Comments on: Palm Preparing for Linux Development
Open jobs listings on Palm's website indicate the company is preparing for Linux development for a new generation of Palm devices. This is a positive sign that the company is already preparing for developing new mobile devices using Palm OS for Linux.
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RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
This guy, who claims to have inside sources, still confidently claims the Treo 700 is coming in two months, and has cobalt.
http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=786305&postcount=167
Surur
FrankenCobalt
Either PALM, Inc. is going to buy PSRC or they are going to sidestep PSRC and do their own OS in-house. Why else would they try to hire so many Linux Developers?
The question is, who owns the POS GUI? PSRC??? So that means PALM needs to buy PSRC?
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
I meant to also say that perhaps "Cobalt" = Palm/CobaltGUI on Linux.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Yes.
> So that means PALM needs to buy PSRC?
No. Palm has already licensed Cobalt from PSRC, IIRC.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
> sidestep PSRC and do their own OS in-house. Why else would they
> try to hire so many Linux Developers?
These descriptions don't seem to be related to OS development, but rather integration and expansion of applications.
PSRC should provide the basic plumbing, but the rest (esp integration with enterprise sw), is up to the licensee(s).
--------------------------
Waiting for a TT successor
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
My point was - Let's say PALM, Inc. wanted to do their own POS in-house. An independent PSRC would never allow it, hence, PALM would have to BUY PSRC in order to wrangle control of the PALMGUI. If 3-4 letters are worth $30M isn't the entire friggin company - (rights to PalmOS/GUI included) worth $160M???? Also, you stifle all POS hardware competition - not that there really is any.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=786305&postcount=167
Surur
I thought I had been told that the Sprint Windows Mobile Treos were going to be labelled "Treo 700".
The only way Palm will release a Cobalt Treo is if they have a deathwish. Bring it on, Mo Fo!
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
The question is, who owns the POS GUI? PSRC??? So that means PALM needs to buy PSRC?
They will be buying PalmSource and are preparing for this eventuality, since ultimately Palm will be throwing all of their eggs into the PalmLinux basket. For now, PalmSource owns ALL of PalmOS. PalmSource may be ripe for a takeover within a couple months. Then Palm throws everything they have into PalmLinux. PalmSource is already looking at making alliances with every mobile Linux-related company with a pulse in an effort to get help putting PalmOS on a Linux kernel.
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Penguin, once again, what evidence is there that Palm has licensed PLinux? All they've done is extend their license for PalmOS. I've seen nothing to indicate that they've committed to delivering Linux or anything else.
VoR, all the credible reports seem to label the WM Treo as the 670.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Marty's back in fine form I see. Palm is in the hardware AND software business, as shown by the legions of software engineers working for the company and their "personalization" of FrankenPalmOS 5 over the past 2 years. Of course, since they seem to be rather incompetent at what they do, more qualified codemonkeys will be needed ASAP. I predict Palm will be taking over PalmSource pretty soon and flushing out many of the "HoBeEn" (Holy Be Engineers), replacing them with people with REAL marketable skills.
Remember how the Palmyannas claimed that (one of many of) Cobalt Achilles' heels was the woeful lack of driver support and how the advantage of PalmLinux would be all the free, FREE FREE driver + other work that the Linux World was just itching to give away to their new Palm Buddies? Hmmmmm...
TVoR
SOMETHING'S ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF PALM
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Palm has Method to their Madness
Except for the minor detail that by floating PalmSource the $30 million when they did, Palm in essence stole that money from shareholders and propped up PalmSource + PalmLinux development with the "free" infusion.
Anyone here who still believes the original Palm "split" was real, please raise your hands. [No one moves...]
So, Marty, are you privy to the fine print in PalmSource's license agreements? What happens WHEN (not "if") Palm takes over PalmSource? Do non-Palm licensees (is it still plural these days?) still get supported? Or do they get "HandEra'ed"
TVoR's Palm/PalmSource Timeline seems to be following the script precisely...
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
what evidence is there that Palm has licensed PLinux? All they've done is extend their license for PalmOS. I've seen nothing to indicate that they've committed to delivering Linux or anything else.
So you think Palm plans to just keep patching Garnet through 2009? Honestly, some of you guys are so afraid not to look cynical in this forum that you end up saying things that are downright stupid.
Why would Palm have renewed their Palm OS license for five years if they weren't on board with the roadmap for the OS? People can debate as to whether it's the Cobalt or Linux part of the roadmap that their on board with at this point, but there's no question that Palm has designs on one or the other, if not both. It's only a question of when.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Dear Optimist - Even Palm's own Bloated Chief Senior Apologist says that "Palm can easily use Garnet until at least 2009." and "Garnet oughta be good enough for anybody."
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
p.s. We have a right to be cynical give all of the shenanigans we've witnessed over the years from both PSRC and PALM. Perhaps we'll be a little less cynical when we can actually buy a device running the mythical Cobalt first shipped years ago.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Dear Optimist - Even Palm's own Bloated Chief Senior Apologist says that "Palm can easily use Garnet until at least 2009." and "Garnet oughta be good enough for anybody."
I see. And you apparently agree. I suggest you try thinking for yourself for a change. You might be surprised what you come up with.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
No Cobalt for you! Now GET OUT!
Absolutely NOT.
or they're getting ready to replace the current developers after a buyout of PSRC. I just don't see any way that they would hire people to do development for an OS that in the very best case scenario won't be out for at least a year.
Partially correct. Yes, Palm will be buying PalmSource soon (probably within months) but they need ADD to (not simply replace) PalmSource's current troop of codemonkeys. Of course, several of the more useless HoBeEn (Holy Be Engineers) will be asked to vacate their cubicles and then be escorted off the premises. Palm's problem is that the smart PalmSource codemonkeys aren't oblivious to the chaos swirling around them and are either in the process of or have already found jobs at more stable companies, leaving Palm with some pretty slim pickings.
Penguin, once again, what evidence is there that Palm has licensed PLinux? All they've done is extend their license for PalmOS. I've seen nothing to indicate that they've committed to delivering Linux or anything else.
Adam, don't be silly. PalmOS 5 should have been EOL in 2004. It is simply not realistic to expect Palm to plan a future around an OS that can't multitask if they're serious about PalmOS remaining a viable alternative to Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux. While I believe PalmOS 5 could be a great OS if PalmSource could clean up the code, given their limited resources and the fact that it's a dead end, PalmSource won't be wasting much time on PalmOS 5.
PalmLinux would have been a BRILLIANT platform in 2005 had Palm been smart enough to choose to develop this instead of Cobalt four years ago. By now PalmLinux could have developed enough momentum that it could have become the de facto standard OS for high end mobile devices. Instead, it's a work in progress, already three years behind the competition. Unfortunately, PalmOS' competitors aren't going to wait for them to get their act together and catch up. As was the case with Tapwave, it's possible that PalmLinux's window of opportunity to seize market share has passed.
VoR, all the credible reports seem to label the WM Treo as the 670.
We'll see. I heard it would be the Treo 700, but perhaps things have changed. In any event, it will be here in just a few months.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
I wouldn't have expected them to keep hacking Garnet past January 2004, but they obviously feel differently. Given the fact that Palm has tried to use Garnet for purposes that it was clearly not even remotely designed for (flash storage, hard drives, cell phones, etc.), there's very little I would put past them. I, personally, would certainly not try to stretch Garnet until 2009, but then I would never have tried to stretch Garnet until now, half-destroying it in the process.
Why would Palm have renewed their Palm OS license for five years if they weren't on board with the roadmap for the OS?
For one thing, my question was in response to an assertion that Palm has committed to delivering PalmLinux. Whether they CHOOSE to do to or not is irrelevant to the original topic. And for another I'll point out that renewing their license--at vastly decreased prices--in no way commits them to delivering anything related to PalmOS, or upgrading from Garnet. All it does is give them the option of using PalmOS in up to X many shipped products, for a flat fee of Y money. Sony still pays PSRC, and is listed as a licensee, but they haven't produced anything for years. It's a license, not a requirement.
To answer your question in the simplest possible terms, Palm has to have a license in order to use PalmSource IP. That includes Garnet.
I still have yet to hear an explanation for this assertion that Palm and LG have both committed to delivering Linux-based devices.
Blithering on your Palm™
Dear Optimist - Even Palm's own Bloated Chief Senior Apologist says that "Palm can easily use Garnet until at least 2009." and "Garnet oughta be good enough for anybody."
Wow. Did Kirvin really say those things? That Palmyanna is so intent on rationalizing Palm's mistakes that he "end[s] up saying things that are downright stupid". It's pathetic that someone like Klueless Kirvin actually is being listened to by a lot of people at another Palm site. He has shown he has little understanding of both technical and business matters pertaining to PDAs. Kirvin also insists on ignoring factual evidence that contradicts his (frequently bizarre) positions yet also seems to flip flop on his convictions without blinking an eye. He seems to be an "all or none"/"black or white" type of chap and has difficulty seeing all sides of an issue. These are rather egregious traits for a self-styled pundit to possess.
A few recent examples of "Kirvinisms":
- Palm is a multitasking OS.
- OK Palm is sort of a multitasking OS.
- OK Palm can't multitask, but who needs multitasking?
- PalmOS 5 is "good enough" and all anyone needs.
- Palm can survive as a niche player even if their market share plummets to the oft-quoted 3 or 4% (actually more likely 1%) that MacOS now "commands".
- There are no significant delays experienced when using the Palm LifeDrive.
- Palm OS is dead.
- Palm OS is NOT dead (sorry, changed my mind!)
- The Company Formerly Known As PalmSource "TCFKAP" "no longer has anything at all to do with mobile computing and probably won't survive in the smartphone market either".
- Palm should hire people to post messages to Palm sites.
- Windows Mobile device makers ship a lot more handhelds than Palm but they don't SELL more than Palm because most of their shipped devices are returned.
There are dozens of other Kirvanisms I could come up with. The list of confused, specious, and truly bizarre things he has posted is actually quite shocking if you look at it. The fact that someone at PalmSource actually interviewed Kirvin for a position shows how out of touch with reality the company is.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
EXACTLY.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
> licensed PLinux? All they've done is extend their license for
> PalmOS. I've seen nothing to indicate that they've committed
> to delivering Linux or anything else.
Alas, I must make Skippy happy. My aging memory failed me, and I had misremembered what was in the press release for the license deal. Having reread everything, I have to agree with you that there is no public evidence that Palm has committed to deliver a PLinux phone. Note, they _have_ licensed PLinux. "PalmOS" licenses cover Cobalt going forward, and as the slide Skippy linked to points out, Cobalt, going forward, *is* Plinux.
So, they've licensed it, they're apparently hiring linux people, and it's unlikely that they'll stick with Garnet through '09. I infer that they've got plans for PLinux, but no, there's no public evidence.
Marty, please try to sort out your Astroturfing personality.
So, they've licensed it, they're apparently hiring linux people, and it's unlikely that they'll stick with Garnet through '09. I infer that they've got plans for PLinux, but no, there's no public evidence.
Before creating a new Astroturfing personality it's always a good idea to outline exactly what information said personality should appear to have access to given who it is that personality pretends to be. (e.g. pretending as if you're a Regular Joe end user but rattling off details only known to a few company insiders will blow your cover, requiring you to trot out the overused, embarassing "My aging memory" defense.) Just a friendly tip, Marty.
Ryan deleted a couple of my comments exposing a few more of your slipups (I guess I'll have to start archiving copies of my posts, Surur-style) but we've already started to see how fecolent you are now that rumors are swirling about Palm finally buying PalmSource.
Please get some other PalmSource employees to join in here to help you out, Martyr. We need more sacrificial "fresh meat" - you're starting to smell moldy these days. Must be because you're "aging".
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
PalmOS 5 should have been EOL in 2004. It is simply not realistic to expect Palm to plan a future around an OS that can't multitask if they're serious about PalmOS remaining a viable alternative to Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux. While I believe PalmOS 5 could be a great OS if PalmSource could clean up the code, given their limited resources and the fact that it's a dead end, PalmSource won't be wasting much time on PalmOS 5.
Yes, yes, and yes. And I should certainly hope that Palm does have plans to revamp the platform, because it desperately needs it. But I have seen people do stupider things, albeit not many. My interest is mainly on the point of Palm having committed to deliver Linux, even if only in a PR statement, versus simply being stupid not to.
PenguinPowered said:
Cobalt, going forward, *is* Plinux
That is really the absolute least reassuring thing that you could possibly have said.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Interesting observation.
I see your post illicited a storm of protest from the main Whiners. Why? Because you had the guts to question one of their pet theories.
The lengths that the WinCE marketers go to never fails to amaze me. Of course, it's a sure sign of desparation.
By the way, has anyone seen the FCC approval for the WinCE Treo yet?
The PalmLinux development timeline: (DREAM ON, Kiddies!)
http://www.palmfocus.com/images/summit/2005/large/img_4978.jpg
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
--
http://arpx.net/docs/top_10_palmos_applications - my top 10 palm apps.
RE: Well, no Cobalt is now official.
And in the meantime?
-A
RE: And in the meantime?
The world will end in 2006. Just as it was predicted in the bible along with the release of Microsoft Longhorn.... :p
You wanted to see the PalmOS Road Map? Here it is:
http://www.palmfocus.com/images/summit/2005/large/img_4978.jpg
http://www.palmfocus.com/images/index.php?page=6&sort=
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: And in the meantime?
Its good to see that MAYBE we will have a NEW OS in 3Q 2006.
It still kills me it took this freaking LONG for them to string a few parts of new code together onto an existing OS>
Don't get fooled again
Its good to see that MAYBE we will have a NEW OS in 3Q 2006.
It still kills me it took this freaking LONG for them to string a few parts of new code together onto an existing OS>
You're welcome. You should be aware, though, that PalmSource is promising NOTHING regarding how reliable that schedule will be. And remember, this is the same company that said PalmOS 6 (Cobalt) was ready in December, 2003. Almost TWO YEARS LATER, we still have no PalmOS 6 devices shipping.
And don't be fooled by how PalmSource has publicly attempted to trivialize what a major undertaking PalmLinux (PalmOS 7) is. They have tried to make it sound like it was as simple as doing an engine swap in a vehicle. A better analogy would be that PalmSource is trying to retain the familiar car frame and interior, while changing everything else (engine, transmission, suspension, steering, electronics, tires, etc.) On top of this, PalmSource doesn't have a lot of employees, the company was just demoralized by major layoffs, and the remaining employees lack the skill set needed to quickly synthesize a Linux-based OS. Add in traditional Palm arrogance and unwillingness to bring in outside help (FINALLY now being done) and you have a recipe for disaster, with PalmLinux release dates likely to slip repeatedly over the next few years. The problem is that PalmSource's competition is ALREADY available and will have evolved even further by 2007 when PalmLinux might eventually be released.
PalmSource has floundered since the Palm "split", but I expect things will get better QUICKLY when PalmSource is "bought" by Palm.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: And in the meantime?
VR,
If you'll remember correctly, Palmsource did exactly that. For 2 or 3 days people were moaning and whining about Coblat not being released. Then they did a PR saying that Cobalt actually did ship out to licensees before the new year. So actually they did fulfill the promise.
Now, just because OS 6.0 was a full blown piece of worthless nothing that ultimately got distributed to 3 Oswin cell phones only after an upgrade .... well, let's bnot get technical about it. :-o
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: And in the meantime?
> doing an engine swap in a vehicle. A better analogy would be
> that PalmSource is trying to retain the familiar car frame
> and interior, while changing everything else (engine,
> transmission, suspension, steering, electronics, tires, etc.)
Poor Skippy. Guess he's never watched Monster Garage, where they do that sort of thing in a week.
> the remaining employees lack the skill set needed to quickly
> synthesize a Linux-based OS.
Skippy, pronouncements like that would be a lot more credible if you had any idea who is working on the PalmSource Linux project and what their skill sets are. From your wild guessing about who I am and what I do, you've made it very clear that you don't.
If my aging memory serves me correctly, Skippy, you've recently implied that programmers get paid overtime and Linux gurus are managers. Hard to imagine how someone with such little understanding of programming could judge the quality of the programmers, even if he knew who they were.
But, once again, thanks for the laughs.
Please keep it up Marty - you're doing well
> doing an engine swap in a vehicle. A better analogy would be
> that PalmSource is trying to retain the familiar car frame
> and interior, while changing everything else (engine,
> transmission, suspension, steering, electronics, tires, etc.)
Poor Skippy. Guess he's never watched Monster Garage, where they do that sort of thing in a week.
Rebuilds are relatively easy to do if you have skilled automotive [or software] engineers, Marty. Unfortunately, PalmSource has shown repeatedly that they are rather lacking in that particular resource. Of course, outsourcing code to those who are more intelligent/able than the Holy Be Engineers will be a big help, but is PalmSource up to the task of integrating these desperate + disparate efforts? China MobileSoft codemonkeys aren't the answer. Who will be the The One that will step up to the plate and take over from Hoffman in fitting together all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that PalmLinux has now become? Could it be... Sing for me Marty! Serenade me the way George used to back in the Good Ole Days... Hope to see you at the performance in Redwood City today.
> the remaining employees lack the skill set needed to quickly
> synthesize a Linux-based OS.
Skippy, pronouncements like that would be a lot more credible if you had any idea who is working on the PalmSource Linux project and what their skill sets are. From your wild guessing about who I am and what I do, you've made it very clear that you don't.
If my aging memory serves me correctly, Skippy, you've recently implied that programmers get paid overtime and Linux gurus are managers. Hard to imagine how someone with such little understanding of programming could judge the quality of the programmers, even if he knew who they were.
But, once again, thanks for the laughs.
Oh Marty, you're perseverating again. You still keep running from the issues here, but it's not like anyone will notice, right? And remember: we're not laughing with you, Marty, we're laughing at you.
Take care.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: And in the meantime?
Will you have PalmLinux ready for July 1 2006? What's that? We can't hear you...
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
Marty Fouts... Calling Marty Fouts.... Come in, Marty....
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823
Cutting Edge!
Motorola currently offers, WM, Symbian, AND Linux phones by the ton. By the time PalmSource (by then it will surely be a part of PalmOne again) and PalmOne get Plinux out, Moto will be on their third generation model with a big successful iTunes history of profits to fall back on.
By the time Plinux is in stores we will have seen 2 updates of Windows Mobile and perhaps a Longhorn OS model half the size and 1/3 the price of an OOQ. How will a LifeDrive Plinux model compete with that?
By the time Plinux is in stores Apple will have an iPod that does audio, photos, video, & runs OSx mini apps.
By the time Plinux is in stores, Blackberry will have a full browser, productivity suite, cameras, and VGA for less than the price of the Treo 6.9999 with OS 5.9999 upgradable....oops, Palm has never offered a really significant OS upgrade.
Ah well, I guess we will just have to painfully watch as it all works its way to the bottom.
RE: Cutting Edge!
No Windows jobs at Palm
I suppose the only explanation for this that would satisfy the Palm-is-dead lemmings is that developing a Windows Mobile version of the Treo must be such a trivial operation that no one at Palm actually needs to know anything about it. And hey, perhaps they're right. I'll just bet that all the drivers for Palm's custom hardware can just be freely downloaded from SourceForge, ready to plug and play. After all, hasn't Bill Gates always said Windows is an "open" platform? Why ever would you need to hire engineers to create a WM smartphone?
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
HTC will provide Palm with a turnkey Treo 700 solution - NO effort on Palm's end required (just like they like it).
Well, then, we've heard it from our anonymous expert. Palm doesn't need engineers anymore because they don't need to know how their products work. They can just outsource all their R&D, product development, and support and simply be in the business of putting shiny orange badges on stuff and picking up the checks when they come in. It's a lean and mean business model, I'll say that for it.
My point, by the way, was this: why draw conclusions about what Palm's Linux plans are from looking at their employment site if you're not going to draw similar conclusions about their Windows Mobile plans?
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
If Palm's doing new hardware (which everyone seems to agree that this "Treo 670" is) and switching OSes, they either already had Windows Mobile talent on staff before a couple of months ago, or they should be hiring.
Second, you need applications people who understand the OS if you're going to provide any software of your own as part of your value add, and you'd usually start ramping that group up after you had first hardware and were in the process of doing integration prior to carrier qualification.
Of course, if there's any truth to claim that the phones going to be available in the US for retail in q4 '05 or q1 '06, given the carrier lead time for qualification, the development had better be mostly done and the phone in the hands of the carriers RealSoonNow, as in sometime next month.
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
Palm wouldn't need any WM employees. Verizon doesn't have a WM division to support their XV6600 PPC phone--all the software work is done by HTC, which is the company produces the Treos. To claim that Palm not taking the vastly more expensive route of doing development themselves is proof that there's no possibility of a Windows Treo is grasping at straws.
As if all the furor over those Treo 670 videos isn't "grasping at straws!" Or sifting through employment listings on the Palm web site? C'mon, lets face it: straws are our stock in trade here.
But I think you're wrong about the XV6600. First of all, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Verizon has Microsoft engineers responsible for the certification of PPC phones on their network. That's not something they just trust an ODM to work out because it potentially affects the stability of their entire network. Secondly, if I remember correctly, the XV6600 is a rebranding of an AudioVox phone and AudioVox certainly also had Microsoft engineers that worked with their counterparts at HTC during the development of that device. There's way too much invested in bringing a product like this to market (and a very high product failure rate, by the way) for any partner in the process to just rely blindly on the engineering work of the others.
Anyway, my point wasn't that the absence of job postings for Win CE engineers was some kind of "proof" that there's no Windows Mobile Treo in the works. I just thought it was interesting after all the discussion of the Linux postings and the speculation about the WM Treo that no one had tried connecting the dots yet.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
Down to their last breath, the Apologists will refuse to believe in th WM Treo. Why? Because they know it means 'the end'.
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
Down to their last breath, the Apologists will refuse to believe in th WM Treo. Why? Because they know it means 'the end'.
See, it's just not a religious question for me like it is for some of you guys. I don't think about it in terms of belief, faith, the coming "end times" or any of that. Maybe you have to have a favorite football team to understand this mentality, and by some genetic failing I don't.
What I do think is that the market is going to have a lot more twists and turns as OS and device vendors jostle and strategize for position in a market that is very nascent. To me the predictions about how the WM Treo is "the end" are kind of like somebody looking at the first pawn being taken in a chess game and saying "oh boy, that guy is going to win the game." The market that is being fought over now by Palm, MS, Symbian and RIM is a very small percentage of what will exist in five or ten years. I agree that Palm is down now and they've made some mistakes, but if you want to know where they will be in two years, five years you can't just naively extrapolate. You have to look at where they are now and what the current market reality is (it's changing fast).
Palm OS for Linux is not just another version of Palm OS. It's a completely different business model. If you want to know about the success of the model it's not just a technical question. You need to look at why Linux is hurting MS so badly in the phone market right now, for example. You need to look at what actually sells devices today and what it takes to get a successful one out. There actually aren't very many good data points, so there's lots of room for interpretation. It's interesting stuff and the questions it raises about the future leave all kinds of possibilities wide open.
I don't pretend to know where Palm OS is going to be in the future. I just think it's going to be very interesting to watch now that PalmSource has made what I consider to be some pretty smart decisions about how to reposition themselves.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
why draw conclusions about what Palm's Linux plans are from looking at their employment site if you're not going to draw similar conclusions about their Windows Mobile plans?
Primarily because they would need on-staff Linux people to do anything on that front, whereas to build a Windows Treo they would not.
PenguinPowered said:
You can't design phones with a particular OS in mind and then have a third party build them for you unless you know enough about that OS to factor it into your hardware design tradeoffs and to manage the work being done for you by the third party.
