot pole...)"

"The Company’s executive officers and members of the Human Resources Department shall be instructed to follow the Company’s standard practice with respect to the departing employees in providing only confirmations of your employment dates and title and that you departed to pursue other interests." (Thanks. I'm your fall guy, Mr. Nagel! May I have my check now, please?)

"you will refrain at any time from taking any actions or making any statements, written or oral, which would disparage or defame the Company’s goodwill or reputation, or the goodwill or reputation of any of the Company’s current or former directors, officers, or employees, or adversely affect the Company’s relationship(s) with any current or past customers, analysts, investors, rating agencies, media representatives, external consultants, or any other entity with whom they do business or intend to do business. You also agree that you will not act as a source (attributable or otherwise) with the media or any other person or entity regarding any information you have acquired, including Confidential Information, in connection with your employment with PalmSource." (i.e. NO YANKOWSKI JOKES!!!)

"About PalmSource
PalmSource, Inc. is the company behind Palm OS, a leading operating system powering mobile information devices. Approximately 36 million Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones have been sold to date worldwide. Industry leaders Aceeca, AlphaSmart, Fossil, Garmin, GSL, Kyocera, Lenovo, palmOne, QTech, Samsung, Sony, Symbol Technologies and Tapwave license Palm OS to create diverse mobile devices that meet unique customer needs."

Fossil? Sony? Kyocera? GSL? QTech? (Yeah the market for PDAs is EXPLODING in India right now. Who needs food when you can buy a shiny new QTech PDA?) Aceeca? (The Meazura™ is the world's first Palm Powered™ device that is waterproof to IP67 standards. God bless Aceeca!) Yes, the future's looking pretty bright for PalmSource right now...





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
svrontis @ 12/5/2004 10:18:02 PM #
Interesting. It may also be worthwhile to compare this to the severence packages for the 4 heads of WinCE/WindozeMobile Division which M$ dismissed in the last 3 years (OK, I admit that one was 'promoted' sideways, but he's a dead man walking).

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
Rome @ 12/5/2004 10:35:43 PM #
We can argue till the cows come home about executive compensation in the good ole U.S.A.. The fact is that Al Wood's severance package is nothing out of ordinary for a CFO.

People come and go all the time when it comes to jobs. It is clear that Dave and Al didn't get along, and they parted way. Is it a disaster that some on this forum would have you believe? Of course not.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/6/2004 1:39:58 AM #
Interesting. It may also be worthwhile to compare this to the severence packages for the 4 heads of WinCE/WindozeMobile Division which M$ dismissed in the last 3 years (OK, I admit that one was 'promoted' sideways, but he's a dead man walking).

Last time I checked, Microsoft was posting billions in profits, year after year. Palm, on the other hand has probably had a net 1 BILLION dollar loss over the past three years. Which one needs to worry about controlling exec compensation? Hint: It's not Microsoft.

Palm is cutting R+D and other expenses to the bone and using cheap components in an effort to eke out a couple bucks here and there. Then they turn around and blow $20 million a year on compensation + bonuses for their top few execs. Go figure. Now is not the time to be sucking every drop of blood from Palm. The leeches should at least have the decency to wait and see if the company can mount a recovery before they start parasitizing it again. No doubt the Regular Joes at Palm/one/source are impressed.




******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
svrontis @ 12/6/2004 2:02:18 AM #
Oops, looks like I touched a raw nerve there.

RE: Rats Jumping Ship
orb2069 @ 12/6/2004 8:33:14 AM #
Don't worry [svrontis] - The Voice of 'Reason' is just doing his daily Axe Grind.


1000->Personal->IRUpgrade->TRGPro->HE330->Treo 180

Typo Ryan...

eston @ 12/3/2004 6:13:03 PM #
It's CHIEF, not CHEIF. Not being a spelling nazi, just trying to make things look better (I'm soon to be an online editor for a newspaper, what do you expect?)

..: eston
http://www.hyalineskies.com/
RE: Typo Ryan...
Admin @ 12/3/2004 6:15:10 PM #
Thanks!
RE: Typo Ryan...
Gekko @ 12/3/2004 6:30:03 PM #

It's CHEF! COOK THEM BOOKS, BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

RE: Typo Ryan...
abosco @ 12/3/2004 6:39:08 PM #
Hahahaha!

