Comments on: Palm Buying Be, Inc.
"The technology and people from Be are highly regarded,'' said Carl Yankowski, Palm chief executive officer. "We look forward to them joining forces with our own outstanding engineers on future versions of the Palm OS. This move will help us expand the PalmOS platform into broader markets using their multimedia media and Internet expertise.''
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RE: It's announced
-Andrew
_______________________________________
Email me about anything at
andrewholler@rogers.com
Current PDA:= Palm M130
by the way, Can someone buy me a TT?
Palm OS 5?
RE: Palm OS 5?
Yay Palm
OH my god...becky, look at her....Prism.
RE: Yay Palm
RE: Yay Palm
RE: Yay Palm
RE: Yay Palm
Be Palm -- my jaw has dropped!!!
RE: Be Palm -- my jaw has dropped!!!
Jean-Louis Gassee?
---
News Editor
RE: Be Palm -- my jaw has dropped!!!
RE: Be Palm -- my jaw has dropped!!!
Be's side of the story
or
http://makeashorterlink.com/index.php?K31021B0
(Notice the press release before that one! Ow!)
RE: Be's side of the story
An Epitaph for Be
RE: An Epitaph for Be
Thanks for the link. Very nice column.
Funny
But then I like bad puns.
---
News Editor
RE: Funny
I still remember "Give me Liberty or Give Me Death" (IDG's review of my GameBoy emulator)
RE: Be's history
-Andrew
_______________________________________
Email me about anything at
andrewholler@rogers.com
Current PDA:= Palm M130
by the way, Can someone buy me a TT?
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN la la lala la la lala
I think a BeOS based Palm OS5 is presumptive. It's going to take time, possibly a couple years, but that's a good thing. After the tech wreck of the past 16 months, I need time to dollar cost average into PALM.
I wouldn't try to toss all the engineers in the same room for them to squabble. I'd do something similar that MSFT did in continuing the DOS based Win9x going and eventually integrating it into the NT based Windows. Keep the core PALM engineers working on the legacy PalmOS as they have been while garnering insight where needed. Have the BeOS engineers start a new project that will take them into the future.
Bravo Palm! It's similar to something AMD did several years back to keep up with INTEL. They bought a small company that had technology to compete with the latest intel chips and that technology became the core for it's K6 or 7, can't remember. Not having to re-invent the wheel helped AMD and now they're super competitive with their Athlon series chips.
Also reminds me of a MSFT move. They didn't have a browser so they appropriated the old MOSAIC one to give them a start then started the take no prisoners mode. MSFT has many instances of buying a company and integrating it into the collective (borg). The cdburning capabilities in WinXP were from Roxio, the defragger in W2k is from Diskeeper, etc etc etc.
BRAVO PALM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David in Pflugerville, TX
RE: HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN la la lala la la lala
Peace Out
Alan
NOT a good thing
Integrating an OS, or features of an OS are extremely difficult. It's only worth it if the benefits outweigh the huge costs/risks.
IMHO, what multi-media features does Be have that Palm needs? Be was a niche high-end multi-tasking OS optimized for graphics and multi-media.
So why do I need that on my Palm???
A much better fit would be if Palm merged with Symbian (maker of the EPOC OS) which is optimized for communications and has a lot of support from the cell phone mfgs (Be gives us no strategic relationships).
Oh well, hope I'm just a dummy, and everyone else is right.
RE: NOT a good thing
RE: NOT a good thing
RE: NOT a good thing
RE: NOT a good thing
The multimedia's great, yes. I'm not sure how the rest of this will be RELEVANT, but they've got an interesting, pseudo-database-based file system. Be boots up FAST, regardless (moreso, I'm sure, as BeIA.) The filesystem is also journalled, so it recovers VERY quickly from a crash (power outage, etc.) And the OS itself is efficient.
Personally, I want to know what's going to happen to the desktop half of things. I *like* FreeBE...
BeOS lives on?!
CattBeMac
RE: BeOS lives on?!
RE: BeOS lives on?!
Please, to the Directors of Palm, keep BeOS alive, work hard and realease BeOS 6, and then BeOS 7, and keep working on this out-of-this-world OS.
::piBE::
I Hope Not
I know how painful it is to see something you love die but its time to admit that its over.
RE: BeOS lives on?!
It's a fantastic O/S, and it deserves a chance to be developed further..
Palm loves BeOS ;)
Palm explains interests in Be.
by Rich
The purchase of Be by Palm is very well known by BeOS users everywhere now. Many of us have seen the
quote that Palm has no plans to continue development of BeOS. Having no plans to do something and saying
you won't do it are two very different things, and this is what comes into play here.
Palm purchased Be to improve the Palm OS. "We intend to use aspects of the Be operating system in Palm
OS," said Marlene Somsak of Palm, Inc. in an interview with BeFAQs. She said that these technologies will be
used to improve Palm Handheld devices, smart phones, and other Palm devices.
While Palm has certainly researched Be's use of technology, it seems that they are still learning about the
popularity of the BeOS. "There was more media interest than I had anticipated," Somsack said, as she was still
returning phone calls a day later.
As far as the continuation of the BeOS, Somsack said that Palm would be interested in hearing our ideas.
BeFAQs has promised a compiled report from the BeOS community with regard to how Palm can develop and
distribute the BeOS through the user community.
We are currently working on a new section on the BeFAQs web site for the "survival of BeOS" where we will be
compiling ideas and information for our proposal to Palm. Your input will be very helpful! A news story will be
posted when this section is ready, which should be as soon as the new server is fully online later tonight.