Who said Palm was designing anything? All they have to do is ask HTC to develop a WM Treo to X specifications, and possibly decide on a new hardware shell. HTC is an ODM, which means that they can and will design a unit from the ground up according to a customer's specs.
Second, you need applications people who understand the OS
Developing applications for an OS, and fitting an OS to new hardware are VERY different things. I can probably think of a dozen developers on here who could develop apps for either Palm or Pocket PC, but I doubt that any of them knows how to merge an OS package with a new hardware layer.
cervezas said:
As if all the furor over those Treo 670 videos isn't "grasping at straws!"
I'd hesitate to call it grasping at straws when there's photos and video of the broom.
First of all, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Verizon has Microsoft engineers responsible for the certification of PPC phones on their network.
Which has absolutely and completely nothing to do with putting an OS on hardware, and don't pretend that it does. Testing is not development.
That's not something they just trust an ODM to work out because it potentially affects the stability of their entire network.
Oh, please. Like one PPC phone that's not sufficiently antiquated is going to bring down the nationwide communication network. Verizon's only excuse for getting their devices late is several kilometers of red tape.
Secondly, if I remember correctly, the XV6600 is a rebranding of an AudioVox phone
You're thinking of the PPC-6600/6601 on Sprint, which is a different branding of the HTC Harrier. I've never seen the Audiovox name officially connected to the Verizon version. It's true that Audiovox is involved with HTC's phones, but I suspect that it's a brand-recognition deal, with Audiovox lending their name to sufficiently high-quality hardware in exchange for a chunk of cash.
There's way too much invested in bringing a product like this to market (and a very high product failure rate, by the way) for any partner in the process to just rely blindly on the engineering work of the others.
May I point out that this has absolutely nothing to do with our original point? You're trying to obfuscate.
In any event, ordering from HTC is hardly risky business. They're the number one manufacturer of smartphones, both Palm and Pocket PC, in the world. They made about a billion dollars last year. Their client list is nearly as long as Microsoft's list of WM licensees, and has most of the same names. Their PPC phones are sold under dozens of different brands without reengineering. They are the ultimate push-button developer. You wouldn't need specialized Microsoft-only engineers to get a device ordered from them.
Anyway, my point wasn't that the absence of job postings for Win CE engineers was some kind of "proof" that there's no Windows Mobile Treo in the works.
Funny, because it seems to me that that's exactly what you were implying.
I just thought it was interesting after all the discussion of the Linux postings and the speculation about the WM Treo that no one had tried connecting the dots yet.
Ah. I'll take that as a concession, then.
Ummm... Ryan, why were my posts deleted?
And if Palm has told you to delete my posts if you want to keep getting their advertising revenue, please let us know. I'll understand and stop posting to PIC if you're going to have to censor everything that I write.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
HTC will provide Palm with a turnkey Treo 700 solution - NO effort on Palm's end required (just like they like it).
Well, then, we've heard it from our anonymous expert. Palm doesn't need engineers anymore because they don't need to know how their products work. They can just outsource all their R&D, product development, and support and simply be in the business of putting shiny orange badges on stuff and picking up the checks when they come in. It's a lean and mean business model, I'll say that for it.
My point, by the way, was this: why draw conclusions about what Palm's Linux plans are from looking at their employment site if you're not going to draw similar conclusions about their Windows Mobile plans?
Beersy, keep quoting out of context. The (now deleted) post pointed out sarcastically how you were "looking for clues" where only a truly clueless company would leave them. I was only being partly sarcastic in suggesting Palm doesn't need a ton of Windows engineers to offer a WinMob Treo. First of all, it's not like Palm doesn't already have people capable of designing/coding for WinMob already working for them. Or do you think none of Palm's legions of engineers are capable of doing anything related to WinMob? Secondly, Palm actually HAS outsourced MUCH of the nuts and bolts work to their contract manufacturer. Support was long ago outsourced to incompetent script-readers in Calcutta + Bombay, and now that Palm has reinvented themself as a cellphone handset provider, the carriers can take over support for Palm. The problem with outsourcing is that choosing that pathway is a "sippery slope" that once you start sliding down is hard to stop. Once a company stops exercising its development muscles, they quickly atrophy and turn into a fat, lazy, overly-dependent tub of lard. And once you lose the people that used to do the development jobs that are now outsourced, you can't suddenly find high quality replacements whenever you want. This is part of the problem Palm now faces.
Your point about PalmLinux is moot if you accept the (logical) arguments I've made elsewhere that PalmLinux is Palm's only hope of ensuring a longterm future. Obviously Palm feels that the shortterm profits that will be generated by sales of the WinMob Treos are worth the damage selling WinMob devices will do to the PalmOS platform. Given that Palm cannot predict whether or not PalmLinux would be ready before the company spirals into bankruptcy, the decision to enter the Windows Mobile world was a necesssary evil. As was the case with those in favor of acquiring Handspring winning out over the (departed) naysayers, the greenlighting of PalmLinux + WinMob Treos and the pulling of the plug on that Cobalt Parasite (remember the movie, "Alien"?) are evidence that the people now making decisions at Palm/PalmSource understand what needs to be done. The next step - the Reunificatioon of Palm (RoP), will finally end all the games, smoke + mirrors and cloak + dagger nonsense that have made a mockery of the platform.
A lean, mean, focused Palm with a full lineup of 2 PalmLinux Treos, 2 PalmLinux traditional PDAs and a Windows Mobile Treo + ownership of PalmOS is what Palm needs to become. ASAP.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
To save POS PSRC has to ....
If POS want to ride to coat tails of Linux to survival and success, surely they need to also:
1) Open source POS Cobalt and Garnet
2) Support very well open standards in the mobile market like especially Java.
3) Contribute something useful such as the POS 4 68k emulator.
Of course all of these reduces the royalties and profitability of the company, but Monte vista and Red Hat shows
a) companies can make money of consulting even open products
b) companies would license even open stuff so they have direct accountability and support.
Of course I believe going toe to toe on the same battlefield with WM and Symbian will kill POS, but Linux has shown that even big companies are very vulnerable to the ambush style attack of open source software.
Surur
Solly Cholly [Surur].
1) Open source POS Cobalt and Garnet
2) Support very well open standards in the mobile market like especially Java.
3) Contribute something useful such as the POS 4 68k emulator.
Of course all of these reduces the royalties and profitability of the company, but Monte vista and Red Hat shows
a) companies can make money of consulting even open products
b) companies would license even open stuff so they have direct accountability and support.
Of course I believe going toe to toe on the same battlefield with WM and Symbian will kill POS, but Linux has shown that even big companies are very vulnerable to the ambush style attack of open source software.
Surur
Didn't Netscape turn to the Open Source movement when Microsoft's Internet Explorer started to CRUSH Netscape?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Layout_engine_usage_share.png
Remind me again what happened to Netscape.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
2012: The year of POS ;)
Surur
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
>> then have a third party build them for you unless you know
>> enough about that OS to factor it into your hardware design
>> tradeoffs and to manage the work being done for you by the
>> third party.
> Who said Palm was designing anything?
Well, there's no reason for them to be in business if all they're going to do is sell somebody else's phone running somebody else's software. That's a cutthroat business, and Palm's not about managing razor thin margins.
Open sourcing Palm OS
1) Open source POS Cobalt and Garnet
2) Support very well open standards in the mobile market like especially Java.
3) Contribute something useful such as the POS 4 68k emulator.
Of course all of these reduces the royalties and profitability of the company, but Monte vista and Red Hat shows.
The two most common arguments against open sourcing Palm OS are that (i) licensing it under GPL makes it more difficult to persuade potential licensees to pay for a commercial license and (ii) it could provide competing hardware manufacturers with a free OS.
However, if Palm were to only open source Palm OS for PDAs (not smartphones) then these problems disappear as (i) there aren't any potential licensees queueing up to license Palm OS for their PDAs and (ii) all the other PDA hardware manufacturers are Microsoft licensees and are very unlikely to break with their commitments to stick exclusively with MS.
The benefits of open source are well known, and right now Palm looks like it could use all the help it can get.
RE: No Amiga jobs at Palm
2012: The year of POS ;)
Surur
The parallels between Palm, Apple, Netscape and Be are quite tragic.
Cobalt = Copeland = BeOS?
PalmLinux = Netscape 6? Or will PalmLinux = MacOS X? Or will PalmLinux = Firefox? (Or will PalmLinux = another Cobalt/Copeland/BeOS?)
[Palm Apologist Mode = ON] Whatever happens to PalmOS, there's no denying that - as long as you don't ask too much from it - as a PDA OS it was brilliantly designed. Haitani and Hawkins absolutely nailed the original design. PalmOS just plain WORKS and for a lot of people (including me) PalmOS 5 is currently "good enough". [Palm Apologist Mode = OFF] But someone needs to remind Palm that the further they fall behind their competitors in terms of features, the less persuasive the "good enough" argument will be. Eventually, if the exodus of users from the platform reaches a critical mass, the Netscape history will be repeated, this time starring Palm, Eric B, Eddie C, PéPé G, and a lot of leeches.
PalmOS reminds me of that brainy kid in high school that ended up becoming a pothead and dropping out of school. Drifted around for years but never could keep a job. Lived off the generosity of old friends until they got tired of his mooching and utter laziness. Died penniless and alone. So much wasted potential...
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
By that logic, Palm needs to kill the Treo 650 right now. It's running another company's software, and it's built by HTC.
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
>> they're going to do is sell somebody else's phone running
>> somebody else's software. That's a cutthroat business, and
>> Palm's not about managing razor thin margins.
> By that logic, Palm needs to kill the Treo 650 right now.
> It's running another company's software, and it's built by
> HTC.
Nice job of cutting to destroy context. We were talking about the design of the phone, not the construction, when I mentioned "somebody else's phone." HTC didn't design the 650, as you were suggesting they could do with the next phone. Palm did. That's their value add in the hardware.
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
Marty, your arguments just keep getting weaker every day.
>> they're going to do is sell somebody else's phone running
>> somebody else's software. That's a cutthroat business, and
>> Palm's not about managing razor thin margins.
> By that logic, Palm needs to kill the Treo 650 right now.
> It's running another company's software, and it's built by
> HTC.
Nice job of cutting to destroy context. We were talking about the design of the phone, not the construction, when I mentioned "somebody else's phone." HTC didn't design the 650, as you were suggesting they could do with the next phone. Palm did. That's their value add in the hardware.
How odd. The quote appears to stand on its own quite well. First of all, it's a fairly trivial matter for HTC to design a smartphone. As an ODM, that's what they do. Secondly, Palm now has a longstanding history of outsourcing engineering. While Handspring got their hands dirty and built the Treo 600 hardware and OS essentially from scratch (a truly impressive feat coming from such a tiny company with limited resources), Palm on the other hand has not created a successful design on their own in ages. Thirdly while it's usually difficult to come up with a revolutionary, fresh design (like the Treo 600 was) it's not hard to subsequently plagiarize such a design and create similar - but improved - versions. In fact, incremental upgrades have been Palm's M.O. for years, from Pilot 1000 -> IIIxe; V -> m5xx; Tungsten E -> Tungsten 5; Tungsten T -> T³. With the templates of the Treo 650 and their past experience creating numerous Windows Mobile devices, HTC could have done the Treo 700 work practically blindfolded. Subsequent incremental models from Palm will likely require little more than a phone call requesting better camera/better screen/more memory/Wi-Fi/better battery/new OS version, etc.
Palm is no longer an PDA company, much like Apple is no longer a computer company. Both are now merely brands applied to hardware derived from old designs, manufactured by for-hire ODMs. The Golden Age of PDAs is dead. These are now commodity items.
Solly Cholly. It's looking more and more like like you're going to end up being another BubbaSteve here. If you don't start defending yourself better, you're going to get another Standing 8 count, Marty.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
Just thought I'd peek in here and say hi.
The WM5 Treo is real and coming. Neither of my sources know the time.
A Cobalt Treo is real. No idea if it is coming, if so it would be this fall to another source.
HTC and HS designed the 600 and 650. Palm tweaked, HTC built.
According to Shadomite, there is an HTC boot loader built into the 650's ROM. If you will, the 650 was preped from the onset as possibly running WM. Its missing some routines according Shadomite, but possible to boot Linux on there he thinks. If this is the case, Palm hiring Linux dev (people who can do what Shadomite is teaching himself) works to their advantage whether they purchase PS or not.
That's all for now. Ima hide under my rock some, less pressure to breathe there ;)
mobileministrymagazine.blogspot.com
antoinerjwright.com
RE: No Windows jobs at Palm
A Cobalt Treo is real. No idea if it is coming, if so it would be this fall to another source.
HTC and HS designed the 600 and 650. Palm tweaked, HTC built.
According to Shadomite, there is an HTC boot loader built into the 650's ROM. If you will, the 650 was preped from the onset as possibly running WM. Its missing some routines according Shadomite, but possible to boot Linux on there he thinks. If this is the case, Palm hiring Linux dev (people who can do what Shadomite is teaching himself) works to their advantage whether they purchase PS or not.
WinMob Treo probably by December, 2005.
Like the Oswin phone, now that WinMob, PalmOS, etc use similar hardware it's only natural for hardware manufacturers to start consolidating designs. Imagine the same hardware capable of running PalmOS 5, PalmOS 6, PalmLinux, WinMob, XXXXXXXLinux, etc.
Palm has to hire more Linux people ASAP because they will need to be able to start accelerating PalmLinux development when they take over the OS. Palm will NOT be making their own Linux OS. No one has 3 years to spare creating another PalmOS from scratch.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Apologists vs. Critics
PenguinBoy, Beers, and the BCSA all have some vested interest in PSRC/PALM succeeding.
The critics here aren't beholden to anyone - except fellow customers. Remember that.
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
> in PSRC/PALM succeeding.
Sorry, I have no vested interest in any company succeeding.
The only vested interest I _ever_ allow myself in an employer is the two-week horizon of whether or not the latest paycheck will clear the bank. The one time when it didn't, I found another employer.
> The critics here aren't beholden to anyone - except fellow
> customers. Remember that.
Of course, you should also remember that the 'critics' tend to like anonymity, so there's no way to tell who, if anyone, they are beholden to. Combine that with Skippy's pathological preoccupation with "outing" those who disagree with them makes one a tad cynical about their claims of disinterest.
Here's how I handle that in general: I weigh people's arguments as arguments. If they can make their case, I don't care what their motivation for doing so was. If they can't make the case, I don't care what their motivation for failing to do so was.
Your mileage will vary.
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
PenguinBoy, Beers, and the BCSA all have some vested interest in PSRC/PALM succeeding.
Damn, Gekko, you're good! I should have guessed you'd see through my diabolical plan. I was so sure I'd be able to single-handedly keep the Palm OS alive and thereby realize untold wealth by posting commments on the PalmInfocenter web site. But now you meddling kids have gone and ruined everything.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
Hey, you're the one who suggested that me hanging out with a bunch of trolls on PIC was part of a grand marketing plan for my company. I'm just here for the fun of it.
In any case, as you will notice if you take a look at my company, we develop for Windows Mobile, Symbian, and J2ME phones as well as Palm OS. I enjoy shooting down specious arguments about the impending doom of Palm OS just because I enjoy a good argument and because I am personally a Palm enthusiast, not because I've got some kind of financial stake.
What I find amusing, quite frankly, is the notion that apparently is prevalent here that companies like PalmSource and Palm would pay any attention at all to what happens in a forum like this. Get real! The people who post here represent what? a couple dozen customers, at most? And how many are reading what you post? I really don't know, but the idea that more than a handful would be influenced in a way that would affect the bottom line of PSRC/PALM is absolutely ludicrous.
C'mon! Hopefully all of us do this for fun, not because we think we have some kind of "power." Sheesh, it's embarrassing even to use the word like that.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
Really? Then why is that so many of the Whiners just parrot the spin coming out of pocketpcthoughts.com.
'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'.
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
Really? Then why is that so many of the Whiners just parrot the spin coming out of pocketpcthoughts.com.
'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'.
That quote was mine and I've never even heard of pocketpcthoughts.com - nice try, though.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
>> customers. Remember that.
> That quote was mine and I've never even heard of
> pocketpcthoughts.com - nice try, though.
Um, Skippy? That quote is from a posting by Gekko. You aren't, by any chance, also Gekko, are you Skippy?
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
PenguinBoy - please just get back to work on PLinux or whatever the hell it is that you do. nothing you have to say is even remotely interesting or entertaining and you serve no purpose here other than to annoy people and waste bandwith.
thank you.
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
Actually, the Denmark quote was from one of my posts, Marty.
The repeated blows to the head you have received since arriving here must have left you confused. Please see your doctor. I'm worried about you.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
Bob Dylan?
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
The critics here aren't beholden to anyone - except fellow customers. Remember that.
Well said Gekko.
When was the last post you remember seeing defending Palm/PalmSource that WASN'T made by either a PalmSource employee or a software developer whose livelihood depends on PalmOS? (Or a shrill hack (JK) that wants to work for Palm?)
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
> thank you.
You're welcome. So which one is the sockpuppet, you or skippy?
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
And, for that matter, when was the last time you Whiners had anything to say that was not spoonfed to you by Mr Hansberry?
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
> thank you.
You're welcome. So which one is the sockpuppet, you or skippy?
Looks like someone [Marty] is getting his [Marty] a$$ kicked and is now hoping puerile taunts will obfuscate the REAL issues.
Keep it up, Mr. Fouts.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Apologists vs. Critics
I need to figure out fairly soon whether to try and slog on through with my T5/BT phone combo, follow Gekko's advice and go for a Treo 650 sooner than later or wait and see what's on the immediate horizon.
No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
Jobs Home > Job Search > CA > Sunnyvale > > Palm > Linux Engineer, Mobile Handsets
Linux Engineer, Mobile Handsets: Palm
Job ID 847-6-MH160
Position Type Full-Time Employee
Company Name Palm
Location Sunnyvale, CA
Salary Unspecified
Date Posted August 26, 2005
Experience 2-5 Years Experience
View Palm profile and job listings
Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) -- a leader in mobile computing -- strives to put the power of computing in people's hands so they can access and share their most important information. The company's products include smartphones, under the Treo(TM) brand; mobile managers, under the LifeDrive(TM) brand; handheld computers, under the Tungsten(TM) and Zire(TM) brands; as well as software and accessories. We currently have an opportunity available for a Mobile Handsets Linux Engineer.Overview:
As a Linux Engineer, you will play a key role in the architecture, design and implementation of enabling technologies for a new generation of Palm devices. Working as part of the overall system team, you will work on the underlying support for various software applications.
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Design and develop components of a new software platform
http://tinyurl.com/cmyqt
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/Company-Profiles/P/Palm_29742
From reading 10-20 of the job adverts, I have become quite convinced that :
a) Palm (one) is very serious about Linux on a handheld
b) They are still at a very early stage
c) They intend to do it without PalmSource.
The content of the job adverts do not mention customization, but writing software from scratch, including quite a few to write cdma and GSM stacks, even bluetooth stacks. Isn't that supposed to be PalmSource's job.
Summary:
PalmLinux IS coming in 2007, but with no help from PSRC.
Surur
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
Linux Engineer, Mobile Handset
Job code: 847
Job Category: Engineering
Job Description:
Overview:
As a Linux Engineer, you will play a key role in the architecture, design and implementation of enabling technologies for a new generation of Palm devices. Working as part of the overall system team, you will work on the underlying support for various software applications.
Duties/Responsibilities:
Responsible for the design and development of components of a new software platform....
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
Palm to buy out PalmSource + take control of PalmLinux.
a) Palm (one) is very serious about Linux on a handheld
b) They are still at a very early stage
c) They intend to do it without PalmSource.
The content of the job adverts do not mention customization, but writing software from scratch, including quite a few to write cdma and GSM stacks, even bluetooth stacks. Isn't that supposed to be PalmSource's job.
Summary:
PalmLinux IS coming in 2007, but with no help from PSRC.
Surur
Palm is about to buy PalmSource, Surur. Once the Reunification of Palm is completed, the development of PalmLinux can accelerate with new hired hands on board. Since it doesn't make sense for Palm to be doing PalmLinux work on its own prior to the Reunification (unless PalmSource is already working in conjunction with Palm on PalmLinux development) this would suggest PalmSource will probably get bought out BEFORE 2006!
TVoR's BOLD prediction: Palm will SHOCK the industry and announce the PalmSource buyout. Soon. Very soon. (Would next week be soon enough?) ;-O
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
> convinced that :
There are, at this time, 74 jobs posted at the URL you gave. Of these, it looks like exactly _none_ require linux expertize.
> a) Palm (one) is very serious about Linux on a handheld
> b) They are still at a very early stage
> c) They intend to do it without PalmSource.
Huh. Even though none of the positions, not even the ones labeled "Linux" in the title, require Linux expertise? That's quite a leap.
> The content of the job adverts do not mention customization,
> but writing software from scratch, including quite a few to
> write cdma and GSM stacks, even bluetooth stacks. Isn't that
> supposed to be PalmSource's job.
There's a range of software jobs showing at the URL, including such items as developer support. More than a few mention customization.
> Summary:
> PalmLinux IS coming in 2007, but with no help from PSRC.
Well, one would think that they would find one or more jobs with qualifications like:
"Skills/Experience: 7+ years of experience working with Linux kernel"
in the ads of a company that was trying to go it alone in Linux.
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
> All things considered, the Palm [buyout of PalmSources] is
> the safest way to go and will likely happen sometime in 2006.
On 27 August, Skippy writes:
> this would suggest PalmSource will probably get bought out
> BEFORE 2006!
Skippy, a word of advice: take notes. You're not keeping your own stories straight.
But please, don't do it on my account, I'm getting too many laughs out of watching you waffle.
Pump and dump Vs. PalmSource buyout within days? You decide.
The 2006 date was an estimate based on the expectation that Palm would be willing to live off WinMob Treo profits for a while as they wait for PalmLinux to mature and PalmSource stock to drop well below $5. In the past couple of days there have been rumors (VICIOUS RUMORS) suggesting the takeout date is sooner than I had predicted. (I had actually first predicted the 2006 takeout date back in 2004, but who's counting...) PalmSource's stock shot up over 25% in a couple days based on this "news". While this may end up being yet another "pump and dump" of one of the most manipulable stocks around, the tea leaves point towards an impending sell-off. I hope you have specified that PalmSource pays you in CASH ONLY, Marty.
Shalom
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
Ah, Skippy. "tea leaves". When one gets right down to it, even the tea leaf readers are better at guessing than you seem to be.
Whatever happened to that great conviction of yours, mere days ago, that you were crowing about? You remember, the one where you were bragging that you had predicted both why and when Palm would buy out (not 'sell-off' Skippy. A sell-off is when you dump a losing stock) PalmSource?
The bold claims about Palm waiting until PalmSource's stock had gotten below $5, Skippy? You've abandonded those already? Not much faith in your own arguments, there Skippy, if you can abandon them because of a two day run up in stock prices?
On the other hand, a two day run up in stock prices is a major improvement over your other arguments. At least it's real.
One does wonder, though, who bought all that stock.
But you're letting me down, Skippy. Such mundane arguments. Where's your conspiracy theory? Where's your evidence of stock manipulation? You'd think with some of the stuff that's been in the news in the last couple of weeks you'd be able to cobble together something better than "there are rumors"...
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
847-6-MH160
Overview:
As a Linux Engineer, you will play a key role in the architecture, design and implementation of enabling technologies for a new generation of Palm devices. Working as part of the overall system team, you will work on the underlying support for various software applications.
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Responsible for the design and development of components of a new software platform
847-6-MH160
Overview:
As a Linux Engineer, you will play a key role in the architecture, design and implementation of enabling technologies for a new generation of Palm devices. Working as part of the overall system team, you will work on the underlying support for various software applications.