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T637
RE: Typo Ryan...
Foo Fighter @ 12/3/2004 7:30:19 PM #
Wha? PalmSource Chef Stepping down? Who will replace him...Emeril?

-------------------------------
Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com
RE: Typo Ryan...
joad @ 12/3/2004 7:35:02 PM #
I'm rooting for Julia Child. (or did she just die...?).
RE: Typo Ryan...
ozz @ 12/4/2004 12:19:16 AM #
I wonder if Martha Stewart has an accounting background...hummm.... come March??
RE: Typo Ryan...
LiveFaith @ 12/4/2004 12:57:43 AM #
Gekko,

That 2nd post redeemed the one that you posted 1st.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

No good news at all

isid0re @ 12/4/2004 3:39:06 AM #
I definitely think that PalmSource (and Palm OS) is currently in a very bad trend, the worse one it has faced so far.

1) PalmOS 6.x (whatever x is) is a failure. Not supported by developers, nor by licensees. Does not work, does not show up and, mostly, useless.

2) Licensees are running away (as a consequence of previous point). See PalmOne: as soon as they can, they will run for PocketPC.

3) PalmSource has compromised with operators, who are like the devil: you can get power from them, but you have to sacrifice your soul.

4) Palm OS is no longer simple, elegant, efficient, nor different from PocketPC. Thanks to Sony pressure, it has become a crappy "multimedia" Win95-like operating system. Zen of Palm is dead.

5) PalmSource makes bad strategic choices. As time flows, it becomes evident that their recent decisions have been guided by some spirit of "Newton return" or "BeOS revenge". From a leader, they have switched to the behavior of a follower.


Well, you know, I am disappointed. Unless a miracle, I no longer see no future for them.

Let's campaign for open source Palm OS.

RE: No good news at all
Konstantin @ 12/4/2004 2:46:45 PM #
Are those predictions or I need to lear how to read between lines?


RE: No good news at all
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/4/2004 4:14:16 PM #
I definitely think that PalmSource (and Palm OS) is currently in a very bad trend, the worse one it has faced so far.

Nope. They were looking worse when they wrote off a few hundred million worth of goods a few years ago. At least Palm finally realized it needed to reinvent itself as a smartphone company.

PalmOS 6.x (whatever x is) is a failure. Not supported by developers, nor by licensees. Does not work, does not show up and, mostly, useless.

True. PalmSource tried to make PalmOS 6 too perfect and wasted too much time bringing it out. In the meantime, Sony left and the other licencees were forced to find ways to get PalmOS 5 to do what they needed. Now no one needs (or wants) PalmOS 6 - despite the fact that PalmOS 6 has the potential to be a fantastic OS for both PDAs and mini laptops. Will PalmOS 6 eventually be remembered as a Hudson or an Edsel?

2) Licensees are running away (as a consequence of previous point). See PalmOne: as soon as they can, they will run for PocketPC.

The only reason to go to PPC is for political reasons. PalmOS 6 (and even PalmOS 5) are much better solutions that PPC. Period.

3) PalmSource has compromised with operators, who are like the devil: you can get power from them, but you have to sacrifice your soul.

BS. PalmSource will need to obey the cell phone carriers if it wants to survive, but this makes almost zero impact on what the software can do. The only thing we'll see is some enhanced "security" for the carriers' sake.

4) Palm OS is no longer simple, elegant, efficient, nor different from PocketPC. Thanks to Sony pressure, it has become a crappy "multimedia" Win95-like operating system. Zen of Palm is dead.

BS. PalmOS is still very simple. The current problems stem from trying to force PalmOS 5 to do stuff it was never designed for,
in addition to Palm making the dumba$$ move of specing NAND Flash when the OS and hardware can't handle it transparently.

5) PalmSource makes bad strategic choices. As time flows, it becomes evident that their recent decisions have been guided by some spirit of "Newton return" or "BeOS revenge". From a leader, they have switched to the behavior of a follower.

Partly true. PalmOS 6 is the ba$tard child of BeOS and it's obvious that the Be engineers didn't learn their lesson the first time around. The KISS principle should be tattooed onto their foreheads. Palm isn't a follower - they've just gone so far out ahead that they lost contact with those following them, so people are now starting to follow more conservative "leaders".

Well, you know, I am disappointed. Unless a miracle, I no longer see no future for them.

If PalmOS 6 was ported to mini laptops AND regular cell phones, Palm could have a great future. Palm is wrecking a tremendous opportunity to sell businesses a complete, stable PalmOS solution: Treos + mini laptops + regular cellphones, all with almost zero support costs necessary.

