Comments on: PalmSource Chief Financial Officer Steps Down

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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.

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

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. :-)

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.

Don't feel too sorry for him though:

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

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?

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

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...

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Enjoy the read. Thanks!

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.

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

Instead of replying yet again to all of this, I'll just quote directly from your own post:

"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."

And then my reply to the last time you made these claims, conveniently quoted in there:

"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?"

Which leaves me all kinds of confused about what exactly you are trying to say, but at this point it's clearly not worth getting in to.

--
Dianne
PalmSource Application Frameworks Manager

Which leaves me all kinds of confused about what exactly you are trying to say, but at this point it's clearly not worth getting in to.

Hi right back at you, DK. I think my points and overall position are (as usual) crystal clear. I've said repeatedly that THREE TEARS AGO Palm should have migrated to an ARMLinux (or other UNIX kernel) architecture. They didn't because of a number of reasons, including the presence of several dozen ex-Be engineers from the Be/Gassee rescue. Whatever. Major mistake, but now that's spilt milk. At this point, PalmSource should be throwing EVERY conceivable resource behind Cobalt, working overtime in an effort to make it the most perfect OS possible. An OS so good that licencees would be foolish to ignore it.

The millions of dollars in bonuses that David Nagel and his cronies keep sucking from PalmSource every month should have been used to hire extra engineers and licence best of breed applications. CES Dewar coding a Datebook/Calendar replacement makes a lot more sense that what you've got now. People like (ex-Palm employee) Gavin Maxwell, Mike McCollister, Aaron Ardiri, the Ultrasoft guy (David?), imazeki-san, Mike Waldron and the old HandEra engineers, etc could have advanced the ROM development faster in three months than Be did in three years.

At this point, PalmSource has made its Bed and needs to lie in it. It needs to go down with the Be ship.

Now are we clear?

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

Ummmmm... DK, I know Cobalt doesn't use the BeOS kernel. I never claimed it did. My understanding is that several of the ex-Be engineers have been involved in the Cobalt kernel development. If now you're claiming that the Holy Be engineers were in fact repulsed by the Krude Palm Kodemonkey Kernel they were shown on arrival at Palm, but reluctantly agreed to work on it, (or better yet, all refused to touch that steaming pile of feces) then well... whatever.

"PalmSource should be throwing EVERY conceivable resource behind Cobalt, working overtime in an effort to make it the most perfect OS possible."

We are. We have been for the last couple years. If you read my explanation in another thread on what exactly a kernel is, you will see that this change doesn't throw away -nearly- as much work as you seem to think. For example, my team does the code from the main inter-process communication mechanism used in the system all the way up to the Window and Form Manager APIs. The -only- impact it has on us is that we need to re-do that basic IPC code... and most likely we can just resurrect the version of it we did on BeOS 3 years ago because of the similarities between BeOS and Linux.

No, I don't think so. If you really were "throwing EVERY conceivable resource behind Cobalt, working overtime in an effort to make it the most perfect OS possible" you would have outsourced a significant part of the development and a stable PalmOS 6 would have been on SHIPPING devices in early 2004. What the he11 is George thinking? Did he expect your team to singlehandedly address every aspect of the OS development within 18 months? Wow. Once again, that good old Be arrogance has popped up to bite you in the a$$. You people will never learn.

If you read my explanation in another thread on what exactly a kernel is, you will see that this change doesn't throw away -nearly- as much work as you seem to think. For example, my team does the code from the main inter-process communication mechanism used in the system all the way up to the Window and Form Manager APIs. The -only- impact it has on us is that we need to re-do that basic IPC code... and most likely we can just resurrect the version of it we did on BeOS 3 years ago because of the similarities between BeOS and Linux.

You are grossly, shamelessly understating the amount of work that would/will be necessary to successfully migrate from PalmOS6 to PalmLinux. I realize you have been directed to make this migration appear as trivial as a recompile, but that's a specious suggestion. Why don't you just cut through the BS and answer this SIMPLE question: If development of PalmLinux was to start January 1, 2005, how long would it take before a stable, device-ready (as opposed to BS like the December, 2003 buggy, rush job "proof of concept" Cobalt 6.0) version of PalmLinux to be available? 6 months? 12 months? 18 months? 24 months? 36 months? 48 months? Enough spin, DK. Just the facts please, Ma'am.

"People like ... could have advanced the ROM development faster in three months than Be did in three years."

You keep making this statement as if it is fact. We've already gone through your more detailed explanation of how you think this could be done by plugging together Linux, PACE, etc., and I've pointed out how much work you are missing. (Btw, your description of how you think this can be done is -exactly- the same kind of "take these boxes and put them together" thinking that engineers hate to hear from management because they make what will be years of effort look like a trivial amount of work.)

In fact the vast majority of work we did over the two years of Cobalt 6.0 development was to get the PalmOS system architecture running on a modern protected memory kernel -- the exact same work we need to do to get it running on Linux as well. Switching to Linux doesn't change the need for this. It's unfortunate most of that work isn't directly visible to users, but it is there and necessary. If you want an analogy, the first version of Cobalt was very much like Windows NT 3.1, which looked almost identical to Windows 3.1, but was completely different under the hood. This work was a necessary first step to get a modern platform on which we can do the real innovative work that -is- directly visible to users.

Unfortunately, it is true that you should have outsourced much of the work that was done. But as BeBoppers tend to do, you can't see that non-Be engineers may know a lot more than you do, or that it's often not a good idea to try and reinvent the wheel. Or to do EVERYTHING immediately. I forsee a LOT of problems with personalities like you collaborating with your Chinese saviours. Plan B, from China has been enacted, and that's gotta hurt your Big Be egos. In a previous post a couple months ago I listed a simple outline of how PalmOS 6 should have been integrated with a no nonsense Unix flavor. You tried to shoot this down with a snotty response, only to have it blow up in your face now that your bosses obviously agreee that I was right all along. So now you're complaining because I didn't include a 30 page manifesto on how to code every aspect of PalmLinux? Sheesh. I've never claimed this is a trivial undertaking - just the opposite in fact. I've said before that most people won't appreciate the (invisible) work that went into PalmOS 6 and are probably underwhelmed with Cobalt primarily because the UI isn't much different from PalmOS 1. Tough T|Ts (Tungsten|Ts) - who's fault was it that you didn't have time to code a fancy new GUI in time to include in PalmOS 6.0? But keep swinging, DK. Keep flailing. Keep trying to shoot the messenger.

Your posts are sounding as defensive and haughty as ever. Try to remember this is the Internet - you have NO idea who you're talking to or how much they may know about the subject at hand.

Take care, DK.

;-O

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