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Design and develop components of a new software platform
800-6-MH160
Overview:
Palm, Inc. is seeking a Software Engineer to join its Data Networking software development team. This is an exciting opportunity to join a fast-paced and highly motivated development team responsible for core data networking protocols and features across all Palm, Inc. smartphone and PDA products.
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Design, develop and debug TCP/IP software and related system features
- Participate in all phases of software development cycle: requirements gathering, design, implementation, code reviews, unit and integration testing
- Work closely with other Data Networking team engineers and other teams to identify and resolve technical issues
Qualifications:
- 5+ years of experience implementing and troubleshooting data networking software
- Experience with Embedded Real-Time Operating Systems
- Experience with TCP/IP protocol analysis
- Experience with PalmOS, Linux and other operating systems TCP/IP implementations is highly desirable
334-6-MH160
Duties/Responsibilities:
The Software Engineer will design and implement the wireless web browser for our future smartphone and handheld products. He/she will help us invent new ways to improve the performance and layout of web content on mobile devices; work collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team to successfully take the software through the entire development cycle (design, implementation, maintenance); and help define and implement web-based and other applications and technologies for our mobile devices. Additionally, he/she will respond to customer and developer issues inside and outside of the company, troubleshoot problems, and respond with recommendations, patches or upgrades as appropriate.
They are dropping blazer/netfront some time
334-6-MH160
Duties/Responsibilities:
- Design and implement the wireless web browser for our future smartphone and handheld products
- Help us invent new ways to improve the performance and layout of web content on mobile devices
- Work collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team to successfully take the software through the entire development cycle (design, implementation, maintenance)
- Help define and implement web-based and other applications and technologies for our mobile devices
- Respond to customer and developer issues inside and outside of the company, troubleshoot problems, and respond with recommendations, patches or upgrades as appropriate
Skills/Experience:
- Experience in several software projects from design through delivery; demonstrated design skills; proficient C and C++ coding and debugging skills, good problem solving skills
- Project experience designing and implementing software user interfaces
- Knowledge of markup languages and data transport protocols, such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, WML, XHTML, DHTML, XML, TCP/IP, HTTP and SSL
- Demonstrated success working in collaborative team projects
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
- Significant project experience developing software for Palm OS, UNIX/Linux, or similar embedded platforms; knowledge of broad areas of software technology
- Experience with network communications application development, specifically web browsers, messaging (mail, SMS, IM), voice applications or camera (imaging) applications
wifi treo on the way some time.
784-6-MH160
Overview:
This is an opportunity to be a technical leader for all GSM Smartphone products at Palm. Experience with GSM and/or Dual Mode (GSM/WIFI) handset design is desired. The candidate will be responsible for providing technical leadership to a cross-functional team from engineering, product management, and carrier certification. Your strong leadership, technical expertise, communications, and customer interactions are essential to the success of the team, and ultimately the end product.
Surur
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
> already, and already implemented for smartphones and the arm
> processor.
None of the job descriptions you posted are for kernel developers.
But, no, that's not the beauty of Linux.
There are three major things that make Linux attractive to those who find it so:
1) A large amount (not all) of the development is done by people who don't charge you for their work.
2) If you design a part that uses commonly available hardware, the basic work for that hardware is probably already done by the people who don't charge you for their work.
3) It's not Microsoft.
Three is entirely an emotional response, and one I don't particularly understand, but it certainly is a strong one. People who hold that as their reason usually substitute
3) There are a lot of people who understand how to develop Linux pieces available on the job market.
There are other things that make Linux attractive to those who find it so, but those three are the major ones, in the context of "kernel is written"
The crystal ball's getting clearer, Marty. I see danger ...
Ah, Skippy. "tea leaves". When one gets right down to it, even the tea leaf readers are better at guessing than you seem to be.
Whatever happened to that great conviction of yours, mere days ago, that you were crowing about? You remember, the one where you were bragging that you had predicted both why and when Palm would buy out (not 'sell-off' Skippy. A sell-off is when you dump a losing stock) PalmSource?
The bold claims about Palm waiting until PalmSource's stock had gotten below $5, Skippy? You've abandonded those already? Not much faith in your own arguments, there Skippy, if you can abandon them because of a two day run up in stock prices?
On the other hand, a two day run up in stock prices is a major improvement over your other arguments. At least it's real.
One does wonder, though, who bought all that stock.
But you're letting me down, Skippy. Such mundane arguments. Where's your conspiracy theory? Where's your evidence of stock manipulation? You'd think with some of the stuff that's been in the news in the last couple of weeks you'd be able to cobble together something better than "there are rumors"...
My "guesses" are right here in black and white for all to see, Marty. My predictions usually come true but you're welcome to bet against them any time. And it's not a "conspiracy theory" if (WHEN) it's proven to be true. At that point, the courts call it evidence and Mr. Nagel's ulcer will start acting up again when PalmSource shareholders drag his a$$ into court...
If Palm has finally decided they don't want to wait for PalmSource to drop in value before the buyout, they may have moved up their plans by a few months. That would be a smart move and would show that they're finally starting to act like a desperate company should act. Since I'm no longer on speaking terms with my old drinking buddy, Pépé Gassée, I can't say whether or not something changed in PalmSource's plans last week. But recent divestments suggest the Reunification of Palm is near. Sinners repent!
By the way, Marty, is it true that PalmOS licenses are cancelled in the event of a change in ownership of PalmSource? Let us know, would you, Buddy? That would be A Good Thing for Palm if that were the case, wouldn't it? Gosh, I wonder if Palm would be mean enough to "HandEra" its current licensees once the Reunification is complete?
Is next week the week that the other shoe drops? Stay tuned, Kids...
Cass (on behalf of TVoR)
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Inquiring minds wants to know
Or are you implying the license cancellation possibility just so that Palm isn't obligated to the OS for any extended period of time and won't have to pay royalties to themselves?
Are you putting any stock whatsoever into those Treo 700 w/ Cobalt shipping before year's end rumors on Treocentral?
And finally, WHAT has happened to Mike Cane? He's seriously been AWOL for, what, 3 weeks now?
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
Mike is a "WM over my cold dead body" person, and has therefore fled from the sinking POS ship to the latest Linux handheld, the Nokia 770, which is struggling to run a desktop OS (The Debian distribution of Linux no less) ona 200mhz processor. Try googling "Mike Cane Linux" and see waht turns up.
BTW, the voiding of the licence obligations are significant as it basically rewinds the clock back to 2001, Palm's glory days, and removes the original justification for the split (how can they be fair to e.g. LG if Palm and PalmSource is the same company). I would like to see a link as proof of this clause however. Maybe I should start googling.
Surur
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
Palm, Symbol, Aceeca, Samsung (barely), GSPDA, LG. AlphaSmart is toast.
Or are you implying the license cancellation possibility just so that Palm isn't obligated to the OS for any extended period of time and won't have to pay royalties to themselves?
Cancelling the OS licenses removes competition. Remember what Apple did to the companies selling cheaper Apple clones in the 90s? But companies like Aceeca and Symbol might be allowed back since they copete in spaces that PAlm has no interest (or product) in.
Are you putting any stock whatsoever into those Treo 700 w/ Cobalt shipping before year's end rumors on Treocentral?
No. Shipping a Cobalt device makes no sense. Unproven OS, no apps that can use it, dead end OS... why bother? It would just create support headaches Palm's Calcutta Support Team can ill afford to deal with.
And finally, WHAT has happened to Mike Cane? He's seriously been AWOL for, what, 3 weeks now?
Claims to have left Palm for Nokia's Linux experiment. How droll. He'll be back soon enough.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
> see.
Why, yes they are Skippy. That's half of what makes your waffling so much fun.
> My predictions usually come true but you're welcome to bet
> against them any time.
If you make enough of them, and they're as all over the map as yours are, it's not surprising that a few come true. Even Jeane Dixon had a better track record, Skippy.
> If Palm has finally decided they don't want to wait for
> PalmSource to drop in value before the buyout, they may have
> moved up their plans by a few months.
"If" Skippy? Whatever happened to that brash predition that you knew exactly "when"? You remember, the one where you claimed 2006. The one you abandoned recently in favor of predicting a buyout this week?
> Since I'm no longer on speaking terms with my old drinking
> buddy, Pépé Gassée, I can't say whether or not something
> changed in PalmSource's plans last week.
Ah, is that your excuse for why your "inside information" on PalmSource is so far out of date? But aren't you confused again? Shouldn't that be _Palm_'s plans? (Since they're the one you're naming as the buyer.) By the way, the Motorola rumor is _much_ more interesting than the Palm one.
>Is it true that PalmOS licenses are cancelled in the event of
> a change in ownership of PalmSource?
But, Skippy, don't you know? Do you mean that you were, um, less than factual, in your assertion earlier that they were? Skippy, remember what I told you: take notes, your stories are slipping.
_I_ can't answer your question. I've never seen a PalmSource license. No idea what they would say. I do know that if I were a licensee of some company, the last thing I'd let my lawyers do is put a clause in the contract that cut me off that way.
> Is next week the week that the other shoe drops?
_next_ week, Skippy? But just yesterday you guessed it was _this_ week. And you didn't even guess about Motorola or any of the other interesting tidbits.
I'm hoping for Google, myself, Skippy. They'd be a much more fun owner for PalmSource than Moto or Palm.
What's happened to you, Marty? You're disappointing us again
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: No Linux listings on Palm jobs site
> see.
Why, yes they are Skippy. That's half of what makes your waffling so much fun.
Oh, Marty. I said Palm would buy PalmSource by around mid-2006. If they pull the trigger several months earlier it only proves how desperate they are.
> My predictions usually come true but you're welcome to bet
> against them any time.
If you make enough of them, and they're as all over the map as yours are, it's not surprising that a few come true. Even Jeane Dixon had a better track record, Skippy.
If you say so, Marty.
> If Palm has finally decided they don't want to wait for
> PalmSource to drop in value before the buyout, they may have
> moved up their plans by a few months.
"If" Skippy? Whatever happened to that brash predition that you knew exactly "when"? You remember, the one where you claimed 2006. The one you abandoned recently in favor of predicting a buyout this week?
Desperate companies often become unpredictable. Like a rabid, cornered dingo. Up next on Fox: When Companies Attack.
> Since I'm no longer on speaking terms with my old drinking
> buddy, Pépé Gassée, I can't say whether or not something
> changed in PalmSource's plans last week.
Ah, is that your excuse for why your "inside information" on PalmSource is so far out of date? But aren't you confused again? Shouldn't that be _Palm_'s plans? (Since they're the one you're naming as the buyer.) By the way, the Motorola rumor is _much_ more interesting than the Palm one.
Here's a hint, Marty: I never went drinking with Pépé.
>Is it true that PalmOS licenses are cancelled in the event of
> a change in ownership of PalmSource?
But, Skippy, don't you know? Do you mean that you were, um, less than factual, in your assertion earlier that they were? Skippy, remember what I told you: take notes, your stories are slipping.
Marty, should we be inserting nervous laughter into all of your posts? You seem to keep running from the truth. Why, Marty? Is it too painful for you to admit to?
_I_ can't answer your question. I've never seen a PalmSource license. No idea what they would say. I do know that if I were a licensee of some company, the last thing I'd let my lawyers do is put a clause in the contract that cut me off that way.
Maybe you're more clever than Palm's licensees. Or maybe not.
> Is next week the week that the other shoe drops?
_next_ week, Skippy? But just yesterday you guessed it was _this_ week. And you didn't even guess about Motorola or any of the other interesting tidbits.
I'm hoping for Google, myself, Skippy. They'd be a much more fun owner for PalmSource than Moto or Palm.
The original post was made on a Sunday, Marty. "Next week" was intended to mean the upcoming work week - i.e. THIS WEEK. But keep trying to obfuscate, Marty. Your arguments here have gone from weak to exceptionally flimsy. You need to get some backup Marty. You're going to get hurt if things continue this way. Don't be a Martyr, Marty.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
2) Buy back PalmSource. Enough with the games, already. Investors have been fleeced beyond your wildest dreams. It's time to end the bogus "slpit".
3) Accelerate development of PalmLinux and ensure it is released in STABLE condition. This should correct a litany of PalmOS deficiencies like lack of multitasking, poor file handling, etc.
4) Pare down the hardware lineup to no more than 5 basic designs: High End Treo, Low End Treo, Basic (Tungsten E-style) PDA, Flagship PDA, Experimental PDA (e.g. HTC Universal-style communicator, PalmTop computer (micro laptop), Treble Wireless Palm PC, etc. - something to push the envelope + test what the market wants)
5) Cater to cellphone carriers - they pay the bills from now on. Not end users.
6) Cater to the needs of businesses - pleasing a company buying quantities of 1000 PDAs makes more sense than trying to please 1000 different, fussy, demanding, fickle end users.
7) Replicate Blackberry functionality and make it PAINLESS.
8) Appease developers with GENUINE steps to correct past mistakes. While in many way developers no longer matter to Palm-The-Cellphone-Provider, destroying a well-earned reputation for no reason is a silly way to do business. A fully staffed team of experts responding to questions in the developers forum would be a good start. Documenting undocumented parts of PalmOS would also help. As would giving advance warning of major changes in the way PalmOS works so developers aren't stuck trying to reverse engineer the OS to make things work.
9) Fix persistent bugs and ensure future devices + code are properly debugged. NVFS, Data "Mangler", Find, VersaMail
10) Fix security holes. Until real security is a part of PalmOS when/if PalmLinux arrives, every device should ship with a copy of TealLock. Trying to sell unsecure devices to businesses is ridiculous.
11) Ship a Windows Mobile Treo. WinMob Treo = Instant Money-making Machine.
12) Properly implement Java support.
13) Ensure solid development tools are available and supported. (And see #7)
14) Stop scrimping pennies on parts of hardware that will negatively impact the user experience when compromised. Inadequate RAM, cheap speakers, poorly constructed cases... enough is enough. Why should someone spending $500 on a device then have to hunt for (and purchase) utilities like PowerRUN, SharkCache just to be able to properly use their hardware?
15) License and/or code a basic, stable standard collection of applications for every device:
- Advanced browser (e.g. NetFront)
- Backup program (e.g. BackupMan)
- Advanced email (e.g. SnapperMail, Chatter Email, improved VersaMail) with proper handling of attachments.
- Video player supporting standard files (e.g. TCPMP)
- Painless app for creating videos playable on mobile devices
- Security (e.g. TealLock) - see #9
- MP3 player with iTunes-like simplicity for desktop component
- Native PDF + other file viewer (e.g. Picsel)
- Flash viewer
- More flexible (optional) launcher (e.g. LaunchereX)
- Unit converter (e.g. YAUC)
- List program (e.g. HandyShopper)
- Drawing program (e.g. DiddleBug)
- Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint compatible programs
16) Host USB ability.
17) Properly support MacOS (and Linux) out of the box. Lack of Linux support by PalmLinux would be... amusing.
18) Proper support of wireless protocols: all Bluetooth protocols, Wi-Fi as battery advances permit, GSM/CDMA + their high bandwidth versions.
19) Improve technical support. Palm Calcutta's "Jimmy" (Rajiv) and "Betty" (Deepti) reading from scripts isn't gonna cut it when Joe Blow phones in asking why his $500 LifeDrive just crashed and corrupted ALL of his precious data, including the Powerpoint presentation he's supposed to make for the CEO tomorrow.
20) Aim higher. Palm is in serious danger of becoming extinct because for years no one thought about trying to inprove its core asset: PalmOS. Meanwhile quality and functionality have been cut in search of quick profits.
That's a start. No doubt there's a lot of other things that should be added to the list, but if Palm could even achieve 25% of those goals I'd have a LOT more hope that they will still be around as an independent company in 5 years.
TVoR, Inc.
Copyright, 2005
A Mike Cane Production
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
21. Palm wins.
There you have it.
21.
Palm wins.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
The LAST thing Palm/PalmSource needs to do right now is turn in desperation to the Open Source Movement by opening up PalmOS. The OSoMo would be as helpful to Palm/PalmSource as Mr. Bin Laden - see Netscape for a shining example of how desperate companies cannot be saved by a couple hundred teenaged 1337 hAxx0r5 around the world playing with source code during their recess. PalmSource's decision to turn to PalmLinux was the right way to go: maintain control of their IP that matters, while taking advantage of a stable "free", kernel as the core and the associated drivers that will not have to be made from scratch this time. (The Cobalt Catastrophe taught the arrogant Holy Be Engineers a thing or two about how hard it is to create multiple drivers for a new architecture from scratch. And telephony stacks can be a biotch as well... The HoBeEn are now chastened, huddled together in their codemonkey cages weeping and licking their wounds as they dream of the days when BeOS was poised to become the next MacOS. Until JL Gassée got greedy, tried to sodomize Apple and they told him to go fcuk himself. To go from potential MacOS glamour + superstardom to watching BeOS wither on the vine into a nasty, bitter, shrivelled up raisin to coding a rejected BeIA to coding a rejected Cobalt must have been a painful, traumatic experience for those poor HoBeEn. Boo Hoo Hoo!)
By keeping control of PalmOS, Palm/PalmSource are able to direct development precisely and avoid the risk of a competitor in, say China coming along, taking their OS and producing + selling similar devices for 50% of what Palm charges. As I said in a classic Palminfocenter post back in 2004, Palm's biggest mistake was not developing PalmLinux 4 years ago. (That thread will probably go down in history for most jaws slackened by a Palm site discussion):
http://www.palminfocentre.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7258#99684
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
Poor Mistress Hackborn. It must have taken pretty big cojones for her to have come out and actually tried to defend PalmLinux mere months after ranting in favor of Cobalt - her precious ba$tard child spawned from BeOS.
If Palm/PalmSource is patient and smart enough to do things the right way and not cut corners this time, PalmLinux could turn out to be the most important new OS since Windows XP. On the other hand, if they are too slow or fail to execute, PalmLinux will end up being the next BeOS, Copeland, Cobalt, etc. Palm/PalmSource's history suggests their destiny will unfortunately be the latter, leaving us with nothing but PalmOS 5 devices purchased from eBay to stave off eventual purchases of Windows Mobile hardware +/- StyleTap Platform www.syyletap.com
TVoR, Inc.
Copyright, 2005
All rights reserved
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
For my pal, Marty: Another classic Palminfocenter thread
[skip to "No good news at all"]
GOLD, Baby. Pure gold. Thanks for the memories, Kiddo.
XOXOXO
Cass
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Cant compete with free...
VOR, you soured over the years. Then you sounded a lot like Kirvin. Its funny that then people were saying PalmSource was wasting time making POS 6 too perfect, and now people think its even now not even serviceable.
The 'Make POS Open Source' movement are for people who are more concerned about the survival of POS than Palm or PalmSource. They do not care if POS runs on Acer or Abit, as long as it still exists. While POS is commercial it can be killed, when it goes open source it becomes immortal.
As MS and even Symbian is discovering, its very difficult to compete with FREE.
Surur
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
> source it becomes immortal.
In the same way that zombies are 'immortal', I suppose.
There's a graveyard for open source projects, it's called "SourceForge". Not every project that goes there dies, but an amazingly large number have.
It's tricky to make money in the open source community, although a few people have. Nokia's in the middle of an interesting experiment, with maemo. They've decided to rely on open source for a large chunk of the 770's support, fund other open source for another large chunk, and keep the remaining chunk proprietary. We'll have to see how that plays out.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
No, TVoR has ALWAYS been sour.
Then you sounded a lot like Kirvin.
That's a cheap shot, Surur. I won't forget that one...
Its funny that then people were saying PalmSource was wasting time making POS 6 too perfect, and now people think its even now not even serviceable.
PalmSource failed to see the forest for the trees. They had very limited resources and a limited amount of time. Instead of taking a pragmatic approach (the KISS principle), they tried to create the PERFECT scalable mobile OS, all from scratch. That was simply impossible to achieve and development got bogged down. The dumba$$ Holy Be Engineers (as is their nature) refused to be satisfied with simple, functional solutions - everything had to be slick, perfect code. Only problem is PalmSource ran out of time and didn't even have everything finished, so they had to send out a buggy, rushed, incomplete beta at the end of December 2003, just to claim they had met their release schedule. After another 8 months of development they released Cobalt 6.1, but even that version wasn't ready for prime time. PalmSource simply lacks the time and resources to debug Cobalt in addition to developing all of the drivers and stacks needed for Cobalt by themselves. And on top of this, Cobalt isn't even a true multitasking OS. Not exactly the best solution for a "next-generation" platform...
The 'Make POS Open Source' movement are for people who are more concerned about the survival of POS than Palm or PalmSource. They do not care if POS runs on Acer or Abit, as long as it still exists. While POS is commercial it can be killed, when it goes open source it becomes immortal.
I'd like to know if all the idiots demanding free software are also willing to work for free. These people are beyond ridiculous. Palm has spent tens of millions developing PalmOS and deserves to profit accordingly from it. Those people unwilling to pay for it are free to enter the mobile Linux world and feel the pain current early adopters are experiencing. (I'd rather use a PalmOS 3 device than any of the Linux devices I've seen to date.)
As MS and even Symbian is discovering, its very difficult to compete with FREE.
Surur
Sometimes you get what you pay for. As with desktop OSes, the advantages of a commercial mobile OS probably will outweigh the advantage of "free" for a long time in smartphones. (But Linux definitely has a chance to score big in Not-So-Smartphones and Dumbphones (featurephones)).
TVoR
P.S. Revenge for that Kirvin comment will be mine soon...
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Thanks for the laughs, Skippy
My favorite part, though was
> It must have taken pretty big cojones for her to have come
> out and actually tried to defend PalmLinux mere months after
> ranting in favor of Cobalt - her precious ba$tard child
> spawned from BeOS.
Oh, Skippy. You left me in stitches. "PalmLinux" _is_ Cobalt, Skippy. But, as Hackborn patiently explained and you utterly ignored, with a kernel written by non-Be people being replaced by a kernel written by other non-Be people.
Almost as funny was when you made up the "30 engineers for 1 year" number out of thin air. I bet you don't even realize how much that estimate differs from the monetary estimates you've been tossing around in recent days. I guess we can add "no idea of how much engineers cost or get paid" to "engineers paid overtime" and "Linux gurus are managers" on the growing list of ways in which Skippy has demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of software development process.
More URLs, Skippy. You are the source of much humor.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
My favorite part, though was
> It must have taken pretty big cojones for her to have come
> out and actually tried to defend PalmLinux mere months after
> ranting in favor of Cobalt - her precious ba$tard child
> spawned from BeOS.
Oh, Skippy. You left me in stitches. "PalmLinux" _is_ Cobalt, Skippy. But, as Hackborn patiently explained and you utterly ignored, with a kernel written by non-Be people being replaced by a kernel written by other non-Be people.
You're welcome, Marty. Actually, Mistress Hackborn seemed quite down on the whole "PalmLinux as Saviour" idea only a year ago. And please note that PalmLinux is hoped to be comprised of most of the salvaged parts of Cobalt grafted onto a Linux kernel. Can't wait to see how much of the reclaimed code was worth recycling, if that code actually WORKS or if it all gets thrown back into the dumpster in two years. And no one disagrees with DK about who's fault it was to use Cobalt's original kernel. That decision was made before the Bitter Be Refugees descended upon Palm. But there's plenty of blame for the Cobalt Catastrophe to go around. And much of it rests squarely on the (slumped) shoulders of the Holy Be Engineers. I hope we don't read any stories involving any of the HoBeEn plunging from the San Mateo Bridge next week. Move along, folks. Nothing to see. Are you feeling "safe", Marty?