Let's campaign for open source Palm OS.

Don't be silly.





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: No good news at all
Strider_mt2k @ 12/4/2004 4:38:30 PM #
Yes, let's blame Sony for ruining everything by showing what a PalmOS handheld can do.

How dare they mess with Palm/P1 by exposing them for the design sluggards they were/are!



RE: No good news at all
isid0re @ 12/5/2004 4:54:20 AM #
>>> Nope. They were looking worse when they wrote off a few hundred million worth of goods a few years ago. At least Palm finally realized it needed to reinvent itself as a smartphone company.

You are talking about Palm, Inc. This is about PalmSource, Inc. Nothing to do with hardware.

>>> PalmOS 6 has the potential to be a fantastic OS for both PDAs and mini laptops.

I agree a lot. Or for some medium-term between PDAs and tablets (a PDA with a larger screen, or a small tablet, half the size of the current ones).

>>> The only reason to go to PPC is for political reasons. PalmOS 6 (and even PalmOS 5) are much better solutions that PPC. Period.

Maybe from the technical point of view, but less for the end-user. End-users are very sensitive to Windows and Office and, to some extent, to MB, MHz (or GHz), Mpixels. I went to my local tech gadgets store yesterday and could verify that once again. PPC is now to a point where its shortcomings are small enough to be acceptable by most uninitiated end-users.

>>> BS. PalmSource will need to obey the cell phone carriers if it wants to survive, but this makes almost zero impact on what the software can do. The only thing we'll see is some enhanced "security" for the carriers' sake.

You bet. They want to control everything. Installable apps? Sure! Provided that they can choose them, market them, check that they behave the way they like, etc. Smart features? Of course! Provided that they guide the end-user towards profitable traffic. An example, with Orange in Europe: when you take a picture using the camera on the Treo 600, the Send option directs you to MMS (which means $$$ for the operator) instead of e-mail with attachment (which is smarter, but almost no $ for the operator).

>>> BS. PalmOS is still very simple. The current problems stem from trying to force PalmOS 5 to do stuff it was never designed for, in addition to Palm making the dumba$$ move of specing NAND Flash when the OS and hardware can't handle it transparently.

Are you a developer? Palm OS is no longer simple. Lots of special cases, lots of device-dependent behaviours, lots of bugs presented as features, lots of shortcomings ("not yet fully implemented"). Of course, the standard UI is still quite simple and user-friendly (although more and more 3rd party apps break most rules to be more attractive at the price of clumsyness).

>>> Partly true. PalmOS 6 is the ba$tard child of BeOS and it's obvious that the Be engineers didn't learn their lesson the first time around. The KISS principle should be tattooed onto their foreheads.

Or at least should they focus on what is important for developers and end-users, not for their ego. ;-)

>>> Palm isn't a follower - they've just gone so far out ahead that they lost contact with those following them, so people are now starting to follow more conservative "leaders".

I disagree. They missed at least two points: 1) people buy Microsoft's proposition "a PDA is a PC in your pocket, so it must run Windows, handle Office docs, blah blah blah". 2) the PDA is being squeezed between smartphones and tablets. I do think that the PDA will finally vanish and be replaced by both families.

>>> If PalmOS 6 was ported to mini laptops AND regular cell phones, Palm could have a great future. Palm is wrecking a tremendous opportunity to sell businesses a complete, stable PalmOS solution: Treos + mini laptops + regular cellphones, all with almost zero support costs necessary.

Sorry, but I find this both utopic and pointless. The laptop market is monopolized by Windows and Office. Unless Linux manages to be a spoilsport, I don't see no way to change this. On the other hand, both mini-tablet and smartphone families are legitimate targets for Palm OS. However, there is no indication in the current trends that Palm OS is going to dominate there.

>>>>>> Let's campaign for open source Palm OS.
>>> Don't be silly.

I am not. If Palm OS was the Linux of PDAs, I believe that things would be very different. And above all, I think that if PalmSource does not finally prove itself capable of pushing Palm OS to success, it would be a very smart move.

Palm screwed up
tompi @ 12/5/2004 8:02:50 AM #
"The only reason to go to PPC is for political reasons. PalmOS 6 (and even PalmOS 5) are much better solutions that PPC. Period."

