Comments on: Partners in Precrime, Part 1

One of the most interesting – and most quickly glossed-over - parts of Palm's CES presentation was Ed Colligan's announcement of multiple third-party software partners on the new webOS. As any regular Palm user can tell you, it's third-party applications that truly seal the deal for smartphones and whilst a robust first-party software package is essential, third-party apps can make the difference between a platform earning your lifelong loyalty or being abandoned for a younger, sexier rival. With this in mind and in the absence of fresh news from Palm, it's time to take a closer look at these partners and how they might integrate with the webOS. So put on your Educated Guesswork caps and fire up the Speculation Engines as we take a closer look at Palm's partners in crime...

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As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

Tuckermaclain @ 2/9/2009 9:32:26 AM #

Damned straight. Palm is showing little love/loyalty to those that stayed. We have to wait like beggars to see if a 3rd party developer can throw us a scrap. I for one am no longer a beta tester for Palm.

Once StyleTap is iphone capable I'm outta here. I'm wondering where the Faithful will then congregate? I imagine PIC will be all over the WebOS. Maybe we'll see a StyleTap forum.

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

CFreymarc @ 2/9/2009 11:01:40 AM #

I have to agree with you there. This launch shows a lot of pushing out the little guy. But then, for the past ten years, the little guy had plenty of opportunity to grow up.

There are several that are quite content coding in their den at home as they turned over hot office girls that worked as "personal assistants" and had no desire to lead a group to grow a company. You all know who you are.

On a big corporate level, they have a good shot at mostly taking some Blackberry customers. I don't see much of an iPhone issue here since they are more looking at corporate and enterprise sales in their focus. So how many are buying Palm stock now? It doubled right after the announcement.

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

He||Raiser @ 2/9/2009 11:07:06 AM #

@ Tuckermaclain : What? I don't understand what you're complaining about. Isn't Palm showing love to loyalists by finally putting out a modern operating system? Have we not been complaining that Garnet is too old for the last five years?

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

Tuckermaclain @ 2/9/2009 1:20:46 PM #

I'm all for it if they gave us an emulator. I'd put a deposit on one today. Imagine if Vista was not compatable with any software from DOS to XP. Imagine that there is alot of stuff you have on your computer that you don't want to toss. That's why I'm upset. I'd be MUCH happier with an iphone with styletap (which is in the works per styletap) than with a Pre on a 2 year contract hoping to get an emulator while I'm lugging around a Tungsten. I want to move into the 21st Century too and toss my Razr. Palm expects me to trash everything and jump onto the Pre bandwagon because they have a Facebook app. Rubbish. I'd imagine that developers who stuck it out with Palm will think twice about investing time coding in Web-OS when Palm killed (is killing) PalmOS.

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

justauser @ 2/9/2009 6:09:30 PM #

I think the developers of Palm OS have had a pretty good run with a mobile platform. They still will have plenty of devices out there on Garnet (even the TX continues to sell). To be honest, there are only a handful of apps on my Treo that I would miss - and not enough to stop me from changing OS.

There were zero iPhone developers a couple of years ago PLUS Apple swearing they wouldn't allow 3rd pary apps. Look at them now. I'm sure none of them are complaining iPhones don't match existing mobile OS's

So far the Pre;
(a) has had a well executed / received launch (possibly Palm's best)
(b) is as slick as anything currently on the market
(c) seems to have some core developers in tow already
(d) WebOS does not look like a stretch for developers
(e) has the sentiment associated with a long standing mobile trademark (Palm)

Pretty good bet that the Pre will be well supported by developers. All looks good to me so far.

Anyway - Half the apps on my Treo are phone enhancing apps. Let's hope these sort of 3rd party apps aren't even needed on the Pre

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

mikecane @ 2/9/2009 6:17:31 PM #

>>>PLUS Apple swearing they wouldn't allow 3rd pary apps

This is your (faulty) imagination. Apple never said such a thing. I said from the get-go there'd be a proper SDK.

And I say the same for the *Pre* too. And no, I don't mean CSS/HTML/Java. We'll get C+ or whatever too.

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

justauser @ 2/9/2009 6:56:20 PM #

This is your (faulty) imagination

Probably more like dodgy journalism if that was untrue. But my point is; doesn't 'change' come with the territory in the tech market?

RE: As Ed Colligan put it: 'We're eating our own dog food here.'

mikecane @ 2/10/2009 6:14:56 AM #

>>>But my point is; doesn't 'change' come with the territory in the tech market?

Just don't bring up the Commodore-64 or Amiga here or you'll get all the non-change nostalgiacs.

Oops.

Easy does it on the OSGi, stuff pardner!

cervezas @ 2/9/2009 4:15:04 PM #

It's one thing for an addlepated, null-pointer-dereferencing developer/blogger (me) to go speculating about there being an OSGi application server under the hood of webOS. It's another thing altogether for a respectable publication like PalmInfocenter to trade in such non-FDA approved psychotropic acronyms. You have a responsibility to your readers, Tim, whereas I have a responsibility only to the voices in my head!

I'd like to qualify several things that you're quoting me on or suggesting that I might have been suggesting.

But I think I'm too tired to bother.

I will say this, however. According to my calculations, webOS, if bombarded with particles of OSGi at around 550MeV in a Large Hadron Collider positioned a few hundred yards to the southwest of Palm headquarters *could* cause the residents of Cupertino to be inundated by a 30 foot wall of molten lava. Or at a minimum drop some seriously loose coconuts on unsuspecting heads. Either way, watch out Apple!

David Beers
Senior Wireless Developer
MapQuest
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Easy does it on the OSGi, stuff pardner!

freakout @ 2/9/2009 4:36:26 PM #

I figured if I mangled your thoughts enough, you'd have no choice but to return to PIC and correct me. Victory is mine! :P

(As I understood it, from a to b to c...

a) Titan is a Java dev platform which employs OSGi
b) webOS may be running a Java application server (based on leaked SDK screenshots) and is also possibly using some OSGi stuff
c) and if that's true it's just a hop, skip and a jump to cross-platform Java apps -presuming Palm allows people to write natively for said hypothetical webOS Java app server )

Mangled enough?

RE: Easy does it on the OSGi, stuff pardner!

mikecane @ 2/9/2009 6:19:30 PM #

Basically, there's enough in webOS for Sprint to lick its chops over enhanced cloud services it will be able to offer with its existing programming investment.

There. Did it in one sentence.