Almost as funny was when you made up the "30 engineers for 1 year" number out of thin air. I bet you don't even realize how much that estimate differs from the monetary estimates you've been tossing around in recent days. I guess we can add "no idea of how much engineers cost or get paid" to "engineers paid overtime" and "Linux gurus are managers" on the growing list of ways in which Skippy has demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of software development process.
More like 300 engineers, Marty. Most of which would need to be outsourced. And since you seem to like numbers so much, try this on for size:
300 x $100,000 = $30,000,000. Now where could PalmSource get an extra $30,000,000? Hmmmmm... I know! They could sell their share of the "Palm" name back to palm0ne... ummmm... I mean Palm.
But please keep ripping on the numbers, Marty. You actually might eventually distract one or two (well... maybe one) people reading this with your attempts to obfuscate. I had such high hopes for you when you started out here a couple weeks ago, Marty. The brash attuitude, the smarmy sarcasm, the insider hints - all suggested you had potential unseen around these parts since the late BubbaSteve. Now we see you're just another flop. The Great Black and White (penguin-colored) Hype. Come back again when you think your little dog and pony (penguin?) routine is ready for the Big Leagues, Marty. We'll be waiting.
More URLs, Skippy. You are the source of much humor.
If only I could compete with you as being "the source of much humor", Marty. But you're The Greatest Source Of All Time. Take a look at the Michael Mace interview at "All About Palm". Mace and Hackborn could have used you for some Emergency Apologist Backup in that one. Your boyzz (and grrrls) got shot up bad. Real bad. And poor Mace got his a$$ fired before the thread was even finished. Ironic how PalmSource fired the guy while he's in the middle of trying to defend PalmSource on a new two bit Palm fanboy site... Tragic, but stangely appropriate.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
> most of the salvaged parts of Cobalt grafted onto a Linux
> kernel.
Yup. That, in skippy-talk is precisely right.
> Can't wait to see how much of the reclaimed code was worth
> recycling, if that code actually WORKS or if it all gets
> thrown back into the dumpster in two years.
Ah, Skippy, there you go again. To be thrown _back_ in the dumpster, it would have been thrown in before.
> I hope we don't read any stories involving any of the HoBeEn
> plunging from the San Mateo Bridge next week.
Jeez, Skippy, now geography? Nobody jumps off the San Mateo bridge, Skippy. They jump off the Golden Gate or the Oakland bridge.
>> Almost as funny was when you made up the "30 engineers for 1
>> year" number out of thin air. I bet you don't even realize
>> how much that estimate differs from the monetary estimates
>> you've been tossing around in recent days. I guess we can
>> add "no idea of how much engineers cost or get paid"
>> to "engineers paid overtime" and "Linux gurus are managers"
>> on the growing list of ways in which Skippy has demonstrated
>> his complete lack of understanding of software development
>> process.
> More like 300 engineers, Marty. Most of which would need to
> be outsourced. And since you seem to like numbers so much,
> try this on for size:
300? Skippy. A factor of ten increase from your posting a couple back in this very thread. My, my, you are quick to change your tune.
> 300 x $100,000 = $30,000,000. Now where could PalmSource get
> an extra $30,000,000? Hmmmmm... I know! They could sell their
> share of the "Palm" name back to palm0ne... ummmm... I mean
> Palm.
Guess what, Skippy, so's 30 x 1,000,000; 3 x 10,000,000; and so forth. there's a lot of ways to multiply 2 numbers together and get 30m. Er, wait. Skippy, you weren't suggesting that 100,000 is the cost of an engineer for a year, were you? Oooh. Another one to add to the list of Skippy's bad guesses.
> But please keep ripping on the numbers. You actually
> might eventually distract one or two (well... maybe one)
> people reading this with your attempts to obfuscate.
Ah, Skippy. You are _so_ good at unintentional irony. You've generated more window in the past few days than all the bombers Doolittle took to Tokyo.
I repeat myself, but, you make it so easy: More URLs, Skippy. You _are_ the source of much humor.
Or better yet, more breezy pronouncements. They're pretty funny too.
On a slightly more serious note, Skippy (it's hard to take you serious, but I do *try*) You should have taken Hackborn's hint. Everytime you open your mouth on a new aspect of "how to save PalmOS" you betray yet another shocking lack of understanding how the industry works. Stick to whining about what "power users" want. But leave how to get it to them to the professionals.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Just out of interest, what is it?
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
True, but see http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html for lessons learned from that.
By keeping control of PalmOS, Palm/PalmSource are able to direct development precisely and avoid the risk of a competitor in, say China coming along, taking their OS and producing + selling similar devices for 50% of what Palm charges.
It's a risk Nokia seem willing to take. But then they do have a reputation for being at the leading edge with their hardware.
Palm has spent tens of millions developing PalmOS and deserves to profit accordingly from it. Those people unwilling to pay for it
I'll pay for it, I'll buy Palm hardware. If Palm's hardware is good then the chances of a no-name Chinese competitor making big inroads into the US and Europe PDA markets are pretty small. If it's not good then Palm are in trouble no matter what.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
I'll pay for it, I'll buy Palm hardware. If Palm's hardware is good then the chances of a no-name Chinese competitor making big inroads into the US and Europe PDA markets are pretty small. If it's not good then Palm are in trouble no matter what.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Surur
Read this and lose ALL hope for Palm's survival:
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
It's a risk Nokia seem willing to take. But then they do have a reputation for being at the leading edge with their hardware.
Actually, no. Nokia is heding their bets and is keeping parts of their initiatives proreietary. And besides the Treo 600/650, what was the last "leading edge" design Palm has had?
>>>Palm has spent tens of millions developing PalmOS and >>>deserves to profit accordingly from it. Those people unwilling to pay for it
I'll pay for it, I'll buy Palm hardware. If Palm's hardware is good then the chances of a no-name Chinese competitor making big inroads into the US and Europe PDA markets are pretty small. If it's not good then Palm are in trouble no matter what.
You seem to forget that (1)Palm's hardware is grnerally crap and (2)It is pretty much impossible to compete with Chinese firms these days. This is why Palm needs to regain complete control over PalmOS. If Palm is the only manufacturer of PalmOS devices they can get away with selling crap to some degree because - like with the color choices of the Ford Model T - if you don't like it, too bad.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
>>>architecture that makes it very difficult to efficiently
>>>implement the traditional Unix process model?)
Just out of interest, what is it?
Current ARM chips don't support the Unix process model very well, so when running Linux on an ARM chip, the switching between processes is slower than it potentially could be compared to an OS optimized for ARM chips. Unix address-space layout is typically the same for every process. At the same time, there are many more processes than ARM domains
(16). But realistically, given the (limited) number of processes most users would likely be running on a PalmLinux PDA (remember, these aren't workstations running Photoshop and AutoCAD!) the speed of current and upcoming chips would probably easily BRUTE FORCE a solution that would make any potential problems transparent to the typical end user. Elegant? No. But who cares (besides the Holy Be Engineers, Emo kids and Scrote Gropers agonizing over the pursuit of Perfect Code)? It's usually better to just hurry and ship STABLE code on time than it is to sit around wringing your hands over unfinished PERFECT code that ends up never being released. You would think that the Holy Be Engineers would have already learned that lesson the hard way with BeOS...
----------------------------------------------------------------
Can't wait to see PalmSource meet their claimed goal of shipping PalmLinux to licensees by June 2006! Yeah, right.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gassée: "I will be watching you and if I find that you are trying to corrupt my first born child, I will bring you down, baby. I will bring you down to Chinatown."
TVoR, Inc.
Copyright 2005
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
> most of the salvaged parts of Cobalt grafted onto a Linux
> kernel.
Yup. That, in skippy-talk is precisely right.
Too bad it's not as simple as PalmSource would like people to think it is.
> Can't wait to see how much of the reclaimed code was worth
> recycling, if that code actually WORKS or if it all gets
> thrown back into the dumpster in two years.
Ah, Skippy, there you go again. To be thrown _back_ in the dumpster, it would have been thrown in before.
And since Cobalt was already thrown into the dumpster, if PalmLinux also fails, that code WILL be thrown back into the dumpster in two years.
> I hope we don't read any stories involving any of the HoBeEn
> plunging from the San Mateo Bridge next week.
Jeez, Skippy, now geography? Nobody jumps off the San Mateo bridge, Skippy. They jump off the Golden Gate or the Oakland bridge.
Why fight traffic when the San Mateo Bridge is so close to PalmSource HQ? And stage diving off the GGB became so passée during the Dot Bomb years. I have higher expectations for the Drama Queens among the Holy Be Engineers.
>> Almost as funny was when you made up the "30 engineers for 1
>> year" number out of thin air. I bet you don't even realize
>> how much that estimate differs from the monetary estimates
>> you've been tossing around in recent days. I guess we can
>> add "no idea of how much engineers cost or get paid"
>> to "engineers paid overtime" and "Linux gurus are managers"
>> on the growing list of ways in which Skippy has demonstrated
>> his complete lack of understanding of software development
>> process.
> More like 300 engineers, Marty. Most of which would need to
> be outsourced. And since you seem to like numbers so much,
> try this on for size:
300? Skippy. A factor of ten increase from your posting a couple back in this very thread. My, my, you are quick to change your tune.
"30" was an obvious typo, Marty. 30 PalmSource engineers couldn't fix the PalmLinux GUI much less the entire OS. But like I said: keep trying to obfuscate. Eventually, you might manage to convince ONE person that you're not the clumsiest of PalmSource's cabal of Astroturfers.
> 300 x $100,000 = $30,000,000. Now where could PalmSource get
> an extra $30,000,000? Hmmmmm... I know! They could sell their
> share of the "Palm" name back to palm0ne... ummmm... I mean
> Palm.
Guess what, Skippy, so's 30 x 1,000,000; 3 x 10,000,000; and so forth. there's a lot of ways to multiply 2 numbers together and get 30m. Er, wait. Skippy, you weren't suggesting that 100,000 is the cost of an engineer for a year, were you? Oooh. Another one to add to the list of Skippy's bad guesses.
Bad guess? I doubt it, Marty. How much do you think codemonkeys get paid these days? PalmSource sure doesn't seem to be getting their money's worth from you based on your posts here over the past couple of weeks...
> But please keep ripping on the numbers. You actually
> might eventually distract one or two (well... maybe one)
> people reading this with your attempts to obfuscate.
Ah, Skippy. You are _so_ good at unintentional irony. You've generated more window in the past few days than all the bombers Doolittle took to Tokyo.
I repeat myself, but, you make it so easy: More URLs, Skippy. You _are_ the source of much humor.
Or better yet, more breezy pronouncements. They're pretty funny too.
Dance for us some more, Marty:
http://www.allaboutpalm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44&page=9&pp=10
On a slightly more serious note, Skippy (it's hard to take you serious, but I do *try*) You should have taken Hackborn's hint. Everytime you open your mouth on a new aspect of "how to save PalmOS" you betray yet another shocking lack of understanding how the industry works. Stick to whining about what "power users" want. But leave how to get it to them to the professionals.
Leave it "to the professionals"??? That line was PURE GOLD, Marty. Possibly your best yet. Those so-called "professionals" have taken a brilliant OS, enthusiastic user and developer communities, obscene profitability, shocking IPO jackpots and overwhelming market dominance and flushed them all down the toilet. These "professionals" couldn't have butchered the PalmOS platform any more savagely if they had tried. (And sometimes I wonder if there actually is a Fifth Column at work at Palm/PalmSource...) By the way, Marty, that patronizing Zen of Palm/Palm knows best/"You don't need color screens, expansion, multimedia, multitasking, Wi-Fi, file handling, value for your money, reliability, decent build quality, fill in the blank B.S. is PRECISELY why Palm is moribund. It's ironic that you and the other imbeciles at Palm/PalmSource still don't "get it". The SD card toasting Tungsten 3. The Data "Mangler". The "Hungarian m505". The Tungsten 5 NVFS disaster. The paint-peeling Zire 71. The 23 MB useable RAM in the Treo 650. The El Cheapo, "too clever for our oun good", Rube Goldberg-style memory architecture in the Lifedrive. The "Find" bug. The self-destructing Tungsten E. The Dreaded Digitizer Drift (D³) Syndrome in the Tungsten Ts... In some ways, I hope Palm continues its protracted hari-kiri routine - it's as morbidly fascinating as a train wreck or a fire in a high rise. Your demise is as riveting as it is tragic. We cannot look away. Entertain us some more, Marty.
Your turn.
TVoR, Inc.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
>> bridge, Skippy. They jump off the Golden Gate or the Oakland
>> bridge.
> Why fight traffic when the San Mateo Bridge is so close to
> PalmSource HQ?
Skippy, skippy, skippy. what _are_ we going to do with you. If you want a bridge because it's close to PalmSource, you don't pick the San Mateo either. Dumbarton's closer. Stick to 'power use' skippy; geography's not your strong suit either.
>> Er, wait. Skippy, you weren't suggesting that 100,000 is the
>> cost of an engineer for a year, were you? Oooh. Another one
>> to add to the list of Skippy's bad guesses.
> Bad guess? I doubt it.
Well yeah, given that you don't have any idea how much engineers cost, it's not surprising you "doubt it". But you're way off base, again, Skippy.
> How much do you think codemonkeys get paid these days?
Oh, Skippy, more humor. Damn. You don't _really_ think that engineers *cost* a company just what they get paid, do you Skippy? Of course you do. And you think they get paid overtime. No wonder your cost estimates bear so little relationship to reality.
> http://www.allaboutpalm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44&page=9&pp=10
But Skippy, the only thing I see funny there is that you got banned at that site. Surely you can do better than that? You're not suggesting that this whole exchange has been attempt on your part to get banned here, have you Skippy?
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Last I read Chinese and their equivalent software folks get paid on the order of something considerably less than that - for some reason I remember $1000/month but I can't cite anything to back that up. Overhead costs, too, are considerably less than that.
But...uh...is any of this relevant at all to the fact that PALM is developing devices that do not contain PSRC OS products and MAY be THINKING about developing devices that may contain an OS either from PSRC or in competition with PSRC OS products?
[personally, I have to wonder about the cost-effectiveness of using PSRC OS products in future PALM devices given that PALM (actually HAND before them) considerably "personalized" the PSRC product anyway]
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
True and many of the PalmSource people are reportedly on the lower end of the scale. Marty seems reluctant to admit this publicly, ergo the fit of petulance we just witnessed...
Last I read Chinese and their equivalent software folks get paid on the order of something considerably less than that - for some reason I remember $1000/month but I can't cite anything to back that up. Overhead costs, too, are considerably less than that.
And doesn't the China MobileSoft division make up around 20% of PalmSource? Yoda says: Chinese codemonkeys a lean company make.
But...uh...is any of this relevant at all to the fact that PALM is developing devices that do not contain PSRC OS products and MAY be THINKING about developing devices that may contain an OS either from PSRC or in competition with PSRC OS products?
[personally, I have to wonder about the cost-effectiveness of using PSRC OS products in future PALM devices given that PALM (actually HAND before them) considerably "personalized" the PSRC product anyway]
The Windows Mobile Treos will be milked to keep Palm alive long enough for PalmLinux to be introduced. I predict Palm will soon announce it is purchasing PalmSource and dropping all other licensees. Circle the wagons, Martha. Microsoft's a-comin'.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
True and many of the PalmSource people are reportedly on the lower end of the scale. Marty seems reluctant to admit this publicly, ergo the fit of petulance we just witnessed...
Last I read Chinese and their equivalent software folks get paid on the order of something considerably less than that - for some reason I remember $1000/month but I can't cite anything to back that up. Overhead costs, too, are considerably less than that.
And doesn't the China MobileSoft division make up around 20% of PalmSource? Yoda says: Chinese codemonkeys a lean company make.
But...uh...is any of this relevant at all to the fact that PALM is developing devices that do not contain PSRC OS products and MAY be THINKING about developing devices that may contain an OS either from PSRC or in competition with PSRC OS products?
[personally, I have to wonder about the cost-effectiveness of using PSRC OS products in future PALM devices given that PALM (actually HAND before them) considerably "personalized" the PSRC product anyway]
The Windows Mobile Treos will be milked to keep Palm alive long enough for PalmLinux to be introduced. I predict Palm will soon announce it is purchasing PalmSource and dropping all other licensees. Circle the wagons, Martha. Microsoft's a-comin'.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Marty: you seem to be fading, Buddy. Call for help. MEDIC!!!
>> bridge, Skippy. They jump off the Golden Gate or the Oakland
>> bridge.
> Why fight traffic when the San Mateo Bridge is so close to
> PalmSource HQ?
Skippy, skippy, skippy. what _are_ we going to do with you. If you want a bridge because it's close to PalmSource, you don't pick the San Mateo either. Dumbarton's closer. Stick to 'power use' skippy; geography's not your strong suit either.
The Dumbarton Bridge is far too short and there wouldn't be as many witnesses to the spectacle of Holy Be Engineers swan diving to their doom. The San Mateo Bridge has much better production value. We'll keep your suggestion in mind as a back up location though, Marty. Thanks for contributing.
>> Er, wait. Skippy, you weren't suggesting that 100,000 is the
>> cost of an engineer for a year, were you? Oooh. Another one
>> to add to the list of Skippy's bad guesses.
> Bad guess? I doubt it.
Well yeah, given that you don't have any idea how much engineers cost, it's not surprising you "doubt it". But you're way off base, again, Skippy.
Try again, Marty.
> How much do you think codemonkeys get paid these days?
Oh, Skippy, more humor. Damn. You don't _really_ think that engineers *cost* a company just what they get paid, do you Skippy? Of course you do. And you think they get paid overtime. No wonder your cost estimates bear so little relationship to reality.
Besides the basic codemonkey salary there's also the cost of bananas, cleaning their cages, cleaning up money feces thrown onto walls, cattleprods (to keep the Bitter Be Babies under control), Marlin Perkins fanclub memberships, benefits, veterinary care, etc, etc. The sundry costs might double overall costs - assuming the codemonkeys don't throw too much feces...
> http://www.allaboutpalm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44&page=9&pp=10
But Skippy, the only thing I see funny there is that you got banned at that site. Surely you can do better than that? You're not suggesting that this whole exchange has been attempt on your part to get banned here, have you Skippy?
Sorry, but people don't (usually) get banned for speaking the truth at Palminfocenter, Marty.
I feel your pain, Buddy.
TVoR, Inc.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
You forgot to add "thounsands of colors" on the m130 and the non-backlit Zires to that list!
Oh, and last and CERTAINLY least: GRAFFITI 2!
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Palm had no choice in the G2 matter. Including it would expose them to even more risk if (when) Xerox appeals the G2 lawsuit.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Sombody call 911. I'll go check if Marty's still breathing..
Marty Fouts.
R.I.P.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Marty?
Marrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrty!
Come back, Buddy. The Cats miss their Ball of String.
;-O
TVoR, Inc.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Great points and great examples.
Yet, Palm has had so many great products too. The Palm V was their best ever in my opinion. The M515 was pretty good for it's day. The Zire 71 and 72 are fair camera models. The T3 was OK, if pointlessly odd. But, through most of that they had such wonderful competition from Sony. My stellar NR70V. The culminate TH55. All Palm needed to do was add a few basics to the OS and keep the hardware up to date and delivered working. Alas.
It is not the competition. It is Palm and Sony themselves who cut their own throats. Their PDAs simply don't offer good value or good enough advance in features to justify their purchase. People's interest peaked and has leveled out to a stagnant level because they don't see the value in them. They got more and more difficult to operate successfully. My Clie never ever mis-synced. My Zire 72 needs rebooting to get it to sync most of the time. I am not spending $300-500 for this. I may keep updating for the <$200 I spent on my Zire 71 ($118) or my Zire 72 ($179), but I am not going to spend the $489 I did on my NR70V unless I see a model that offers absolutely perfect features and near flawless operation. I don't see that in any LifeDrive, T5 or such.
This is Palm's fault and no one elses. The specs for the T5 were all over this board two-three years ago. The competition delivered them. By the time Palm finally offers this simple configuration they had ruined the OS with all the stupid updates and now an utterly rediculous $200 price premium over the TE that offers practically nothing that a 256MB SD card would do and do much better (eg, without a 2 minute reset time. I am sorry, I simply can't use anything that has a 2 minute reset time unless it needs resetting less than my NR did. The T5 user will spend more time rebooting that anything else he does with his PDA. Who needs that?)
Alas poor Palm. We knew him Horatio.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
That was so funny on SO many levels, it's almost profound. In two sentences, Marty has shown us why there is a good chance Palm/PalmOS will never recover from the damage inflicted upon it by incompetent Palm/PalmSource employees.
Strange how Marty hasn't come back to post more nonsense to this thread. I wonder if someone at PalmSource finally ordered him to S T F U? Looks like Marty has left the building...
TVoR, Inc.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Sorry Skippy, but you haven't said anything else worth responding to. Your story doesn't add up, no matter how you spin it, and you've demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the software development process.
PalmSource doesn't run out of money before mid '07, even if they spend the extra $30 million and otherwise burn at the $6 million / month rate you asserted. 300 programmers is far too many for the job you claim should be done. $100k/year is 2.5 times too small as a costing number for a programmer. The PalmSource licenses don't become void, they become extended if PalmSource gets bought out. Nobody bought PalmSource last week. The Linux part of PalmLinux is running just fine, and available in open source.
Skippy, with all the things you've gotten wrong in the past couple of weeks, you're not worth responding to.
Throwing tantrums, and spreading libel only makes you less so.
FOUTS = FUD, Obfuscation, Untruths, Trickery, Subterfuge?
Keep trying to obfuscate, Marty. And The 2004-05 burn rate of $5 or 6 million/month was the minimum PalmSource could be spending just to keep the lights on, Old Buddy. If they want to have PalmLinux finished by the mid-2006 date Michael Mace claimed they were aiming for, I have said this would be impossible without a significant increase in spending. For some reason you can't seem to recall THIS post I made
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110994
Now since you like numbers so much, try these on for size:
(Confounding variables like unknown losses or gains from its Chinese startup, China MobileSoft, potential losses from lawsuits, etc are excluded. All numbers are approximate - for specifics, see SEC filings + other info referenced in other threads.)
PLUS:
+ $100 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments. Of course, one would assume not all of PalmSource's assets can quickly liquidated, but that's another story...
[http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html]
+ $50 million in license fees (likely a reasonable estimate, since Palm will pay $42.5 million in 2006 and accounts for around 90 - 95% of PalmSource's business)
[http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108070
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html
"The minimum annual royalty commitments for the contract years ending December 3, 2005 and 2006 remain unchanged from the Prior Agreement at $41.0 million and $42.5 million, respectively. The minimum annual royalty commitments under the extended term of the SARSLA for the contract years ending December 3, 2007, 2008 and 2009 are $35 million, $20 million and $10 million, respectively, subject to the Company meeting certain development milestones."]
MINUS
- $75 million (repeating their spending level of 2004-05 when PalmSource was just treading water attempting to avoid drowning).
- $??? million to ramp up development in a concerted effort to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers (a mix of Linux experts ["gurus"], codemonkeys, hiring/licensing programmers/programs that are best of breed (CESD - DateBk5, Mike Waldron - BackupMan + FileMan, TealPoint - TealLock, Picard - TCPMP, re-hiring Gavin Maxwell, etc.) might allow PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Much of this would need to be outsourced/licensed, but when you're desperate and the players you've got on your team show repeatedly that they don't have what it takes to get the job done, it's time for a new plan and some fresh blood. So let's use that figure of 300 extra engineers to start from. (The actual number would likely actually be a lot less, since licensing/purchasing apps like TealLock, etc would likely cost PalmSource a lot more than the annual salary of a codemonkey.) But to keep it simple for Marty, here are some nice round numbers: 300 new engineers x $100,000/year = $30,000,000. Now rumor has it that a "rule of thumb in the valley is that engineers cost a company 2.5 times their base salary". Let's see now... $30,000,000 x 2.5 = $75,000,000.