No, the reason would be technical. POS 5 is a bad platform for custom software development, starting with its poor file system support, memory management limitations, and multithreading limitations, and custom software development is where much of the corporate market is. POS 6 is proprietary and incompatible with anything else.

Palm screwed up big time, and they may well not be able to recover. Palm should have updated PalmOS to a POSIX-like multithreading OS half a dozen years ago: it would have cost them almost no development effort (they could have picked from dozens of commercial or free kernels). But greed and arrogance kept them from doing that: they wanted something proprietary.

RE: No good news at all
Rome @ 12/5/2004 12:58:50 PM #
TVOR,

Wow, one of you best pieces ever. Well balanced view and insightful criticisim.

Enjoy the read. Thanks!

RE: No good news at all
Strider_mt2k @ 12/5/2004 1:07:05 PM #
"Will PalmOS 6 eventually be remembered as a Hudson or an Edsel?"

Disturbingly accurate.

RE: No good news at all
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/5/2004 5:58:49 PM #
>>> Nope. They were looking worse when they wrote off a few hundred million worth of goods a few years ago. At least Palm finally realized it needed to reinvent itself as a smartphone company.

You are talking about Palm, Inc. This is about PalmSource, Inc. Nothing to do with hardware.

Whatever you say...

>>> PalmOS 6 has the potential to be a fantastic OS for both PDAs and mini laptops.

I agree a lot. Or for some medium-term between PDAs and tablets (a PDA with a larger screen, or a small tablet, half the size of the current ones).

A slightly bigger (Sharp Zaurus sized) version of the CLIE UX50 with a better keyboard and a 5 inch OLED screen, running PalmOS 6 could have been a huge hit if Palm or Sony had the guts to sell it. Palm needed to boldly reinvent itself in different niches if it had any hope of surviving. Smartphones was the most obvious niche. Mini/micro laptops (previously labelled "PalmTops") was another niche they could easily have exploited if management wasn't asleep at the wheel. Tablets are a dead category.

>>> The only reason to go to PPC is for political reasons. PalmOS 6 (and even PalmOS 5) are much better solutions that PPC. Period.

Maybe from the technical point of view, but less for the end-user. End-users are very sensitive to Windows and Office and, to some extent, to MB, MHz (or GHz), Mpixels. I went to my local tech gadgets store yesterday and could verify that once again. PPC is now to a point where its shortcomings are small enough to be acceptable by most uninitiated end-users.

Palm already has everything it needs to compete with PPC. It all boils down to marketing. PalmOS and PPC both run on similar processors + other hardware. PalmOS ironically has much better options for integration with Microsoft Word/Excel than PPC! PalmOS has a better browser than PPC. PalmOS does PIM better than PPC. PalmOS has a wider variety of apps than PPC. PalmOS has a good selection of email apps available for both corporate and individual customers. Why isn't Palm using these advantages to get PalmOS entrenched in businesses? Microsoft is using the false perception that anything with the Microsoft name on it guarantees better compatibility with Microsoft Word/Excel/Outlook to quietly squash Palm's busness aspirations. Palm has done nothing to alter this perception and has no one to blame but itself.

>>> BS. PalmSource will need to obey the cell phone carriers if it wants to survive, but this makes almost zero impact on what the software can do. The only thing we'll see is some enhanced "security" for the carriers' sake.

You bet. They want to control everything. Installable apps? Sure! Provided that they can choose them, market them, check that they behave the way they like, etc. Smart features? Of course! Provided that they guide the end-user towards profitable traffic. An example, with Orange in Europe: when you take a picture using the camera on the Treo 600, the Send option directs you to MMS (which means $$$ for the operator) instead of e-mail with attachment (which is smarter, but almost no $ for the operator).

I don't see how this is a major issue. First of all, there's NO WAY there will be limitations on what apps can be installed. If they're PalmOS-compatible, they'll work. And with your photo example, of course carriers will try to get you to use more of their services - that's how they make money and that's why they're bothering to carry smartphones in the first place. (Just look at how much a typical contract costs with a regular phone vs. a smartphone. These numbers make carriers drool.) A simple workaround would be to send the JPEG using a separate email program. That wasn't hard, was it?

>>> BS. PalmOS is still very simple. The current problems stem from trying to force PalmOS 5 to do stuff it was never designed for, in addition to Palm making the dumba$$ move of specing NAND Flash when the OS and hardware can't handle it transparently.