If you have any questions or comments, email rich@BeFAQs.com.
Story from 2001-08-17 15:32:09+00.
This really sounds like good news, and if Palm does decide to come through, then when I do purchase a PDA it will be Palm OS compliant!
CattBeMac
BeOS will not die completely
chop this. Apologies if formatting is crewy!)
RE: BeOS will not die completely
-Andrew
_______________________________________
Email me about anything at
andrewholler@rogers.com
Current PDA:= Palm M130
by the way, Can someone buy me a TT?
Petition to save Beos
"While Palm has certainly researched Be's use of technology, it seems that they are still learning about the popularity of the BeOS. "There was more media interest than I had anticipated," Somsack said, as she was still returning phone calls a day later.
As far as the continuation of the BeOS, Somsack said that Palm would be interested in hearing our ideas. BeFAQs has promised a compiled report from the BeOS community with regard to how Palm can develop and distribute the BeOS through the user community."
What if Palm use Be technology on the Palm Desktop
And in the meantime, trying to incorporate the Internet-related features with the Palm.Net portal and make it compatible with any other OS like Linux or Mac OS.
BeOS aquisition -> unix on Palm?
As I recall, BeOS has a Mach kernal - Unix based - that's not only multi-threaded/multi-tasking, but designed to make plugging in new UI layers, file systems, etc. easy. Another company has already demonstrated that the Palm platform can support an embedded-style Unix by porting Linux there.
So what could we expect from a BeOS/PalmOS integration - Well maybe an advanced kernal architecture that can add new capabilities while maintaining backward compatibility by supporting PalmOS calls w/a pluggable UI layer. You'd also get a kernal that provide much better support for things like IP stacks, multimedia hooks (bolting the codecs/players into the OS) than you have today on the Palm. If they're careful about the source, etc. you could get source code compatiblity and support for other hardware platforms pretty quickly (Be already support Intel.
You'd still have a lot of interesting issues - the PalmOS is really single-threaded, and running it on top of a multi-threaded kernel while still provided the apps w/access to multi-threaded kernal services would be challenging. But if the Palm platform is going to be viable 3 years from now, they better get this stuff and get it quickly.
Here's my wish list for things that a technology merger could bring:
>> much better support for the IP stack and related networking stuff (including low-level support for Bluetooth, 811.b, and other network hooks)
>> low level hooks to telephony chipsets and comm protocols (so you can build a cell phone by just adding chips to the motherboard)
>> true installable file systems (multiple file systems, network hooks to "legacy" file systems)
>> PC-Card support built in (w/these two we could have a real device when you drop a 1GB card-drive into a Palm device)
>> a GUI model that scales automatically (different resolutions, screen sizes, color depths, etc.)
>> native support for Firewire, USB-2, as well as serial, and integrated video out capabilities at the OS level (to be leveraged by add-on devices
>> and then, native streaming audio and video :)
And here are some interesting questions -
-- is Palm talking to Transmeta?
-- what is or is not going on at Metrowerks - who'd still probably have to supply the cross compilers if we'd see Palm/be/OS and PalmApps on multiple platforms. Be used Metroworks for the PowerPC version, but wrote/bought it's own for I86.
-- Is there/will there be a version of the PPC chip that's low-power enough for a handheld?
Hope this stimulates some discussion --
RE: BeOS aquisition -> unix on Palm?
Curious can anyone quote ANY acquistion that Palm has made that was a successful venture?
AnyDay, WeSync, HandCode?
I don't or I hope that Palm won't compete with MS. The handheld market however foretold still accounts for little penetration when compared to cell phones. Hardware will be a commodity and Palm is moving in the right direction to separate its platform division.
What would be really cool if Palm is entertaining taking on the Redmond folks is using the Be buyout for community strengthening. Let it serve as a rallying cry to consolidate the various communities marginalized by Windows. Garner the force of Apple, Linux,
Unix, Be,et al as the previous poster mentioned and integrate these aspects/juices/forces to directly address independence from Windows domination. Currently the PalmOS is truly robust enough to standalone with desktop dependence. It's not pleasant and we won't be editing PhotoShop soon, but Word Processing, e-mail, web surfing, AV, telcom, and basically most computer functions are in the palm of our hands. I mean RIM built their whole company on instant-on Email. I think to enhance that user experience and not add features like the PocketPC camp can only serve Palm best. Perhaps Be will just add another missing piece to the puzzle.
Long Live Palm.
RE: BeOS aquisition -> unix on Palm?
RE: BeOS aquisition -> unix on Palm?
Wake up people! There is more than 2 approaches to OS Kernel ! Seems like majority still think that "it's not windows, it's gotta be unix".
Forget it. Also some people think that saying that BeOS kernel based on Unix/Mach gives BeOS some positive advantage over other OSes. These people don't believe that there could be anything better than Unix.
Open your eyes, ears, nostrils and other holes - listen carefully. Unix is 30 years old ! There is a progress in OS design. BeOS kernel is way better than unix/Mach kernel. Think of it this way : Unix = C programming, BeOS = C++ programming.
If you do understand that C++ is a further development in software design comparing to C, then you'll understand that BeOS is further development in OS development.
BeOS is not even 100% POSIX compliant. BeOS is single user system by default. Yes, it's using foreward slash '/' as dirname delimiter in path , not back slash '\' as M$. In this sense it's unix.
RE: BeOS aquisition -> unix on Palm?
I have to agree with the statement that BeOS is incomplete. Perhaps Sony will get Palm
to round out the OS. Even an IA needs security and multiuser features.
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It's announced