- $75 million
So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50 million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by mid - late 2006. As in a BIG,FAT ZERO! As in nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Of course, this is all assuming that PalmSource has recognized how little time it has left to deliver a viable next-generation platform and has increased the spending to a level likely necessary to achieve that (mid!) 2006 deadline for PalmLinux's arrival.
Hurry up and get back to work, Marty. Time's running out for you and the codemonkeys. ("Marty & The Codemonkeys" - sounds like a band from the 60s...)
The PalmSource licenses don't become void, they become extended if PalmSource gets bought out.
If PalmSource gets bought, licencees are hung out to dry. As we will soon see. As you know all too well.
Nobody bought PalmSource last week.
True. But how much longer will we be able to say that?
The Linux part of PalmLinux is running just fine, and available in open source.
Again, Marty, the Linux part of PalmLinux is NOT the problem. Unfortunately, everything else is the problem. The HUGE problem. "Let me slow this down far enough [that] even [Marty] can follow it": if you're building a skyscraper and have finished the foundation and some of the framework would you feel your work is almost done?
Keep trying to obfuscate, Mr. Fouts.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
FOUTS = FUD, Obfuscation, Untruths, Trickery, Subterfuge?
Keep trying to obfuscate, Marty. And The 2004-05 burn rate of $5 or 6 million/month was the minimum PalmSource could be spending just to keep the lights on, Old Buddy. If they want to have PalmLinux finished by the mid-2006 date Michael Mace claimed they were aiming for, I have said this would be impossible without a significant increase in spending. For some reason you can't seem to recall THIS post I made:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110994
Now since you like numbers so much, try these on for size:
(Confounding variables like unknown losses or gains from its Chinese startup, China MobileSoft, potential losses from lawsuits, etc are excluded. All numbers are approximate - for specifics, see SEC filings + other info referenced in other threads.)
PLUS:
+ $100 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments. Of course, one would assume not all of PalmSource's assets can quickly liquidated, but that's another story...
[http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html]
+ $50 million in license fees (likely a reasonable estimate, since Palm will pay $42.5 million in 2006 and accounts for around 90 - 95% of PalmSource's business)
[http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108070
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html
"The minimum annual royalty commitments for the contract years ending December 3, 2005 and 2006 remain unchanged from the Prior Agreement at $41.0 million and $42.5 million, respectively. The minimum annual royalty commitments under the extended term of the SARSLA for the contract years ending December 3, 2007, 2008 and 2009 are $35 million, $20 million and $10 million, respectively, subject to the Company meeting certain development milestones."]
MINUS
- $75 million (repeating their spending level of 2004-05 when PalmSource was just treading water attempting to avoid drowning).
- $??? million to ramp up development in a concerted effort to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers (a mix of Linux experts ["gurus"], codemonkeys, hiring/licensing programmers/programs that are best of breed (CESD - DateBk5, Mike Waldron - BackupMan + FileMan, TealPoint - TealLock, Picard - TCPMP, re-hiring Gavin Maxwell, etc.) might allow PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Much of this would need to be outsourced/licensed, but when you're desperate and the players you've got on your team show repeatedly that they don't have what it takes to get the job done, it's time for a new plan and some fresh blood. So let's use that figure of 300 extra engineers to start from. (The actual number would likely actually be a lot less, since licensing/purchasing apps like TealLock, etc would likely cost PalmSource a lot more than the annual salary of a codemonkey.) But to keep it simple for Marty, here are some nice round numbers: 300 new engineers x $100,000/year = $30,000,000. Now rumor has it that a "rule of thumb in the valley is that engineers cost a company 2.5 times their base salary". Let's see now... $30,000,000 x 2.5 = $75,000,000.
- $75 million
So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50 million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by mid - late 2006. As in a BIG,FAT ZERO! As in nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Of course, this is all assuming that PalmSource has recognized how little time it has left to deliver a viable next-generation platform and has increased the spending to a level likely necessary to achieve that (mid!) 2006 deadline for PalmLinux's arrival.
Hurry up and get back to work, Marty. Time's running out for you and the codemonkeys. ("Marty & The Codemonkeys" - sounds like a band from the 60s...)
The PalmSource licenses don't become void, they become extended if PalmSource gets bought out.
If PalmSource gets bought, licencees are hung out to dry. As we will soon see. As you know all too well.
Nobody bought PalmSource last week.
True. But how much longer will we be able to say that?
The Linux part of PalmLinux is running just fine, and available in open source.
Again, Marty, the Linux part of PalmLinux is NOT the problem. Unfortunately, everything else is the problem. The HUGE problem. "Let me slow this down far enough [that] even [Marty] can follow it": if you're building a skyscraper and have finished the foundation and some of the framework would you feel your work is almost done?
Keep trying to obfuscate, Mr. Fouts.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
Correction of TVoR's 1337 HTML sk1llZ:
Again, Marty, the Linux part of PalmLinux is NOT the problem. Unfortunately, everything else is the problem. The HUGE problem. "Let me slow this down far enough [that] even [Marty] can follow it": if you're building a skyscraper and have finished the foundation and some of the framework would you feel your work is almost done?
Keep trying to obfuscate, Mr. Fouts.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
I've answered his random number generator, er, i mean, math, once already, I won't bore people by repeating the answer to each time he posts.
Let's just say it's hillarious to see Skippy repeat the very numbers he claimed I was a liar for attributing to him and then correct one of them (without admiting the correction) using a factor I supplied him but that he previously adamantly denied was wrong. (Poor Skippy, claiming so hard that engineers cost $100k rather than 2.5 times that.)
Ah well, he's stopped calling me a liar for accurately quoting him and now is merely claiming that my accurate quotations are 'obfuscations.' For Skippy, that's a major improvement.
I wonder how he'll suddenly change his 'all licenses are VOIDED' claim so that it matches the 'licenses are EXTENDED' reality of the Palm license. I'm sure that will be be very amusing to see.
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
Ummmmm... Marty, I used your numbers only so you would not claim they were arrived at incorrectly and to illustrate that the ultimate result (PalmSource BANKRUPTCY) is unavoidable if PalmSource continues on its own. No doubt you will deny ANY numbers anyone posts (even PalmSource's CFO would be wrong in your "special" world) right up until the day PalmSource went bankrupt. That's what makes you so similar to the Iraqi INFORMATION Minister: continued denial despite overwhelming evidence (and common sense) refuting your claims. As I said before, the extra $75 million that would be needed to complete PalmLinux would not just simplistically be derived from "300" new engineers hired/contracted. Part of that money would be set aside to pay for licensing stable apps/code already on the market. But as was the case with "Comical Ali", your repeated, tragic denials of reality are neither fooling anyone watching events unfold nor are they going to alter the inescapable conclusion of the disaster PalmSource finds itself in.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
> they were arrived at incorrectly
Ah, Skippy, you're so funny. First you accuse _me_ of lying. Then you make the above statement. I've answered it in another thread. As we both know, Skippy, you never used my numbers, except 1.
For those who don't want to read long dissections of Skippy's spin, I'll summarize: The only one of my numbers that Skippy's using is the 2.5 correction factor for cost of burdened engineers. I'm not the source of _any_ of the other numbers Skippy's using. Ironically, I've only supplied *2* numbers in this debate, and Skippy adamantly refuses to use the other (30 engineers instead of 300) because his argument falls apart if he does.
> No doubt you will deny ANY numbers anyone posts (even
> PalmSource's CFO would be wrong in your "special" world)
> right up until the day PalmSource went bankrupt.
Gee, Skippy, are you getting that desperate? Have you forgotten that I've already said when I think PalmSource would go bankrupt if they failed to deliver?
Skippy doesn't want to use the numbers that go with that, because they evaporate his "Palm buys PalmSource soon" theory.
Poor Skippy
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
"(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?)"
Sam H:
"Just out of interest, what is it?"
TVoR didn't actually answer this question, but just restated (a little incorrectly) some of the repercussions I had mentioned elsewhere, so this seems like a good opportunity to wade into this cesspool with the one post per thread that I am allowing myself these days. :)
The key attribute of current ARM CPUs is that they use a virtually tagged cache. Wikipedia has a great article on the topic of CPU caches if you don't know what this means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache#Address_translation
As far as how this impacts Linux, TVoR kind-of restated me correctly. Basically there are two ways you can manage the overall memory in an OS: either as a flat memory space, or a virtual memory space. In the Cobalt kernel, we us a flat memory space, meaning that once some physical memory is mapped to an address, it will appear at that same address in all processes.
Linux, in contrast, and like most desktop operating systems, uses a virtual address space. This means that the address 0x1000 in one process may be mapped to the address 0x2000 in another process, and in that second process its address 0x1000 may reference an entirely different piece of physical memory. Basically every process can organize its memory however it wants.
If your hardware uses physical tagging, then you are really best off using a virtual address space, because it gives you a lot of benefits: much more flexibility in how you manage memory, less chances of failing when a process wants to map a large contiguous chunk of memory into its process (mmap() being a prime example), etc.
However, if the hardware does virtual tagging and the OS uses a virtual memory space, then you take a big performance hit whenever you need to switch execution between two different processes. At that point, you have to flush out the entire contents of all your CPU caches, because their current contents are not valid for the new process. I think we are expecting context switches between processes on Linux to be about 10x slower than they are on the Cobalt kernel, for largely this reason.
For what it's worth, this discussion applies only to ARM 9 CPUs. The new ARM 11 CPUs will use physically tagged caches. However, it is still a year or two until they will appear on any devices. It is also my impression is that in the mobile space it takes a -lot- longer for newer CPUs to permeate the market than this kind of thing takes in the desktop world, so we will need to deal with ARM 9 CPUs for a long time. Though who knows -- the ARM 9 CPUs would be for lower-end products, but ARM 11 CPUs will probably run Linux significantly better. It will depend on the price and power consumption differences between them I guess.
Note that this Linux vs. Cobalt overhead has little to do with the domain register that TVoR mentions. That is a feature available on ARM to optimize context switches. It lets you just change the contents of that 32-bit register, instead of swapping the page table. The Cobalt kernel does use this feature to further optimize its context switches, but that's not nearly as much of a performance impact as a flat vs. virtual memory space.
(As an aside, the very simple use of that domain register is the main reason for Cobalt's limit of the number of processes and shared memory areas available. The current Cobalt kernel we have in-house has been made a little more complicated/sophisticated about how it uses the domain register, lifting those restrictions. The move to Linux happened at about the same time this feature was finishes, however, so I doubt many of the higher-level facilities like the application manager will be updated to make use of it on that branch of the platform.)
Finally, the obligatory correction of TVoR's fantasy world: the Cobalt kernel was not designed by Be engineers. (My original comment on this was even quoted in this thread -- Cobalt does not use the Be kernel, it uses the one that was being developed in-house by Palm; and in fact the Be kernel was significantly more similar to Linux that to the Cobalt kernel.) So it's pretty bizarre to rant about the coding habits of Be engineers over this.
If the Be kernel engineers had been told they got to pick whichever kernel they wanted, it's a pretty safe bet they would have picked their existing production-quality BeOS kernel since that is the one they were most familiar with (and thus could most quickly get it running acceptably on ARM with all of the required software on top of it). And as it turns out it would have been much easier to port the higher-level PalmOS code from the BeOS kernel to Linux than it is today from the Cobalt kernel, since the BeOS kernel is so much more similar to Linux.
At any rate, on a personal level I am quite happy to be moving over to Linux. It is much more similar to other kernels I am familiar with (such as BeOS) and certainly much more functional than the Cobalt kernel. For example, it is really nice to be able to telnet onto a device, NFS mount your built binaries from your desktop machine onto that device, and then run them as if they are local. :)
Overall from a technical perspective Linux is a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages compared to the Cobalt kernel, so I don't think it would make much sense, based only on technical issues, to be putting the effort into making this switch. But from a sales and marketing perspective, I am pretty convinced at this point that it is the right thing to do. As are others higher up in the company, and so we in engineering are doing it.
--
Dianne
PalmSource Software Frameworks Engineer
RE: What Palm MUST do in order to survive... and thrive
"(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?)"
Sam H:
"Just out of interest, what is it?"
TVoR didn't actually answer this question, but just restated (a little incorrectly) some of the repercussions I had mentioned elsewhere, so this seems like a good opportunity to wade into this cesspool with the one post per thread that I am allowing myself these days. :)
Wow, DK. That was a tad harsh. "a little incorrectly"? "cesspool"? W T F? I love it when that typical Be Bopper arrogance comes shining through as usual...
The key attribute of current ARM CPUs is that they use a virtually tagged cache. Wikipedia has a great article on the topic of CPU caches if you don't know what this means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache#Address_translation
As far as how this impacts Linux, TVoR kind-of restated me correctly. Basically there are two ways you can manage the overall memory in an OS: either as a flat memory space, or a virtual memory space. In the Cobalt kernel, we us a flat memory space, meaning that once some physical memory is mapped to an address, it will appear at that same address in all processes.
"TVoR kind-of restated me correctly"? Wow. Keep it up, Kiddo. You'll go far.
Linux, in contrast, and like most desktop operating systems, uses a virtual address space. This means that the address 0x1000 in one process may be mapped to the address 0x2000 in another process, and in that second process its address 0x1000 may reference an entirely different piece of physical memory. Basically every process can organize its memory however it wants.
If your hardware uses physical tagging, then you are really best off using a virtual address space, because it gives you a lot of benefits: much more flexibility in how you manage memory, less chances of failing when a process wants to map a large contiguous chunk of memory into its process (mmap() being a prime example), etc.
However, if the hardware does virtual tagging and the OS uses a virtual memory space, then you take a big performance hit whenever you need to switch execution between two different processes. At that point, you have to flush out the entire contents of all your CPU caches, because their current contents are not valid for the new process. I think we are expecting context switches between processes on Linux to be about 10x slower than they are on the Cobalt kernel, for largely this reason.
For what it's worth, this discussion applies only to ARM 9 CPUs. The new ARM 11 CPUs will use physically tagged caches. However, it is still a year or two until they will appear on any devices. It is also my impression is that in the mobile space it takes a -lot- longer for newer CPUs to permeate the market than this kind of thing takes in the desktop world, so we will need to deal with ARM 9 CPUs for a long time. Though who knows -- the ARM 9 CPUs would be for lower-end products, but ARM 11 CPUs will probably run Linux significantly better. It will depend on the price and power consumption differences between them I guess.
Note that this Linux vs. Cobalt overhead has little to do with the domain register that TVoR mentions. That is a feature available on ARM to optimize context switches. It lets you just change the contents of that 32-bit register, instead of swapping the page table. The Cobalt kernel does use this feature to further optimize its context switches, but that's not nearly as much of a performance impact as a flat vs. virtual memory space.
(As an aside, the very simple use of that domain register is the main reason for Cobalt's limit of the number of processes and shared memory areas available. The current Cobalt kernel we have in-house has been made a little more complicated/sophisticated about how it uses the domain register, lifting those restrictions. The move to Linux happened at about the same time this feature was finishes, however, so I doubt many of the higher-level facilities like the application manager will be updated to make use of it on that branch of the platform.)
Sorry to cut through the razzle dazzle, but the FACTS are that a Linux kernel makes for a far more robust, stable, flexible OS than the Cobalt kernel and that any speed differences will be imperceptible in normal operation. Furthermore the Linux kernel lowers the cost and speed of OS development + maintenance. Any way you slice it, Cobalt's liabilities hung like a bloated albatross around PalmSource's neck.
Finally, the obligatory correction of TVoR's fantasy world: the Cobalt kernel was not designed by Be engineers. (My original comment on this was even quoted in this thread -- Cobalt does not use the Be kernel, it uses the one that was being developed in-house by Palm; and in fact the Be kernel was significantly more similar to Linux that to the Cobalt kernel.) So it's pretty bizarre to rant about the coding habits of Be engineers over this.
I have NEVER claimed the Holy Be Engineers were the ones who chose the Cobalt kernel, Ms. Hackborn. That fantasy belongs to you alone and I refuse to take part in your kinky little folie a deux.
If the Be kernel engineers had been told they got to pick whichever kernel they wanted, it's a pretty safe bet they would have picked their existing production-quality BeOS kernel since that is the one they were most familiar with (and thus could most quickly get it running acceptably on ARM with all of the required software on top of it). And as it turns out it would have been much easier to port the higher-level PalmOS code from the BeOS kernel to Linux than it is today from the Cobalt kernel, since the BeOS kernel is so much more similar to Linux.
At any rate, on a personal level I am quite happy to be moving over to Linux. It is much more similar to other kernels I am familiar with (such as BeOS) and certainly much more functional than the Cobalt kernel. For example, it is really nice to be able to telnet onto a device, NFS mount your built binaries from your desktop machine onto that device, and then run them as if they are local. :)
Overall from a technical perspective Linux is a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages compared to the Cobalt kernel, so I don't think it would make much sense, based only on technical issues, to be putting the effort into making this switch. But from a sales and marketing perspective, I am pretty convinced at this point that it is the right thing to do. As are others higher up in the company, and so we in engineering are doing it.
Do you REALLY believe that Cobalt's kernel is as good a choice as Linux, DK? Wow.
TVoR
--
Dianne
PalmSource Software Frameworks Engineer
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
PalmSource sold, but to the WRONG buyer
> they were arrived at incorrectly
Ah, Skippy, you're so funny. First you accuse _me_ of lying. Then you make the above statement. I've answered it in another thread. As we both know, Skippy, you never used my numbers, except 1.
For those who don't want to read long dissections of Skippy's spin, I'll summarize: The only one of my numbers that Skippy's using is the 2.5 correction factor for cost of burdened engineers. I'm not the source of _any_ of the other numbers Skippy's using. Ironically, I've only supplied *2* numbers in this debate, and Skippy adamantly refuses to use the other (30 engineers instead of 300) because his argument falls apart if he does.
> No doubt you will deny ANY numbers anyone posts (even
> PalmSource's CFO would be wrong in your "special" world)
> right up until the day PalmSource went bankrupt.
Gee, Skippy, are you getting that desperate? Have you forgotten that I've already said when I think PalmSource would go bankrupt if they failed to deliver?
Skippy doesn't want to use the numbers that go with that, because they evaporate his "Palm buys PalmSource soon" theory.
Poor Skippy
Marty, once the dust has settled from the buyout, the facts will be revealed, exposing you as a FRAUD.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
Re: PalmSource sold, but to the WRONG buyer
"Dang it. After I stuck my neck out way too far in predicting that Palm would buy out PalmSource and complete my elaborate conspiracy theory, Access comes along and screws the whole thing up. Jerks!" LOL
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
shouldn't it be "Linux for Palm OS"?
"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake? Anyone can make an error, but that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
-Grand Admiral Thrawn
the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 4 of 6 screws still remaining) ~?~> zodiac 2?
RE: shouldn't it be
"PalmOS will become a middleware layer and application stack that should run on most any Linux kernel."
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9662371461.html
So yes, its POS which is being changed, with the implications for software compatibility which this implies.
Surur
When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Suckers.
Naughty, Palm! NAUGHTY! These Palm guys are definitely some BADA$$ executives...
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
"All your licenses are belong to us!"
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
where did u find out this info? any links?
mobileministrymagazine.blogspot.com
antoinerjwright.com
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
where did u find out this info? any links?
I'm curious too.
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
In general, you can do a textual search for "termina" or maybe "license", etc. Then quickly scan neighboring context to see if it is relevant - if not, Find Again.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Most of PalmSource's recent SEC filings, including the 10ks are there.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
[and I wish we could edit already-posted replies!]
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> entire contract is in the latest 8K/A (Amended 8K). Reading
> that the appropriate termination clause is 2.10b.
Actually, 2.10(c) says that the licensee are _guarenteed_ by PalmSource that they may continue to license for at least two years after PalmSource is bought by another company. In other words, and not surprisingly, PalmSource's license, at least with Palm, says the _opposite_ of what Skippy thought it did.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
2.10 (c) Other Acquisition of PalmSource. (ii) If a Hardware Competitor of Licensee acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by such Competitor of Licensee (as defined in subsection (b) above), then (1) the obligation to pay the Minimum Annual Payments set forth in Section II (A)(1) of Exhibit D (Licensee Products, Royalties and Fees) shall cease to apply, and (2) the term of this Agreement shall be automatically extended for an additional two (2) Contract Years and the Royalty rates during the term of such extension shall be equal to the Royalty rates for the eighth Contract Year. For purposes of this Section 2.10(c) only, a “Hardware Competitor of Licensee” means a company whose principle business is one of the following: 1) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of personal digital assistants or PDAs (also known as handheld computers or palmtops); 2) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile computing products, specifically laptop, notebook, or sub-notebook computers; 3) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile telephone devices which combine the features of a mobile phone with those of a PDA; or 4) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of two-way text messaging devices.
9.6 Customer Technology Briefings. During the term of this Agreement, Licensee and PalmSource will meet at least once per calendar quarter to discuss technology roadmaps, product development updates, and to identify and explore additional technologies and products that the parties may, by mutual written agreement of both PalmSource and Licensee, add to this Agreement. PalmSource will use reasonable efforts to make such meetings available to Licensee not materially later than similar customer briefings with other licensees of similar strategic importance. The foregoing sentence shall not apply to meetings or the exchange of information as part of any joint development arrangement or other relationship which extends beyond the scope of a standard customer briefing.
Summary
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL something are VOIDED!
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
What this whole thing says is if PSRC gets bought PALM gets really really cheap licenses for another couple years if they want them but they don;t have to buy anything if they don;t want to.
So the Subject is still sorta validly stated.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I'm not a lawyer; I'm tired of adding posts rather than editting previous ones; I'm done with this thread!
Now THAT'S entertainment!
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, PALM's license is EXTENDED!
Well, if by "sorta" you mean "if we rewrite the subject to substitute "EXTENDED" for "VOIDED"" then sure, it's 'sorta' validly stated.
But in fact, the only thing the Palm license shows is what happens to Palm. Other licenses may be worded similarly, or they may not. So to turn "sorta validly" into "validly", the subject would have to be "If PalmSource gets bought PALM's license is EXTENDED"
Pour Skippy, confused again.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Repeated for those who are hard of understanding
Summary: If Palm buys PalmSource then all the other licensees' licenses are guaranteed for two years, but the Customer Technology Briefings terminate, effectively bringing them to a dead end.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Surur
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are ADJUSTED!
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> support, and would not been privy to new OS roadmaps? They
> would basically be phased out?
Not _other_ licensees. Palm. If PalmSource gets bought by anyone else. And there's no language that says they'd get phased out. The termination clause ONLY applies if PalmSource gets bought by _Microsoft_. The rest of the language guarentees licensees at least 2 years MORE licensing.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> He's in danger of disappearing from the "last 30 comments"
> list.
and there he went. Poor skippy.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
"He"?
;-O
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
Are we having fun now, Marty? Wheeeeeeeee!!!
http://ccbn.10kwizard.com/download.php?type=PDF&ipage=3635056
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
Now are we starting to see how clever Palm is? Like I said before, these are some BADA$$ executives!
Read it all for yourself, folks and draw your own conclusions about what has been released so far. Gotta love these nuggets:
- The "poison pill" in case of a Microsoft buyout (giving Palm the option to extend its rights to PalmOS for mere peanuts in 2010 and 2011 - i.e. at the recently renegotiated 2009 rate of $10 million/year minimum).