Are you a developer? Palm OS is no longer simple. Lots of special cases, lots of device-dependent behaviours, lots of bugs presented as features, lots of shortcomings ("not yet fully implemented"). Of course, the standard UI is still quite simple and user-friendly (although more and more 3rd party apps break most rules to be more attractive at the price of clumsyness).

I am not a professional developer. But I do have a couple of widely-downloaded apps on the various Palm software sites if that matters. PalmOS remains simple TO THE USER, which is all that matters. Yes, behind the scenes there's a truly shocking amount of kludges, hacks, patches, Band Aids and duct tape being applied to PalmOS 5 in order to get it to do all the things expected of a modern PDA or smartphone. But PalmOS 6 was supposed to have been here by now and taken care of all of that. Too bad the BeBoppers fcuked up and tried to create the Perfect Code instead of concentrating on getting the framework of a simple, basic next generation OS out the door ASAP (i.e. in 2003) and then adding fancy features later. While in an ideal world you release a new OS only after you've finalized and extensively tested every component, PalmSource and the pie in the sky Be engineers forgot that they live in the Real World. Where delays can mean product death - no matter how good you think that product is/will be.

>>> Partly true. PalmOS 6 is the ba$tard child of BeOS and it's obvious that the Be engineers didn't learn their lesson the first time around. The KISS principle should be tattooed onto their foreheads.

Or at least should they focus on what is important for developers and end-users, not for their ego. ;-)

The Be engineeres are clueless about market realities. They were the wrong people for the job of quickly producing PalmOS 6.

>>> Palm isn't a follower - they've just gone so far out ahead that they lost contact with those following them, so people are now starting to follow more conservative "leaders".

I disagree. They missed at least two points: 1) people buy Microsoft's proposition "a PDA is a PC in your pocket, so it must run Windows, handle Office docs, blah blah blah". 2) the PDA is being squeezed between smartphones and tablets. I do think that the PDA will finally vanish and be replaced by both families.

As I mentioned before, Palm actually handles MS Office integration BETTER than PPC. This is a fact widely accepted by impartial observers within the industry. Palm has failed miserably in promoting their advantages over PPC. Tablets were an interesting idea that died a while ago. Outside a few narrow niches, they just don't make any sense, given their high price. PDAs just needed to reinvent themselves as mini laptops, MP3 + video players, wireless web browsers, etc. to adapt to the changing market. Sony was just starting to push PDA designs where they needed to go prior to their pullout. The UX50, TH55 and VZ90 hinted at the potential of the Palm platform. Palm's current offerings show a company that is completely bereft of ideas.

>>> If PalmOS 6 was ported to mini laptops AND regular cell phones, Palm could have a great future. Palm is wrecking a tremendous opportunity to sell businesses a complete, stable PalmOS solution: Treos + mini laptops + regular cellphones, all with almost zero support costs necessary.

Sorry, but I find this both utopic and pointless. The laptop market is monopolized by Windows and Office. Unless Linux manages to be a spoilsport, I don't see no way to change this. On the other hand, both mini-tablet and smartphone families are legitimate targets for Palm OS. However, there is no indication in the current trends that Palm OS is going to dominate there.

No, you're wrong. Ensuring survival in an already-nonprofitable, shrinking environment means creating new niches and pushing the design envelope. Sony started doing this and then got cold feet. Palm has no business trying to compete directly with Windows laptops, but they could have easily created a niche providing bulletproof, idiotproof, easy-to-support, instant on, inexpensive mini or micro laptops that can do 95% of the tasks that mobile professionals do. Imagine a Sharp Zaurus sized device with integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 5 inch OLED screen, SD and CompactFlash slots, PalmOS 6, Documents To Go, NetFront browser, Mobile TS or Mergic VPN, WiFile, Blackberry capabilities +/- integrated cell phone radio. It could sell for less than 1/3 the price of a business laptop and - more importantly - with the proper configuration, cost next to nothing to support. Zero threat for viruses, data safe + backed up regularly with encryption and additional Wi-Fi off-device storage of backups: these are the kind of advantages that an innovative PDA company would have marketed to businesses. Instead, we got the Palm "5". Good Lord!

>>>>>> Let's campaign for open source Palm OS.
>>> Don't be silly.

I am not. If Palm OS was the Linux of PDAs, I believe that things would be very different. And above all, I think that if PalmSource does not finally prove itself capable of pushing Palm OS to success, it would be a very smart move.

