Comments on: Split of Palm Hardware, Software Groups Complete

That the hardware dep. which is not ready until 2003 has not to wait for the OS5 which is not ready before end 2002.
I betted my future on Palm OS and invested - I'm assured now by Nagel that I lost everything to a good case.
So far the situation is clear to the sober- what will happen to my shares (besides my palm business) is in the stars.

Yes, maybe Palm should have been more strict with their liscencing. But that is reasoning based on hindsight. As I understand it, 3 - 4 years ago the decision was made to grow the "Palm Economy" (I don't like this term which Palm keeps bandying about) as fast as possible. I even recall talk of Palm transitioning into a predominately software company. At the time that made sense. Everyone was talking about how Palm had learned from Apple's early mistakes NOT to liscence their OS. Software is where the higher profit margins are...once a certain user base is established, and Palm wanted to establish that large user base and live off its software. BUT the environment that Palm was born into is not the same as the environment that Apple was born in to. The Palm OS has to compete with one of the worlds most ruthless monopolies. The hardware has to compete with computers in general and not just other pocket devices. AND Palm was essentially born into a recession where as Apple was born just after a recession. In short there just isn't as much room as there was for Apple.

So, with hindsight Palm's strategy was mistaken, but it's a difficult call. If Palm had not liscensed their OS so freely, we all know a company that would have eagerly stepped in to do so. And don't forget, Handspring at one point explicitly threatened to move into the PPC crowd. Anyway, the point is what should Palm do now? I suspect that their current strategy is primarily defensive on the hardware front. 1) Hope that Sony and Handspring and Handera provide a rich selection of devices (which they do). 2) Push, push, push into the enterprise where conservative, easy to use devices are going to be looked upon favorably (this is why the i705 is designed the way it is) and 3) Position the software so that it can be easily configured to meet the needs of a balkanized market.

Why? They would have less resources that Palm do to a major overhaul of the OS. Also they're on their way out of the PDA market. Jeff Hawkins was a genius when he came up with the Palms, but it's evolved on it's own without him.

Handera??? Does this little unknown company has more resources than Palm or Sony? If Palm cannot handle the OS what makes you think Handera can??

"HandEra???...unknown company..." Follow the thread more closely and stay with us. As all the licencees and even Microsoft's pocketPC shows, it takes more than money to to be a success in the _long_ run. Fail to innovate, or innovate badly and you're on your ear. No one can credibly level a failure to innovate, and do it well accusation at Trg/HandEra. Given time, good people and money circle around good innovation. Money alone only buys short term success. At this point no licencee other that Sony or perhaps Garmin has the cash even consider a Palm take-over, and I don't think it's in the interest of either of them to attempt to. In either case it would likely be the death of the PalmOS. All things considered, it'd just be good for Palm to actively listen to the good PalmOS licencee ideas out there, facilitate more collaboration from the licencees on the path ahead, and refuse to adopt the ill-conceived ideas of some licencees regardless how much money that licencee might put behind it.