This table displays the minimum annual royalty and license commitments in the SARSLA and the Software License Agreement:
SARSLA (in millions )
[Note: Contract years end in December 2]
Current Agreement Previous Agreement
2002 $ 40.0 $ 40.0
2003 $ 37.5 $ 37.5
2004 $ 39.0 $ 39.0
2005 $ 41.0 $ 41.0
2006 $ 42.5 $ 42.5
2007 $ 35.0
2008 $ 20.0
2009 $ 10.0
- The hinting at "dual boot" hardware.
- The method of "freezing out" a licensee upon the buyout of Palm. (The wording in Palm's contract is likely included to throw off suspicion of anything similar in the contracts of PalmSource's other licensees. Marty, would you be a good chap and post the license agreements that were signed by PalmSource's other licensees? Thanks, Bubba.)
Like hengeem said: "Now THAT'S entertainment!"
;-O
TVoR
P.S. Ryan should start a "deadpool" on the date for the PalmSource takeout. Let's hear people go on record for when they think PalmSource's D-Day will be...
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Repeated for those who are hard of understanding!
There is _nothing_ in that license that describes what happens to _any_ licensee but Palm. But even in Palm's case, the bit that you highlighted, about the briefings ending, only happens if _MICROSOFT_ is the buyer of PalmSource.
If the buyer is anyone other than Microsoft, and if other licenses have similar wordings, the licenses say the *opposite* of what Skippy wanted them to. They say that PalmSource _guarentees_ *at least* two more years of licensing. It doesn't say they'll stop afterwards, either, by the way.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Exactly.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
That's a lie.
the bit that you highlighted, about the briefings ending, only happens if _MICROSOFT_ is the buyer of PalmSource.>/i>
And that's the same lie again.
What happens if PalmSource bought by Microsoft is described in clause 2.10(c)(i), which I didn't post.
I posted clauses 2.10(b) and 2.10(c)(ii) which describe what happens if PalmSource is bought by any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of PDAs, sub-notebook computers or mobile telephones.
The Microsoft buyout clause has nothing to do with this discussion, so stop muddying the waters by trying to pretend that it does. Thank you.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
That's a lie.
the bit that you highlighted, about the briefings ending, only happens if _MICROSOFT_ is the buyer of PalmSource.
And that's the same lie again.
What happens if PalmSource bought by Microsoft is described in clause 2.10(c)(i), which I didn't post.
I posted clauses 2.10(b) and 2.10(c)(ii) which describe what happens if PalmSource is bought by any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of PDAs, sub-notebook computers or mobile telephones.
The Microsoft buyout clause has nothing to do with this discussion, so stop muddying the waters by trying to pretend that it does. Thank you.
If you care about Palm, please READ this post. They'll be OK
Marty, I'm afraid your utility to Palm/PalmSource as a spin doctor is approximately ZERO, as everyone reading here at Palminfocenter already knows you work for them and have a not-so-hidden motive to lie to try to hide information that can damage your employer.
Here are the discussed clauses from PalmSource's 8-K/A form it recently filed with the SEC. I hope people can make up their own mind what it suggests Palm and PalmSource are planning. Does this REALLY sound like the way two "completely separate companies" would work? Heh heh heh...
2.10 Termination and Expansion of Certain Rights and Obligations.
(a) Acquisition of Licensee by Competitor of PalmSource. If one or more Competitors of PalmSource acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of Licensee such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of Licensee is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by one or more Competitors of PalmSource (as defined below), then Section 2.9 (Source Code), Section 3.2 (Access to Development Code), Section 3.3 (Delivery of Released Code), Section 6.3 (Most Favored Licensee), the third sentence of Section 7.2(b) (New Products), and Section 9.6 (Customer Technology Briefings) shall automatically terminate. In the event of any termination of Section 2.9 (Source Code), Licensee shall promptly (i) cease all examination and/or modification of the Source Materials, (ii) return all Source Materials, including, but not limited to, all copies thereof, to PalmSource, and (iii) destroy all copies thereof, in whole and in part, residing within any computers in Licensee’s control. Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event of such termination, in no event shall such termination affect Licensee’s rights to reproduce and distribute in object code form Distributable Modifications existing as of the effective date of such termination pursuant to Section 2.9(b)(i)(5) and Section 2.9(b)(ii)(1)(b). For purposes of this Section 2.10 only, a “Competitor of PalmSource” means any entity that develops, manufactures and/or distributes: (i) operating system software for a handheld or mobile computing device on a stand-alone basis; and/or (ii) a handheld or mobile computing device, unless such entity has adopted or agrees in writing to and does adopt and implement the PS OS Software as its primary operating system for all or substantially all of its new devices on a going forward basis within 180 days after the close of such acquisition.
(b) Acquisition of PalmSource by Competitor of Licensee. If one or more Competitors of Licensee acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by one or more Competitors of Licensee (as defined below), then Section 9.5 (Customer Data) and Section 9.6 (Customer Technology Briefings) shall automatically terminate. For purposes of this Section 2.10 only, a “Competitor of Licensee” means a company whose principle business is one of the following: 1) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of personal digital assistants or PDAs (also known as handheld computers or palmtops); 2) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile computing products, specifically laptop, notebook, or sub-notebook computers; 3) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile telephone products which combine the features of a mobile phone with those of a PDA; and 4) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of two-way text messaging devices.
(c) Other Acquisition of PalmSource.
(i) If Microsoft Corporation acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by Microsoft
Corporation, then (1) the obligation to pay the Minimum Annual Payments set forth in Section II (A)(1) of Exhibit D (Licensee Products, Royalties and Fees) shall cease to apply; (2) the term of this Agreement shall be automatically extended for an additional two (2) Contract Years and the Royalty rates during the term of such extension shall be equal to the Royalty rates for the eighth Contract Year; (3) Section 2.3 shall automatically terminate and be of no further force and effect; (4) the Escrow Materials shall be released from the escrow account in accordance with Section 2.9(i) (Source Code Escrow) of this Agreement and the Escrow Agreement, and (5) Licensee shall have the right to use, reproduce and modify Released Code and Escrow Materials for any purpose without restriction and to distribute the Released Code and Escrow Materials, as modified, in object code form only to the same extent that Licensee is permitted to do so with respect to the corresponding PS Product Software pursuant to Section 2.2 (Distribution) above.
(ii) If a Hardware Competitor of Licensee acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by such Competitor of Licensee (as defined in subsection (b) above), then (1) the obligation to pay the Minimum Annual Payments set forth in Section II (A)(1) of Exhibit D (Licensee Products, Royalties and Fees) shall cease to apply, and (2) the term of this Agreement shall be automatically extended for an additional two (2) Contract Years and the Royalty rates during the term of such extension shall be equal to the Royalty rates for the eighth Contract Year. For purposes of this Section 2.10(c) only, a “Hardware Competitor of Licensee” means a company whose principle business is one of the following: 1) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of personal digital assistants or PDAs (also known as handheld computers or palmtops); 2) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile computing products, specifically laptop, notebook, or sub-notebook computers; 3) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of mobile telephone devices which combine the features of a mobile phone with those of a PDA; or 4) any company engaged in the manufacturing and selling of two-way text messaging devices.
(iii) If any individual or entity other than the entities described in subsections (i) and (ii) above acquires more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource such that more than fifty percent (50%) of the voting equity stock of PalmSource is owned and/or controlled (directly or indirectly) by such individual or entity, then Licensee may, at Licensee’s option, extend the term of this Agreement for an additional two (2) Contract Years and the Royalty rates during the term of such extension shall be equal to the Royalty rates for the eighth Contract Year. During the term of such extension the Minimum Annual Payments set forth in Section II (A)(1) of Exhibit D (Licensee Products, Royalties and Fees) shall continue to apply at the same rate as during the eighth Contract Year (i.e. ten million dollars ($10,000,000) for each of the ninth and tenth Contract Years). In order to exercise such option, Licensee shall notify PalmSource in writing whether Licensee intends to exercise Licensee’s option to extend the term of this Agreement pursuant to this Section 2.10(c)(iii) within ninety (90) days after the closing of the acquisition or receipt of written notice from PalmSource, whichever is later.
2.11 PSI Dual Boot Products.
(a) It is acknowledged that Licensee Products under this Agreement do not include any product that (i) contains both the PS OS Software and any Competing Platform (as defined in Section 2.11(d) below) in any form on such product, and (ii) allows the end user, distributor, carrier or any person or entity other than Licensee or Licensee’s manufacturer to choose to boot initially the Licensee Product into or later switch the Licensee Product between either the PS OS Software or any Competing Platform (each, a “Dual Boot Product”) unless expressly agreed to by the parties in writing.
(b) If PSI expressly authorizes another third party licensee of the PS OS Software to, and such third party licensee actually does, commercially distribute a Dual Boot Product using the PS OS Software that is directly competitive with Licensee Products that have been released or are on Licensee’s product roadmap, then Licensee may request a license for the same type of Dual Boot Product. In such event, PalmSource will reasonably negotiate with Licensee regarding a license for the same type of Dual Boot Product on terms and conditions to be reasonably agreed by the parties. It is understood that such license may be included under this Agreement or PalmSource may require a separate license agreement with restrictions similar to those imposed on the other third party licensee.
(c) If PSI expressly authorizes another third party licensee of the PS OS Software to, and such third party licensee actually does, commercially distribute a Dual Boot Product using the PS OS Software that is directly competitive with Licensee Products that have been released or are on Licensee’s product roadmap, then Licensee may request a license for the same type of Dual Boot Product. In such event, PalmSource will negotiate this request with Licensee in good faith for a period of thirty (30) days.
(d) For purposes of this Section 2.11, the term “Software Platform” means a computer program that (i) manages other computer programs in a computer, (ii) is used by application programs by making requests for services through a defined application program interface, (iii) contains a distinctive user interface and (iv) allows other software to execute without direct interaction with the underlying operating system, and the term “Competing Platform” means any commercially available Software Platform that competes with the PS OS Software, including without limitation the Windows Mobile and Symbian Software Platforms.
Please try again to post some specious arguments here, Marty. You are truly the most PATHETIC (and ineffective) spin doctor I've come across (and destroyed) recently.
Your turn.
TVoR, Inc.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
More nugget to chew on: The Doomsday Scenario (bankruptcy)
(i) Deposit. Within thirty (30) days after the ARSLA Execution Date, PalmSource shall deposit with DSI Technology Escrow Services, Inc. (the “Escrow Agent”) a complete copy of the then-current version of the Escrow Materials. After the ARSLA Execution Date, provided that Licensee has paid PalmSource the Maintenance and Support Fees (as defined in Section 5.2(b) (Ongoing Obligation)), PalmSource shall deposit Escrow Materials with the Escrow Agent for any Update, Upgrade or New Version of any part of the Escrow Materials which PalmSource is obligated to deliver to Licensee pursuant to Section 7.1 (Updates, Upgrades and New Versions) within thirty (30) days after delivering such Update, Upgrade or New Version to Licensee. All Escrow Materials that are software shall be deposited on computer media suitable for use and reproduction on Licensee’s computers. The Escrow Materials shall be deposited pursuant to the form of escrow agreement to be mutually agreed within thirty (30) days after the ARSLA Execution Date (the “Escrow Agreement”). Licensee shall bear the cost and expense charged by the Escrow Agent to establish and maintain the escrow account for the Escrow Materials as agreed upon in the Escrow Agreement. Licensee shall have the right from time to time to have the Escrow Agent verify the Escrow Materials have been deposited.
(ii) Release Conditions. The release conditions under the Escrow Agreement shall be limited to (1) the rejection of this Agreement by PalmSource in a case under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, as a debtor in possession or a trustee-in-bankrupcty; (2) acquisition by Microsoft Corporation as described in Section 2.10(c)(i); or (3) material breach by PalmSource or its successor of PalmSource’s obligations under Section 7.1 (Updates, Upgrades and New Versions), the support obligations (excluding training) set forth under Section 8.1 (Development Support and Training) or 8.3 (Post Development Support) if either (a) PalmSource or its successor fails to remedy such breach within thirty (30) days after receipt of written notice of such breach given by Licensee, provided that such breach shall only act as a release condition for the Escrow Materials for the PS Licensed Product to which such breach relates; or (b) PalmSource or its successor has during the previous twelve (12) month period repeatedly, materially breached this Agreement such that at least three (3) distinct and separate notices and thirty (30) day cure periods have been invoked. Licensee shall be obligated to maintain the confidentiality of the released Escrow Materials as Confidential Information of PalmSource in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. The Escrow Agreement will include mutually agreed dispute resolution procedures with regard to any dispute as to whether any Escrow Materials should be released under this Section 2.9(i)(ii).
Slick. Very slick. Gotta love that poison pill directed at Microsoft!
(iii) License Grant. PalmSource hereby grants to Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable worldwide license to (a) use, reproduce and modify the PS Source Code that is released as part of the Escrow Materials solely as necessary to make error corrections to the applicable PS Licensed Product, (b) use and reproduce the Related Build Materials that are released as part of the Escrow Materials for the applicable PS Licensed Product solely as necessary to build an object code version of such PS Licensed Product with the error correction, and (c) use, reproduce and distribute any such corrected version of the PS Licensed Product in object code form only to the same extent that Licensee is permitted to do so with respect to the unmodified PS Licensed Product pursuant to Section 2.2 above, and in each of the foregoing cases subject to all of the Royalties and other terms and conditions of this Agreement applicable to such PS Licensed Product. Licensee covenants not to exercise the foregoing license until a release condition occurs under the Escrow Agreement and the applicable Escrow Materials are released to Licensee by the Escrow Agent.
Looks like Palm has covered the bases on how to guarantee that they'll have PalmOS locked up for a LOOOONG time, even if there was a hostile takeover (Microsoft) or a bogus "bankruptcy". The $30 million Palm recently fronted PalmSource may have been the funds it would need to continue developing PalmLinux while avoiding bankruptcy. This is all starting to smell more and more "Enron-like" by the minute...
(h) Inspection Rights. PalmSource shall have the right, upon thirty (30) days prior written notice, to have not more than three (3) of its employees who have been engaged in the licensing of source materials inspect Licensee’s records and facilities with respect to the use of the Source Materials in order to verify that such use is within the scope of this Agreement, and that there are appropriate security procedures in place to protect the Source Materials. PalmSource is entitled to up to ten (10) authorized inspections of Licensee’s premises for such purposes during the term of this Agreement. If PalmSource discovers any material non-compliance during an inspection, PalmSource shall be entitled to an additional inspection without counting as one of the ten to which PalmSource is entitled. PalmSource shall bear all costs involved in the inspections carried out pursuant to this Section unless such inspections uncover a material non-compliance by Licensee, in which case Licensee shall bear the reasonable costs of such inspection. PalmSource will use reasonable efforts to avoid undue interference with the development efforts of Licensee as a result of any such inspection.
Sure. Clever clause that makes it look like Palm is a "completely separate" company (like Michael Mace said) that doesn't trust PalmSource. They'll need that as Exhibit 1 when PalmSource investors sue over the little scam known as the Palm "split"...
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Do you think that's enough time to cobble PLinux into a servicable state...or at least far enough along that Palm can smooth over the rough edges in-house with all of their newly-hired Linux specialists?
Might LG get cold feet in '06 before ever actually developing or shipping a Palm-powere product and pay PalmSource a hefty exit fee (ala Sony)? That, combined with LG paying a series of declining royalty payments over the next several quarters just to get the noose removed from their neck might keep PalmSource going long enough...
What a filthy, lying BIOTCH he is!
You need to start taking your own advice, Marty. The number of lies, half-truths and misdirections you've posted here in the past few weeks is truly staggering. Your tenacity in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary suggest a degree of desperation not seen here since the days of Michael Mace.
There is _nothing_ in that license that describes what happens to _any_ licensee but Palm. But even in Palm's case, the bit that you highlighted, about the briefings ending, only happens if _MICROSOFT_ is the buyer of PalmSource.
While you are correct that the 8-K/A refers specifically to Palm's contract, it's quite clear (to everyone but you) that when the buyout happens, other licensees are effectively shut out. Keep trying to pretend that is not the case. You're a FRAUD, Marty.
If the buyer is anyone other than Microsoft, and if other licenses have similar wordings, the licenses say the *opposite* of what Skippy wanted them to. They say that PalmSource _guarentees_ *at least* two more years of licensing. It doesn't say they'll stop afterwards, either, by the way.
Give up, Marty. Even when the facts are staring at you in black and white you continue to deny the truth. Just like the Iraqi Foreign Minister, I suppose you hope that if you deny it enough, perhaps you really will "crush" those "infidels".
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
If PalmSource ramped up development in such a way that they could actually produce a stable version of PalmLinux by the Summer, 2006 date Michael Mace claimed they were planning to have PalmLinux in the hands of its licensees, they would run out of money. If they continued with a (ridiculously low) burn rate of just the $5 or 6 million/month I estimated they could theoretically have gone down to after all the firings, they could last another 2 or 3 YEARS. The only problem is PalmSource's competitors already have OSes that are well ahead of PalmLinux in terms of development/maturity and these competitors aren't sitting still.
Do you think that's enough time to cobble PLinux into a servicable state...or at least far enough along that Palm can smooth over the rough edges in-house with all of their newly-hired Linux specialists?
If there is the will to produce PalmLinux quickly and the money is spent, I believe we could see a STABLE version by late 2006. I think when Palm buys PalmSource, we'll see that PalmLinux is suddenly completed (within a year).
Might LG get cold feet in '06 before ever actually developing or shipping a Palm-powere product and pay PalmSource a hefty exit fee (ala Sony)? That, combined with LG paying a series of declining royalty payments over the next several quarters just to get the noose removed from their neck might keep PalmSource going long enough...
I think LG probably got conned into signing a contract that will leave them out in the cold when Palm buys PalmSource. We'll see soon enough.
As always, I make the points no one else dare to say publicly.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Clearing out the FUD
1) The document in question is PalmSource's license with Palm. The section in discussion describes what happenes to that license and _no other_ in the case that PalmSource is bought by _someone other than Palm_.
2) The section in question does _not_ terminate ANY license agreement, not even the one it is part of. So the basic premise of Skippy's first post is completely wrong.
3) The section in question _does_ *extend* the Palm license if PalmSource is bought by anyone other than Palm. That is the _oppposite_ of what Skippy and pals want us to believe.
4) Skippy and pals, having rather badly misinterpeted the document are now generating all sorts of ad hominem over a tiny issue in order to obscure the fact that their basic premise is wrong.
Let me slow this down far enough even Skippy can follow it: The license in question, rather than confirming Skippy's claim that a buyout of PalmSource would void "ALL" licenses, confirms the _OPPOSITE_: That a buyout of PalmSource would _EXTEND_ at least one license.
Now amount of window will change the fact that you got it wrong Skippy. Not surprising, given how much you've gotten wrong.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
>> bought by _Microsoft_.
> That's a lie.
No. It was a poor reading of the document on my part.
> What happens if PalmSource bought by Microsoft is described
> in clause 2.10(c)(i), which I didn't post.
That's correct.
> I posted clauses 2.10(b) and 2.10(c)(ii) which describe what
> happens if PalmSource is bought by any company engaged in the
> manufacturing and selling of PDAs, sub-notebook computers or
> mobile telephones.
_almost_ correct. It describes "what happens" to the Palm relationship. That's a key point. It does NOT describe what happens to any other licensee. Also, replace "any company" by "any company other than Palm"...
> The Microsoft buyout clause has nothing to do with this
> discussion, so stop muddying the waters by trying to pretend
> that it does. Thank you.
Fair enough. Provided that you stop pretending that this license says anything about any licensee other than Palm and that you stop pretending that it says anything except that Palm's license is automatically _extended_, rather than "voided" if PalmSource gets bought.
And while you're at it, read 9.5 and 9.6. They don't strand Palm either.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> here a few weeks ago?
Actually, no, he didn't. He "calculated" a burn rate based on his spin on the 10k.
> Assuming they keep a sufficient number of CodeMonkeys ( I
> love that term) on the payroll, didn't you say that Palm's
> $30 mil + PalmSource's dwindling cash reserves wouldn't be
> enough to last through '06 while funding PoL development,
> right?
Indeed, Skippy did make those claims. In subsequent discussion, he made it clear that he had misestimated the burn rate, miscalculated (by 100 million, 50 million of which he admits to) how much cash PalmSource would have, and pulled random numbers out of the air to get his $30 million estimate for the amount of extra development.
It turns out that if Skippy _had_ been right in his claim that PalmSource needed to spend $30M more than their current burn rate, they'd *still* have plenty of money to last through '06.
If you apply Skippy's estimated burn rate + the 30M to the amount of money Skippy now admits PalmSource would have available, they'd have enough money to last through mid '07.
Of course, none of this matters, because in yet later discussion, Skippy made it more than apparent that his $30m number was a wild guess and that he had no idea how to scope or cost estimate the work he was proposing.
Among Skippy's more interesting revelations:
* He though programmers got paid over time.
* He thought "Linux Guru" meant manager.
* He switched from 30 to 300 as his claimed number of programmers -- with NO supporting evidence for either number.
* He guessed that engineers cost out at $100K per year.
That's above and beyond his mistakes in calculating when the cash would run out, when he:
* guessed a burn rate based on pre-layoff expenditure
* used numbers very different than those in the 10k to get his pre-layoff expenditure figures
* neglected that in the next year there would be a guarenteed $50M in revenue to add to the cash
* neglected both the work contribution from and any revenue from CMS
* and then divided two numbers and got the wrong answer.
> Might LG get cold feet in '06 before ever actually developing
> or shipping a Palm-powere product and pay PalmSource a hefty
> exit fee (ala Sony)? That, combined with LG paying a series
> of declining royalty payments over the next several quarters
> just to get the noose removed from their neck might keep
> PalmSource going long enough...
Even if you don't include LG, here's the burn rate calculation, using Skippy's own figures:
Cash on hand $100M
'06 revenue $ 50M
-----
available $150M
"save Plinux" $ 30M
-----
$120M
burn rate 6M
months left 120/6 = 20.
So, if PalmSource only gets it's already guarenteed revenue _and_ if it burns the $30M extra Skippy wants it to, burning at the rate that Skippy claims it is burning at, it has nearly two years of money left.
Of course, inconveniently for Skippy, if it lasts another year beyond when he claimed it would run out of money, it would also generate another few months worth of burn rate in revenue.
Skippy's almost as bad at math as he is at reading contracts.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Do you think it would be reasonable to suppose that the terms of Palm's license would be similar to that of PalmSource's other licensees? I think it would.
and that you stop pretending that it says anything except that Palm's license is automatically _extended_, rather than "voided" if PalmSource gets bought.
I've never claimed otherwise.
And while you're at it, read 9.5 and 9.6. They don't strand Palm either.
I'd say the automatic termination of Section 9.6 (Customer Technology Briefings) would leave any licensee pretty effectively stranded.
9.6 Customer Technology Briefings. During the term of this Agreement, Licensee and PalmSource will meet at least once per calendar quarter to discuss technology roadmaps, product development updates, and to identify and explore additional technologies and products that the parties may, by mutual written agreement of both PalmSource and Licensee, add to this Agreement. PalmSource will use reasonable efforts to make such meetings available to Licensee not materially later than similar customer briefings with other licensees of similar strategic importance. The foregoing sentence shall not apply to meetings or the exchange of information as part of any joint development arrangement or other relationship which extends beyond the scope of a standard customer briefing.