Suuuuure. Give away their only source of income for free... Do you also work for free? Yes, Palm should spend three years, tens of millions of dollars and countless engineering hours working on PalmOS 6 only to turn and give it away to YOU? For free? I really don't understand the freeloader mentality that has plagued PalmOS from the beginning. What are you people smoking?


Be killed PalmOS:
http://www.palminfocentre.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7258




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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

Should PalmOS 6 have been based on Linux?
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/7/2004 10:19:46 AM #
"The only reason to go to PPC is for political reasons. PalmOS 6 (and even PalmOS 5) are much better solutions that PPC. Period."

No, the reason would be technical. POS 5 is a bad platform for custom software development, starting with its poor file system support, memory management limitations, and multithreading limitations, and custom software development is where much of the corporate market is. POS 6 is proprietary and incompatible with anything else.

Palm screwed up big time, and they may well not be able to recover. Palm should have updated PalmOS to a POSIX-like multithreading OS half a dozen years ago: it would have cost them almost no development effort (they could have picked from dozens of commercial or free kernels). But greed and arrogance kept them from doing that: they wanted something proprietary.

I have said repeatedly that Palm shoild have bitten the bullet and updated the OS several years ago. The ARM Linux route was one option. But the Be engineers acquired in the payout to Pépé Gassee had to be put to work, so UNIX flavors were too good for Palm. No, they needed to start from scratch and reinvent the wheel. The problem is that now they have run out if time trying to reinvent the wheel.


http://www.palminfocentre.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7258 (Scroll throgh the flames to the posts by "hackbod".)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disappointed Palm User:
"For PalmOS 6, I had expected that Palm would have been brave enough to think UNIX flavor + pretty GUI + PACE clone (the "emulator" I naively envisioned being folded into the Clean Sheet™ OS) running on modern 400MHz processors. Give 30 experienced engineers 1 year to bind all these elements together. I think it could have (and should have) been done."

PalmSource Dominatrix:
Easy claims, for someone who is essentially posting anonymously. Tell me, what is your engineering background to be able to make such a statement? Have you thought about these things:

* What the heck do you mean by "UNIX flavor"? Do you know what that is? (Bonus question: do you know what it is about the ARM architecture that makes it very difficult to efficiently implement the traditional Unix process model?) Are you talking about licensing an existing kernel like Linux or FreeBSD? Sure, licensing this stuff makes sense... which is why we licensed STREAMS for our IO subsystem. The kernel itself is a very small part -- we actually have only a few engineers working on ours, not much more than what would be needed to do customization and integration if we had licensed it. Oh and think about this: Be already had a fully functional Unix-like protected memory kernel, one that had been in production use for many years. Cobalt did not ship with the BeOS kernel. Are you saying the Be engineers are so stupid that they just kind-of forgot they had this thing?

* What is this pretty UI? Are you talking about running X Windows? Maybe embedded KDE? What are the trade-offs of these? If you aren't talking about licensing something, how is this any different than what we did for Cobalt?

* PACE clone. Cobalt -has- PACE. That is what runs all of the existing applications. The main difference I can imagine between what is there and what you are thinking is that in Cobalt PACE (for the most part) doesn't take care of translating the old system calls into what is needed in the new system architecture. Instead, we implemented that part of the compatibility layer outside of PACE so that (a) ARM native applications could also use them (to ease porting of existing applications to ARM); and (b) for the initial release we could re-use and grow the existing APIs instead of introducing a completely new application framework. This decision was a significant measure in cutting down on the time to market: by making the traditional APIs available in ARM it was much easier for us to port all of our own existing apps, and we could avoid a -ton- of work in designing, documenting, and testing a full set of new APIs.





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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: No good news at all
voice of chaos @ 12/7/2004 9:55:32 PM #
Who says that it won't be? Stay tuned...
As usual, I was right all along.
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 12/8/2004 4:39:07 PM #
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7379

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7375

Guess a whole lotta Be engineers are gonna get pinkslipped in 2005.

At this point, I think PalmSource is making a mistake. The time to decide which way to go was three years ago, and they went with Be instead of Linux. Trying to get a turnkey Linux solution at this late stage by buying the wankers at China MobileSoft Limited (CMS) smells of desperation. PalmSource needs to bite the bullet and dance with the girl they brought (to mix metaphors).

Another sign PalmSource has no leadership.



******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

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