The Bottom Line: PSRC = Miserable Failure
PenguinBoy - The bottom line is PSRC is a miserable failure. The results (or lack thereof) don't lie. Benhamou, Yankowski, Nagel, Gasse, Mace and the rest of the incompetents blew it. We're all tired of the endless spin, so please get back to work doing whatever it is that you do.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
>> anything about any licensee other than Palm
> Do you think it would be reasonable to suppose that the terms
> of Palm's license would be similar to that of PalmSource's
> other licensees? I think it would.
In many ways, sure. _Especially_ in that other licensees would also get automatic extensions.
> I'd say the automatic termination of Section 9.6 (Customer
> Technology Briefings) would leave any licensee pretty
> effectively stranded.
> 9.6 [...] The foregoing sentence shall not apply to meetings
> or the exchange of information as part of any joint
> development arrangement or other relationship which extends
> beyond the scope of a standard customer briefing.
It's very unlikely that not getting quarterly briefings (the elided "foregoing sentence") would "strand" anyone who was working on any joint development, given the above sentence.
I doubt very much that either Palm or LG are only hearing from PalmSource once a quarter, even now.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
It's hard to take serious a claim that describes a company with a guarenteed $50 million in revenue next year as a "miserable failure".
> The results (or lack thereof) don't lie. Benhamou, Yankowski,
> Nagel, Gasse, Mace and the rest of the incompetents blew it.
That may be. It's also water under the bridge.
> We're all tired of the endless spin, so please get back to
> work doing whatever it is that you do.
But Skippy, er, I'm sorry, "Gekko", don't you know what I do? (Right now, I'm waiting for a compile to finish. Plenty of time to dash off a quick note on PIC.)
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
TVoR
Ah, yes. Isn't anonimity a wonderful thing?
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
Marty, Marty, Marty...
>> bought by _Microsoft_.
> That's a lie.
No. It was a poor reading of the document on my part.
"Poor reading"???
Marty, everything you post here displays your tendency towards (selective) "poor reading". You are truly absurd - in an Iraqi Foreign Minister kinda way. Please post more - you amuse in more ways than one.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Desperate Marty lashes out wildly. Film at 11.
> here a few weeks ago?
Actually, no, he didn't. He "calculated" a burn rate based on his spin on the 10k.
> Assuming they keep a sufficient number of CodeMonkeys ( I
> love that term) on the payroll, didn't you say that Palm's
> $30 mil + PalmSource's dwindling cash reserves wouldn't be
> enough to last through '06 while funding PoL development,
> right?
Indeed, Skippy did make those claims. In subsequent discussion, he made it clear that he had misestimated the burn rate, miscalculated (by 100 million, 50 million of which he admits to) how much cash PalmSource would have, and pulled random numbers out of the air to get his $30 million estimate for the amount of extra development.
It turns out that if Skippy _had_ been right in his claim that PalmSource needed to spend $30M more than their current burn rate, they'd *still* have plenty of money to last through '06.
If you apply Skippy's estimated burn rate + the 30M to the amount of money Skippy now admits PalmSource would have available, they'd have enough money to last through mid '07.
Of course, none of this matters, because in yet later discussion, Skippy made it more than apparent that his $30m number was a wild guess and that he had no idea how to scope or cost estimate the work he was proposing.
Among Skippy's more interesting revelations:
* He though programmers got paid over time.
* He thought "Linux Guru" meant manager.
* He switched from 30 to 300 as his claimed number of programmers -- with NO supporting evidence for either number.
* He guessed that engineers cost out at $100K per year.
That's above and beyond his mistakes in calculating when the cash would run out, when he:
* guessed a burn rate based on pre-layoff expenditure
* used numbers very different than those in the 10k to get his pre-layoff expenditure figures
* neglected that in the next year there would be a guarenteed $50M in revenue to add to the cash
* neglected both the work contribution from and any revenue from CMS
* and then divided two numbers and got the wrong answer.
> Might LG get cold feet in '06 before ever actually developing
> or shipping a Palm-powere product and pay PalmSource a hefty
> exit fee (ala Sony)? That, combined with LG paying a series
> of declining royalty payments over the next several quarters
> just to get the noose removed from their neck might keep
> PalmSource going long enough...
Even if you don't include LG, here's the burn rate calculation, using Skippy's own figures:
Cash on hand $100M
'06 revenue $ 50M
-----
available $150M
"save Plinux" $ 30M
-----
$120M
burn rate 6M
months left 120/6 = 20.
So, if PalmSource only gets it's already guarenteed revenue _and_ if it burns the $30M extra Skippy wants it to, burning at the rate that Skippy claims it is burning at, it has nearly two years of money left.
Of course, inconveniently for Skippy, if it lasts another year beyond when he claimed it would run out of money, it would also generate another few months worth of burn rate in revenue.
Skippy's almost as bad at math as he is at reading contracts.
Marty, since I have already pointed out your lies (around a dozen times) and you continue to repeat them, the easiest thing is to suggest that readers here review the thread in question for themselves to see precisely how full of feces you are. You have become completely "impacted" with feces. (By the way, why don't you start spreading a little more FUD about Microsft again, Marty? That was entertaining.)
[Warning: The thread below is not for the faint of heart. The amount of B.S. spewed by a certain PalmSource engineer is truly shocking.]
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110889
I really hope people here will all read the ENTIRE PalmSource 8-K/A document that I have linked to in other posts. By reading for themselves it becomes quite easy to filter out Marty's lies (as Sam H did, only to hear Marty offer up his legendary "My bad" type excuse for lying).
It's sad that someone as mendacious as Marty works for PalmSource, but I suppose having a sleazy personality won't interfere with his work coding for PalmSource. If he would spend as much time coding as he does posting blatant lies and ridiculous SPIN to Palminfocenter, maybe PalmLinux could get finished faster.
And hkklife: regarding Sony, the exit fee they paid was actually extremely small. The fact that PalmSource permitted Sony to get out of their longterm guaranteed contract so easily was one of PalmSource's biggest blunders, and I believe at least one of their execs was fired over this debacle.
I suspect LG's contract is quite similar to Palm's in terms of the licensee getting hung out to dry in the event of a change in ownership. At this point LG appear to only be licensing rights to use PalmOS in future products (with no guaranteed minimum), so LG's investment in PalmSource is probably less than $2 million so far. From now on, I suspect smartphone designers will be intelligent enough to make sure their hardware can easily boot multiple OSes, so if LG gets cut out of PalmOS they'll probably segue on to Windows Mobile without missing a beat.
Keep up with the good work, Marty. You've done more to make PalmSource look bad than 10 Sururs could have done in the past 3 weeks. Are you secretly working for Microsoft also?
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> way.
Poor Skippy. Now he can't even get his insults right. That's "Iraqi INFORMATION Minister", Skippy. "Comical Ali" was the information minister, not the foreign minister.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> times) and you continue to repeat them, the easiest thing is
> to suggest that readers here review the thread in question
> for themselves to see precisely how full of feces you are.
Ah, yes. Skippy, who divides 120 by 6 and gets "12", rather than admiting that he made a mistake, resorts to vile adhominem.
I doubt that anyone will take the time to read all the threads, but if the did, they would find everything I wrote in the post Skippy was responding to is accurate.
You see, Skippy, here's the difference between adult and juvenile behavior. I made a mistake reading the 8k. When it was pointed out to me, I owned up to it, and moved on. You made mistakes in estimation. When pointed out to you, did you own up and move on? No, of course not. You instead began a campaign of libel against the person who pointed it out.
You did, indeed, assert that PalmSource had 100 million on hand. You did, indeed, claim that their burn rate was 6 million per month. You did, indeed claim that it would cost 30 million extra to accomplish your goal of 'accelerating' development. When questioned, you did, indeed admit that during the year in question, PalmSource would generate another 50 million in revenue. They're all _your_ numbers, Skippy.
And there's only one problem with them: when one does the arithmetic, one finds that they don't lead to PalmSource running out of money when you claimed they would.
100+50-30 = 120 skippy.
120 / 6 = 20 Skippy.
20 months, Skippy, not 12. Even if they spend th 30 million.
Of course, there's the small detail that you just made up the 30 million, number. You made that amply clear when you claimed that it represented 300 programmers @ 100k/year for a year; since anyone with a clue knows that 300 programmers is far more than what's needed and $100k / years is 2.5 times too low for costing.
But one doesn't have to go that far to find Skippy making bad mistakes. One merely has to look at the subject line of this thread. Skippy, after all, claimed something about PalmSource licenses, that reading one shows to be exactly the opposite of what the license says.
Why is skippy trying so hard to call me a liar? Because he's trying very, very, hard to distract attention from the fact that he's flat out wrong about what happens to licensees if PalmSource gets bought.
Poor Skippy. Caught making mistakes, and behaving like a juvenile delinquent.
Keep it coming, Marty! Your material is PURE GOLD!
My mistake, Marty. But you are correct: you're a lot like the "Iraqi INFORMATION Minister". Thanks for admitting it publicly. That's the First Step on the long road to recovery.
Ah, yes. Skippy, who divides 120 by 6 and gets "12", rather than admiting that he made a mistake, resorts to vile adhominem.
I doubt that anyone will take the time to read all the threads, but if the did, they would find everything I wrote in the post Skippy was responding to is accurate.
You see, Skippy, here's the difference between adult and juvenile behavior. I made a mistake reading the 8k. When it was pointed out to me, I owned up to it, and moved on. You made mistakes in estimation. When pointed out to you, did you own up and move on? No, of course not. You instead began a campaign of libel against the person who pointed it out.
You did, indeed, assert that PalmSource had 100 million on hand. You did, indeed, claim that their burn rate was 6 million per month. You did, indeed claim that it would cost 30 million extra to accomplish your goal of 'accelerating' development. When questioned, you did, indeed admit that during the year in question, PalmSource would generate another 50 million in revenue. They're all _your_ numbers, Skippy.
And there's only one problem with them: when one does the arithmetic, one finds that they don't lead to PalmSource running out of money when you claimed they would.
100+50-30 = 120 skippy.
120 / 6 = 20 Skippy.
20 months, Skippy, not 12. Even if they spend th 30 million.
Of course, there's the small detail that you just made up the 30 million, number. You made that amply clear when you claimed that it represented 300 programmers @ 100k/year for a year; since anyone with a clue knows that 300 programmers is far more than what's needed and $100k / years is 2.5 times too low for costing.
But one doesn't have to go that far to find Skippy making bad mistakes. One merely has to look at the subject line of this thread. Skippy, after all, claimed something about PalmSource licenses, that reading one shows to be exactly the opposite of what the license says.
Why is skippy trying so hard to call me a liar? Because he's trying very, very, hard to distract attention from the fact that he's flat out wrong about what happens to licensees if PalmSource gets bought.
Poor Skippy. Caught making mistakes, and behaving like a juvenile delinquent.
Keep trying to obfuscate, Marty. And The 2004-05 burn rate of $5 or 6 million/month was the minimum PalmSource could be spending just to keep the lights on, Old Buddy. If they want to have PalmLinux finished by the mid-2006 date Michael Mace claimed they were aiming for, I have said this would be impossible without a significant increase in spending. For some reason you can't seem to recall THIS post I made
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110994
Now since you like numbers so much, try these on for size:
(Confounding variables like unknown losses or gains from its Chinese startup, China MobileSoft, potential losses from lawsuits, etc are excluded. All numbers are approximate - for specifics, see SEC filings + other info referenced in other threads.)
PLUS:
+ $100 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments. Of course, one would assume not all of PalmSource's assets can quickly liquidated, but that's another story...
[http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html]
+ $50 million in license fees (likely a reasonable estimate, since Palm will pay $42.5 million in 2006 and accounts for around 90 - 95% of PalmSource's business)
[http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108070
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html
"The minimum annual royalty commitments for the contract years ending December 3, 2005 and 2006 remain unchanged from the Prior Agreement at $41.0 million and $42.5 million, respectively. The minimum annual royalty commitments under the extended term of the SARSLA for the contract years ending December 3, 2007, 2008 and 2009 are $35 million, $20 million and $10 million, respectively, subject to the Company meeting certain development milestones."]
MINUS
- $75 million (repeating their spending level of 2004-05 when PalmSource was just treading water attempting to avoid drowning).
- $??? million to ramp up development in a concerted effort to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers (a mix of Linux experts ["gurus"], codemonkeys, hiring/licensing programmers/programs that are best of breed (CESD - DateBk5, Mike Waldron - BackupMan + FileMan, TealPoint - TealLock, Picard - TCPMP, re-hiring Gavin Maxwell, etc.) might allow PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006. Much of this would need to be outsourced/licensed, but when you're desperate and the players you've got on your team show repeatedly that they don't have what it takes to get the job done, it's time for a new plan and some fresh blood. So let's use that figure of 300 extra engineers to start from. (The actual number would likely actually be a lot less, since licensing/purchasing apps like TealLock, etc would likely cost PalmSource a lot more than the annual salary of a codemonkey.) But to keep it simple for Marty, here are some nice round numbers: 300 new engineers x $100,000/year = $30,000,000. Now rumor has it that a "rule of thumb in the valley is that engineers cost a company 2.5 times their base salary". Let's see now... $30,000,000 x 2.5 = $75,000,000.
- $75 million
So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50 million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by mid - late 2006. As in a BIG,FAT ZERO! As in nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Of course, this is all assuming that PalmSource has recognized how little time it has left to deliver a viable next-generation platform and has increased the spending to a level likely necessary to achieve that (mid!) 2006 deadline for PalmLinux's arrival.
Hurry up and get back to work, Marty. Time's running out for you and the codemonkeys. ("Marty & The Codemonkeys" - sounds like a band from the 60s...)
Can't wait to hear some more of your standup routine here, Marty.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
It's hard to take serious a claim that describes a company with a guarenteed $50 million in revenue next year as a "miserable failure".
What if that company is swirling in the toilet and may soon have no market for ir=ts core product?
> The results (or lack thereof) don't lie. Benhamou, Yankowski,
> Nagel, Gasse, Mace and the rest of the incompetents blew it.
That may be. It's also water under the bridge.
Unfortunately, that water eroded the bridge's supports and the bridge is now ready to collapse.
> We're all tired of the endless spin, so please get back to
> work doing whatever it is that you do.
But Skippy, er, I'm sorry, "Gekko", don't you know what I do? (Right now, I'm waiting for a compile to finish. Plenty of time to dash off a quick note on PIC.)
Working on Sunday? Excellent. This is precisely the type of "overtime" I said PalmSource needed to extract from its codemonkeys. THREE extra bananas for you, Marty!
Cass (on behalf of TVoR)
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
>> bad mistakes. One merely has to look at the subject line of
>> this thread. Skippy, after all, claimed something about
>> PalmSource licenses, that reading one shows to be exactly
>> the opposite of what the license says.
Anybody notice that Skippy didn't reply to the above? Know why? Because Skippy would have to admit he's wrong. Adults do that. Skippy throws tantrums.
> I have said this would be impossible without a significant
> increase in spending.
Yes you did, Skippy. And when asked how much, you said $30 million. Remember, Skippy? 300 * 100,000 = 30 million? Or have you forgotten you made that post, Skippy?
> Now since you like numbers so much, try these on for size:
Oh. Good. Skippy's going to pull more numbers out of the air. Let's see if he does any better on the second try.
> $100 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments.
> Of course, one would assume not all of PalmSource's assets
> can quickly liquidated, but that's another story...
> [http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html]
Why an 8k, Skippy? That info's in the 10k. and why from yahoo? Why not just go to PalmSource's site and get it directly? (Hint: Skippy, it's another situation in which correcting your mistakes would work in your favor. It _is_ *very* funny how you let your ego get in the way of your own arguments.)
> + $50 million in license fees (likely a reasonable estimate,
> since Palm will pay $42.5 million in 2006 and accounts for
> around 90 - 95% of PalmSource's business)
which you had neglected, prior to my correcting you. What other revenue are you neglecting Skippy?
> - $75 million (repeating their spending level of 2004-05 when
> PalmSource was just treading water attempting to avoid
> drowning).
Very good, Skippy. 6 X 12=72. Is that where you get the '75' from? Beccause it's not in the financial records anywhere.
But wait, Skippy; you've forgoten something. PalmSource wasn't just 'treading water.' They were doing software development. Oh, don't you remeber, Skippy? You used to trumpet your McVeigh quote about that.
Er, and something else, Skippy. You forgot that they laid people off, so the burn rate went down. Ooops.
> - $??? million to ramp up development in a concerted effort
> to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Well, yeah, that's the fun part, isn't Skippy. You have this "ramp up development" thing that no one but you seems to think they're going to need to do.
> Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers (a
> mix of Linux experts ["gurus"], codemonkeys, hiring/licensing
> programmers/programs that are best of breed (CESD - DateBk5,
> Mike Waldron - BackupMan + FileMan, TealPoint - TealLock,
> Picard - TCPMP, re-hiring Gavin Maxwell, etc.) might allow
> PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Yes you did. Of course, you then demonstrated that you had no idea what the scope of the work was, or how much those programmers would cost. In other words, Skippy, you pulled a number out of the air.
> So let's use that figure of 300 extra engineers to start
> from. (The actual number would likely actually be a lot less,
> since licensing/purchasing apps like TealLock, etc would
> likely cost PalmSource a lot more than the annual salary of a
> codemonkey.)
Very good, Skippy, you _can_ learn. That's right, a _lot_ less. Try 1/10 as many.
> But here are some nice round numbers: 300 new engineers x
> $100,000/year = $30,000,000.
Well, well, well. There we are. Skippy's back to exactly the set of numbers he called me a liar for quoting. $100m + $50m - $30m (= 120m to divide by 6m.)
So, Skippy, now you've repeated the very numbers you've accused me of lying for attributing to you. Not very bright, Skippy, calling someone a liar for just repeating your own numbers.
You owe me an apology, Skippy. Not that I expect anything more than your usual juvenile tantrum, though.
> Now rumor has it that a "rule of thumb in the valley is that
> engineers cost a company 2.5 times their base salary". Let's
> see now... $30,000,000 x 2.5 = $75,000,000.
> - $75 million
That's right Skippy. That's why it was so funny to watch you deny dramatically that you'd gotten the 100k number wrong. You were so busy trying to 'be right' that you didn't even realize that I was pointing out a mistake, that if you'd bothered to correct, worked in your favor. You _are_ funny, Skippy.
But wait, it's not 300, Skippy, it's 30. Which makes 75M, by your calculations, 7.5M. Oops. Why take my word on 2.5 and not believe my estimate that it would be < 30 to accomplish your goal? Er, wait, of course you wouldn't. One suits your bad math, the other makes it apparent how bad it is.
> So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50
> million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million
> PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by
> mid - late 2006.
Ah, Skippy, nice recovery. You _finally_ got the point about your $100k estimate being off base.
Of course, it's odd that you took my 2.5 rather than someone you're on better term's with 2.0, and that you've now reached the same zero by a different route. Now take my 30 instead of your wildly over inflated 300. Er, no, of course not, if you do that you don't get that nice zero.
But it's kind of like your claim about licenses, isn't it Skippy. It doesn't really matter what the facts are, all you want is some numbers that add up to zero.
Here are a few facts for you:
1) You've got the available cash number wrong.
2) You've got the estimated revenue number wrong.
3) You've got the burn rate number wrong.
4) You've got number of people it would take to accomplish what you want wrong.
IOW, Skippy, you still have all your numbers wrong.
But none of that matters, Skippy, because your basic premise is wrong. Palm accepted a schedule from PalmSource, and is committed to pay them money based on that schedule. PalmSource doesn't need to accelerate in order to hit their customer's schedule.
Oh, and, as you admitted yourself, if Palm _did_ buy PalmSource, the result wouldn't be any acceleration of schedule. Palm wouldn't get finished, according to Skippy, with PaluxOS any sooner that way.
So you see, Skippy, just as you were wrong about what the license says about being void, you're wrong about a motivation for Palm buying PalmSource, and about when PalmSource will run out of money.
Oh, and nobody bought PalmSource last week. Ah well. Only four business days this week. They'd better get cracking.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
Does everyone here remember when Palm OS marketshare was upwards of 85%? Everyone laughed at Windows because they thought it would never get any traction against the Palm OS monopoly. It didn't matter that Palm was the last to adopt new technology, or that they made gaffes like not including an MP3 player in their first audio-capable device. Palm could do no wrong.
Then Palm had a 80% marketshare. Then 75%. Those of us who said that this was important, and that it was going to be a big problem for Palm were mocked and said to be shilling for Windows. People like Mike Cane insisted that PocketPCs were so terrible that everyone who bought one was going to return it. People said that Microsoft would abandon the market, or that Windows would lose all marketshare, or that the next new Palm unit would destroy anything Windows had to offer.
When Windows marketshare topped Palm for the first time, everyone here said that it was a trick, the numbers were misleading. They were bought by Microsoft. They counted Windows Smartphones. They didn't account for returns. Anything but the idea that they were right.
Now Palm OS is being outsold by Windows on an almost 2 to 1 basis. The Palm platform's sloth has caught up with it. Nobody is laughing now, not even the people who were proven right.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
They're not going to.
Knowing that, Palm was willing to pony up nearly $100M more, which, coupled with their revenue from CMS and their available cash, will give them enough money to get to when they said they would deliver.
There are two ways you can lose a market and still survive. Apple did it one way, they basically got out of the computer business and became a CE company. Sun, somehow, is doing it the other.
PalmSource is betting on doing it the way Apple's done it. Only time will tell if they do or not.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> or the exchange of information as part of any joint
> development arrangement or other relationship which extends
> beyond the scope of a standard customer briefing.
It's very unlikely that not getting quarterly briefings (the elided "foregoing sentence") would "strand" anyone who was working on any joint development, given the above sentence.
And do we have any evidence that any of the licensees have any 'joint development arrangements', over and above the Customer Technology Briefings agreed in their licenses?
I doubt very much that either Palm or LG are only hearing from PalmSource once a quarter, even now.
I'm sure they are hearing from PalmSource a lot more frequently than once a quarter. Which would make termination of those Customer Technology Briefings all the more devastating.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
They're not going to.
Wow. Marty is hereby announcing that PalmLinux will NOT be ready before 2007! Could Michael Mace been full of feces when he claimed that PalmSource ws aiming for a mid-2006 release? Gee Marty, will you guys have PalmLinux done before 2008? 2009? How pathetic.
I do agree with you on one point: PalmSource does not (and cannot) have to deliver PalmLinux in 2006... IF it is no longer an independent company.
Knowing that, Palm was willing to pony up nearly $100M more, which, coupled with their revenue from CMS and their available cash, will give them enough money to get to when they said they would deliver.
$100 million spread out over several years, Marty. If they are still around as an independent company.
There are two ways you can lose a market and still survive. Apple did it one way, they basically got out of the computer business and became a CE company. Sun, somehow, is doing it the other.
PalmSource is betting on doing it the way Apple's done it. Only time will tell if they do or not.
Last time I checked, Apple was the sole vendor of hardware that runs its OS. And furthermore it had reinvented itself as a consumer electronics (iPod) company. Are you suggesting PalmSource is going to do either of those things? Or are you confusing PalmSource with that "completely separate company", Palm? You're slipping again, Marty.
;-O
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
Marty admits: PalmLinux will NOT be ready before 2007! WOW!
They're not going to.
How can you claim that the Linux part of PalmLinux is all fine and dandy, but that PalmLinux won't be ready before 2007? Could it be because integrating the PalmOS components salvaged from Cobalt with Linux is not exactly a trivial undertaking? Could it be? Marty, how could you?
Shocking!
And how many PalmSource engineers have abandoned ship recently Marty? Those RATS!
Shocking!
Time for you to put in some OVERTIME with a few marathon coding sessions, Marty. Stock up on the Jolt Cola (now kosher), strap yourself in and get "in the zone". We're rooting for you, Buddy. Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Go, Marty! Ummmm... wake up, Marty.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
>> bad mistakes. One merely has to look at the subject line of
>> this thread. Skippy, after all, claimed something about
>> PalmSource licenses, that reading one shows to be exactly
>> the opposite of what the license says.
Anybody notice that Skippy didn't reply to the above? Know why? Because Skippy would have to admit he's wrong. Adults do that. Skippy throws tantrums.
If you say so, Marty.
> I have said this would be impossible without a significant
> increase in spending.
Yes you did, Skippy. And when asked how much, you said $30 million. Remember, Skippy? 300 * 100,000 = 30 million? Or have you forgotten you made that post, Skippy?
Ummmmm... Marty, I didn't say 30 million was enough to deliver PalmLinux by 2006. I explained that that 30 million might come in handy (how convenient of Palm to "donate" that cash!) in hiring some extra engineering resources for the company. But PalmSource also needs some off the shelf apps + code over and beyond what any newly acquired/contracted engineers could produce within a year. That isn't free, Marty.
> Now since you like numbers so much, try these on for size:
Oh. Good. Skippy's going to pull more numbers out of the air. Let's see if he does any better on the second try.
Just using your the numbers you agreed to in order to further destroy your arguments, Marty.
> $100 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments.
> Of course, one would assume not all of PalmSource's assets
> can quickly liquidated, but that's another story...
> [http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050525/psrc8-k.html]
Why an 8k, Skippy? That info's in the 10k. and why from yahoo? Why not just go to PalmSource's site and get it directly? (Hint: Skippy, it's another situation in which correcting your mistakes would work in your favor. It _is_ *very* funny how you let your ego get in the way of your own arguments.)
Who cares where the info comes from, Marty? It's all the same. The Yahoo quote is a direct cut and paste from an earlier post. I believe the figures were all taken from the 10-K originally. In any event, I'll even give you a few million $$$ extra. It won't change the ulimate result: an independent PalmSource goes BANKRUPT in 2006. Period.
> + $50 million in license fees (likely a reasonable estimate,
> since Palm will pay $42.5 million in 2006 and accounts for
> around 90 - 95% of PalmSource's business)
which you had neglected, prior to my correcting you. What other revenue are you neglecting Skippy?
No, Marty. Wrong again. No doubt you'll have us believe that upstart startup China MobileSoft is already contributing MILLIONS (BILLIONS???) of $$$ in profit to PalmSource's bottom line every quarter. Right, Marty? Is that that your "last resort" argument, Marty? How pathetic.
> - $75 million (repeating their spending level of 2004-05 when
> PalmSource was just treading water attempting to avoid
> drowning).
Very good, Skippy. 6 X 12=72. Is that where you get the '75' from? Beccause it's not in the financial records anywhere.
$75 million was PalmSource's approximate costs for doing business in FY 2005. But if you want to keep the extra $3 million in your favor, be my guest. Thay extra cash might keep PalmSource's doors open a week or two longer than I had estimated. Woo Hoo!
But wait, Skippy; you've forgoten something. PalmSource wasn't just 'treading water.' They were doing software development.
Were they? What do they have to show for that "development"? Some code in the bottom of a dumpster? Nice. Maybe they can add that to the ledger under "Goodwill".
Oh, don't you remeber, Skippy? You used to trumpet your McVeigh quote about that.
Ummmm... what are you talking about, Marty?
Er, and something else, Skippy. You forgot that they laid people off, so the burn rate went down. Ooops.
And their execs turned around and voted themselves some nice hefty pay raises and bonuses, bumping the burn rate up again. Slick. In any event, the reduction in salaries (around 60 employees) results in trivial savings compared to the cost of the increased spending in engineering/coding required if PalmSource is going to deliver on its "PalmLinux by mid 2006 promise".
> - $??? million to ramp up development in a concerted effort
> to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Well, yeah, that's the fun part, isn't Skippy. You have this "ramp up development" thing that no one but you seems to think they're going to need to do.
If they do not "ramp up development", I predict that an independent PalmSource will not deliver a stable PalmLinux by "mid-2006". Or even by the end of 2006. PalmLinux coded without added resources likely would not go gold until mid/late 2007 at the earliest. Do you think anyone will still care about PalmOS at that point? Honestly, what will the PalmOS market share be by then? 30%? 25%? 20%? 10%? 3%? 1%? Palmyannas like Jeff Kirvin seem to feel that PalmSource is a viable company with an Apple-like 3% of the market. I disagree.
> Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers (a
> mix of Linux experts ["gurus"], codemonkeys, hiring/licensing
> programmers/programs that are best of breed (CESD - DateBk5,
> Mike Waldron - BackupMan + FileMan, TealPoint - TealLock,
> Picard - TCPMP, re-hiring Gavin Maxwell, etc.) might allow
> PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Yes you did. Of course, you then demonstrated that you had no idea what the scope of the work was, or how much those programmers would cost. In other words, Skippy, you pulled a number out of the air.
Whatever, Marty. Unfortunately for you, the price of delivering PalmLinux by mid-2006 is likely VERY close to what I said it would be. It appears (from what you're saying about how far the date for PalmLinux going "gold" will likely slip) that PalmSource/Palm are willing to gamble that they can spread that $75 million in PalmLinux completion costs out over 2 or 3 years and deliver the OS in 2007 or 2008 rather than "mid-2006". If that's the thinking, fine. We'll see soon enough if this is a fatal error in judgement. For reasons posted before (loss of momentum, loss of market share, loss of developers, loss of mindshare, etc.) I feel delaying PalmLinux until 2007 or 2008 is a suicidal move by Palmsource/Palm.
> So let's use that figure of 300 extra engineers to start
> from. (The actual number would likely actually be a lot less,
> since licensing/purchasing apps like TealLock, etc would
> likely cost PalmSource a lot more than the annual salary of a
> codemonkey.)
Very good, Skippy, you _can_ learn. That's right, a _lot_ less. Try 1/10 as many.
Just 30 extra programmers to create PalmLinux? OK. Or how about 1/100 as many? I'm sure just 3 extra engineers could create PalmLinux. 3 REALLY GOOD ENGINEERS. Like you, Marty. 1337 1InuX 10RdZ.
> But here are some nice round numbers: 300 new engineers x
> $100,000/year = $30,000,000.
Well, well, well. There we are. Skippy's back to exactly the set of numbers he called me a liar for quoting. $100m + $50m - $30m (= 120m to divide by 6m.)
So, Skippy, now you've repeated the very numbers you've accused me of lying for attributing to you. Not very bright, Skippy, calling someone a liar for just repeating your own numbers.
You owe me an apology, Skippy. Not that I expect anything more than your usual juvenile tantrum, though.
No Marty, I used YOUR numbers to illustrate to you the point I was making from Day 1: If PalmSource is to deliver PalmLinux by mid-2006 they will run out of money next year (2006). Period.
> Now rumor has it that a "rule of thumb in the valley is that
> engineers cost a company 2.5 times their base salary". Let's
> see now... $30,000,000 x 2.5 = $75,000,000.
> - $75 million
That's right Skippy. That's why it was so funny to watch you deny dramatically that you'd gotten the 100k number wrong. You were so busy trying to 'be right' that you didn't even realize that I was pointing out a mistake, that if you'd bothered to correct, worked in your favor. You _are_ funny, Skippy.
No, Marty, I'm using YOUR numbers to illustrate a point. Only problem is it appears that you're too dull to understand that. Or all those all night PalmLinux coding sessions affecting your reading comprehension?
But wait, it's not 300, Skippy, it's 30. Which makes 75M, by your calculations, 7.5M. Oops. Why take my word on 2.5 and not believe my estimate that it would be < 30 to accomplish your goal? Er, wait, of course you wouldn't. One suits your bad math, the other makes it apparent how bad it is.
Sorry Marty, but just 30 new engineers (and no licensed code/apps/etc.) is not enough to deliver a stable PalmLinux by mid-2006. I wish it was, but it isn't.
> So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50
> million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million
> PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by
> mid - late 2006.
Ah, Skippy, nice recovery. You _finally_ got the point about your $100k estimate being off base.
Of course, it's odd that you took my 2.5 rather than someone you're on better term's with 2.0, and that you've now reached the same zero by a different route. Now take my 30 instead of your wildly over inflated 300. Er, no, of course not, if you do that you don't get that nice zero.
Again, Marty: using YOUR numbers to illustrate the point.
But it's kind of like your claim about licenses, isn't it Skippy. It doesn't really matter what the facts are, all you want is some numbers that add up to zero.
If you say so, Marty.
What I REALLY want is for Palm and PalmSource to stop the games, put adequate resources behind PalmLinux to deliver it in STABLE condition by mid-2006 with all of the features I have posted about before. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Instead, we'll see the conclusion of a tragedy in which executives keep trying to be far too clever, ultimately running BOTH Palm and PalmSource into the ground, leaving us with an orphaned platform. What a waste. If anyone had told me in 2000 that this was Palm's destiny I would have had them committed for a psychiatric evaluation. Thanks for nothing, Palm.
Here are a few facts for you:
1) You've got the available cash number wrong.
2) You've got the estimated revenue number wrong.
3) You've got the burn rate number wrong.
4) You've got number of people it would take to accomplish what you want wrong.
IOW, Skippy, you still have all your numbers wrong.
If I'm so wrong, why don't you post the CORRECT numbers, Marty? With links to how you arrived at them as well. Let me guess - you won't/can't do that? Why not, Marty? Because you're full of feces. That's why.
Here are a few facts for you, Marty:
1) You are full of feces.
2) PalmLinux will be too little, too late if it is delivered two years from now (see Copeland, Cobalt, Netscape, etc to get an idea of what PalmLinux's coming out party would be like if it shows up late in 2007 or 2008).
3) Your arguments will continue to blow up in your face because PalmSource/Palm's actions are indefensible.
4) Your posts here will convince approximately no one that the PalmOS platform is not in danger of being Netscaped.
5) We would be better off if you would spend more time CODING and less time POSTING USELESS SPIN here at Palminfocenter.
6) Those of us posting under TVoR's User Name probably care a LOT more about the PalmOS platform than a hired hand like you EVER will.
7) PalmSource and Palm are not as clever as they like to think they are.
8) PalmOS competitors currently have more advanced OSes available than PalmSource does.
9) PalmOS competitors have more development resources than PalmSource does.
10) Time will prove who was right about PalmOS/PalmSource/PalmLinux. And it will not be you.
But none of that matters, Skippy, because your basic premise is wrong. Palm accepted a schedule from PalmSource, and is committed to pay them money based on that schedule. PalmSource doesn't need to accelerate in order to hit their customer's schedule.
Since Palm will soon own PalmSource, your point is moot. And as I said before, OWNERSHIP of PalmOS is likely a higher priority for Palm than rapid development of PalmLinux. If this is the case, slow development of PalmLinux will likely be remembered as what killed Palm.
Oh, and, as you admitted yourself, if Palm _did_ buy PalmSource, the result wouldn't be any acceleration of schedule. Palm wouldn't get finished, according to Skippy, with PaluxOS any sooner that way.
I did not sat thay. I said Palm's main concern is likely outright ownership. I do believe that development will speed up when Palm buys PalmLinux, but it won't occur as fast as it SHOULD.
So you see, Skippy, just as you were wrong about what the license says about being void, you're wrong about a motivation for Palm buying PalmSource, and about when PalmSource will run out of money.
Only in your "special" world, Marty.
Oh, and nobody bought PalmSource last week. Ah well. Only four business days this week. They'd better get cracking.
Indeed.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> any 'joint development arrangements', over and above the
> Customer Technology Briefings agreed in their licenses?
From your remark below, I would guess you do, or at least assume that such agreements exist:
> I'm sure they are hearing from PalmSource a lot more
> frequently than once a quarter. Which would make termination
> of those Customer Technology Briefings all the more
> devastating.
Um, no, it would have exactly the opposite effect. If the only thing that stopped is the CTBs, they'd barely notice the loss.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I don't make announcements, Skippy. I make comments. Software's always late. Predicting that PalmSource will be late is about as risky as predicting that the sun will rise.
> $100 million spread out over several years.
Two, Skippy. If they don't deliver by the end of '07, they're out of money and out of business.
> Last time I checked, Apple was the sole vendor of hardware
> that runs its OS. And furthermore it had reinvented itself as
> a consumer electronics (iPod) company. Are you suggesting
> PalmSource is going to do either of those things?
Nope. Let me slow it down for you Skippy. Apple got out of one business and into a related but different one. If PalmSource is going to be a success, they're going to do it by getting out of one business and into a related but different one.
They need to get out of the dying PDA business and into the growing cell-phone business. To succede, they need to do more than just PDA-with-telephony "smartPhones", they need to establish themselves in feature phones.
Even a niche in that market would be a business five to ten times bigger than the PDA market at its peak.
See, Skippy, you're like all the people who ever predicted the death of IBM. You're looking at the death of a market and saying that it's biggest player will die because they've lost share in that market. You're neglecting that companies outlast markets by getting into other businesses.
Can PalmSource pull an IBM? I dunno. But they won't die out along your scenario, even if you do finally get the math right, because you keep neglecting that they're trying to.
The continuing spin of Skippy the shifty
> I didn't say 30 million was enough to deliver PalmLinux by
> 2006.
Actually, Skippy you did. You even say it again, below.
> Just using your the numbers you agreed to in order to further
> destroy your arguments
Nice try, Skippy, but I never agreed to these numbers. In the post you're replying to I even pointed out that they're all wrong.
> $75 million was PalmSource's approximate costs for doing
> business in FY 2005.
And there you are, using a number I never agreed to, Skippy. 75M wasn't their cost of doing business in '05. It was the number you picked to make your "math" work out.
> If they do not "ramp up development", I predict that an
> independent PalmSource will not deliver a stable PalmLinux
> by "mid-2006".
Given that they've never claimed they would, that's hardly a difficult prediction, Skippy.
> Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers
> might allow PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Um, Skippy? That's where you came up with the $30M number that you denied having claimed might allow PalmLinux in 2006. You know, the one you changed from $30M to $75M when it was pointed out to you that $30M wouldn't make them run out of cash in '06.
Skippy, you're slipping. When you're spinning, you're not supposed to make contradictory claims in the same post.
> Just 30 extra programmers to create PalmLinux? OK. Or how
> about 1/100 as many? I'm sure just 3 extra engineers could
> create PalmLinux. 3 REALLY GOOD ENGINEERS. Like you. 1337
> 1InuX 10RdZ.
I'm sure the right three could. But in the business, you're more likely to end up with the 30. I've done similar projects in similar time frames with about that many people, so I know from past experience that it's the right number.
By the way, Skippy, bad guess on two counts. I'm not an ENGINEER, and I'm not a linux lord. Er, wait, Skippy, make that 3 counts. It's not linux gurus one would want to accelerate an integration. It's a certain kind of aps developer. Poor Skippy, once again confused about the scope of the work.
> I'm using YOUR numbers to illustrate a point.
Um, Skippy? I've pointed out that $100M cash, 6m/month burn, 300 programmers, and $100k/programmer-year were all _wrong_. None of those are *my* numbers.
I've contributed two numbers, Skippy, and you're only using one of them. If you use the other one, you're whole argument goes up in smoke.
>>> So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50
>>> million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million
>>> PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by
>>> mid - late 2006.
> Again: using YOUR numbers to illustrate the point.
Um, Skippy? None of those are _MY_ numbers. They're all yours. (The ones you accused me of lying for quoting, by the way. Where's that apology, Skippy?) And they're all numbers that I've continually stated were wrong.
> What I REALLY want is for Palm and PalmSource to stop the
> games, put adequate resources behind PalmLinux to deliver it
> in STABLE condition by mid-2006 with all of the features I
> have posted about before.
Not going to happen Skippy. But only little kids think that because they don't get what they want that the whole world is going to come tumbling down around the people who didn't give it to them.
>> Here are a few facts for you:
>> 1) You've got the available cash number wrong.
>> 2) You've got the estimated revenue number wrong.
>> 3) You've got the burn rate number wrong.
>> 4) You've got number of people it would take to accomplish
>> what you want wrong.
>> IOW, Skippy, you still have all your numbers wrong.
Jeez, Skippy, you're slipping. You left that in and still claimed you were using _MY_ numbers. Thanks for the laughs, Skippy.
>> If I'm so wrong, why don't you post the CORRECT numbers?
I posted a link to the 10K which has the cash number and prior year expense information in it, along with the revenue estimates, none of which match your figures.
You can do your own homework on average salary in the valley, there are pleny of web sites that will give you that. You'll find it's not $100K.
Knowing that, and the numbers from the 10k, you can calcuate the multiplier for burdened cost of an engineer. You'll find it's close enough to 2.5 for ballpark estimates like this one.
As far as the 300/30 difference, Skippy, since you're pulling numbers out of the air, I'll wait until we see your justification for your "300", before I bother to explain how it's been done in the past with 30.
> Here are a few facts for you:
> 1) You are full of feces.
Indeed. Constipation is a hazzard of age. But the new laxative is going to help, I'm told.
> 2) PalmLinux will be too little, too late if it is delivered
> two years from now
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. And one not shared by the people who are paying for PalmLinux.
> 3) Your arguments will continue to blow up in your face
> because PalmSource/Palm's actions are indefensible.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. But my arguments merely amount to pointing out your errors. You'll find I've said nothing to defend either PalmSource or Palm.
> 4) Your posts here will convince approximately no one that
> the PalmOS platform is not in danger of being Netscaped.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. But it's OK, it's an opinion I share. I'm not posting to convince anyone, Skippy. I'm posting because you reply and the replies make me laugh out loud. The time spent on the posting is worth it for the humor that results. (I still think you and I are the only ones reading our exchanges, Skippy.)
> 5) We would be better off if you would spend more time CODING
> and less time POSTING USELESS SPIN here at Palminfocenter.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. Besides, Skippy, I thought you had me pegged as a "Linux Lord", and you agreed that the Linux part of PalmLinux was stable. If so, Skippy, what should I be CODING? Surely a leet linux lord would we wise enough to leave the gui and apps code to the gui and apps people?
> 6) Those of us posting under TVoR's User Name probably care a
> LOT more about the PalmOS platform than a hired hand like you
> EVER will.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. And by the way, Skippy, how many other user names do "those of us" (cybil, is that you?) post under here. Sometimes it feels like I'm in a forest of sock puppets.
> 7) PalmSource and Palm are not as clever as they like to
> think they are.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion.
> 8) PalmOS competitors currently have more advanced OSes
> available than PalmSource does.
Oops. You screwed up there, Skippy. If by 'available' you mean 'deployed and in the hands of consumers', you've actually stated a fact.
> 9) PalmOS competitors have more development resources than
> PalmSource does.
Damn. Two screw ups in a row, Skippy. Yup, that's a fact.
> 10) Time will prove who was right about
> PalmOS/PalmSource/PalmLinux. And it will not be you.
OOPs. Tried to sneak an opinion in there after a fact, Skippy.
> Since Palm will soon own PalmSource, your point is moot.
There you go with "soon" again. When I first checked, "soon" to you was '06. Then it was last week. What is it now, Skippy?
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> any 'joint development arrangements', over and above the
> Customer Technology Briefings agreed in their licenses?
From your remark below, I would guess you do, or at least assume that such agreements exist:
I don't know whether any 'joint development agreements' exist or not. I do know that there's no publicly available evidence that they do.
> I'm sure they are hearing from PalmSource a lot more
> frequently than once a quarter. Which would make termination
> of those Customer Technology Briefings all the more
> devastating.
Um, no, it would have exactly the opposite effect. If the only thing that stopped is the CTBs, they'd barely notice the loss.
When I said I'm sure that licensees are hearing from PalmSource a lot more freqently than once a quarter, I was referring to Customer Technology Briefings (the ones that are automatically terminated if PalmSource is bought out), not any sort of joint development meeting.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I remain unconvinced that there's any margin for them in the so-called "feature phone" market. The prices of cell phones are so low, and profits so minimal, that to try and convince a phone manufacturer to add to their expense by including PalmSource's software when the manufacturer could whip up their own QuasiOS on the cheap would be difficult bordering on impossible. Besides which, the market already has major established players such as Nokia, who have their own systems, and hold the vast majority of mindshare in sparkly mobile phone software. The "feature phone" idea is little more than a totem to ward off the idea of being pushed out of the real handheld computing market, which is classic handhelds and smartphones.
Add to this the BS about the handheld market dying. People have been saying that for years. It's still not true. Yes, sales went down after the tech bubble burst, but that's to be expected, and hardly grounds for a death certificate. Handheld computers are cheaper and more powerful now than they ever have been, and they're still selling loads.
And one not shared by the people who are paying for PalmLinux.
Who is paying for PalmLinux? As far as I'm aware, no company has specifically licensed, committed to, or otherwise backed PalmLinux. All the current licensees are buying is Garnet. The fact that PSRC is using their licensing fees to fund PLinux development doesn't constitute an endorsement.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I wonder what ACCESSos will be like.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
[shakes head] I dont know, I just dont know.
mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> 2006.
Actually, Skippy you did. You even say it again, below.
Actually, you're wrong (again), Marty. I did mention that the $30 million from the Palm name sale could be used to hire engineers to help complete PalmLinux in 2006. I also said Palm needed to outsource for code and apps as well.
> Just using your the numbers you agreed to in order to further
> destroy your arguments
Nice try, Skippy, but I never agreed to these numbers. In the post you're replying to I even pointed out that they're all wrong.
If you say so, Marty.
> $75 million was PalmSource's approximate costs for doing
> business in FY 2005.
And there you are, using a number I never agreed to, Skippy. 75M wasn't their cost of doing business in '05. It was the number you picked to make your "math" work out.
No, it was a number taken from their recent SEC filing, Marty.
> If they do not "ramp up development", I predict that an
> independent PalmSource will not deliver a stable PalmLinux
> by "mid-2006".
Given that they've never claimed they would, that's hardly a difficult prediction, Skippy.
Michael Mace claimed PalmSource was aiming to finish PalmLinux by "mid-2006". I was even willing to give them an extra 3 - 6 months to deliver.
> Now elsewhere, I suggested that adding 300 new programmers
> might allow PalmSource to complete PalmLinux in 2006.
Um, Skippy? That's where you came up with the $30M number that you denied having claimed might allow PalmLinux in 2006. You know, the one you changed from $30M to $75M when it was pointed out to you that $30M wouldn't make them run out of cash in '06.
Skippy, you're slipping. When you're spinning, you're not supposed to make contradictory claims in the same post.
The engineers are not the sole expense, Marty. I also siad Palm needed to license apps + outsource code.
> Just 30 extra programmers to create PalmLinux? OK. Or how
> about 1/100 as many? I'm sure just 3 extra engineers could
> create PalmLinux. 3 REALLY GOOD ENGINEERS. Like you. 1337
> 1InuX 10RdZ.
I'm sure the right three could. But in the business, you're more likely to end up with the 30. I've done similar projects in similar time frames with about that many people, so I know from past experience that it's the right number.
By the way, Skippy, bad guess on two counts. I'm not an ENGINEER, and I'm not a linux lord. Er, wait, Skippy, make that 3 counts. It's not linux gurus one would want to accelerate an integration. It's a certain kind of aps developer. Poor Skippy, once again confused about the scope of the work.
Marty, those terms may mean specific things to you, but they're interchangeable in my books. You are ALL just codemonkeys to me. Really. Sorry, Marty.
> I'm using YOUR numbers to illustrate a point.
Um, Skippy? I've pointed out that $100M cash, 6m/month burn, 300 programmers, and $100k/programmer-year were all _wrong_. None of those are *my* numbers.
I've contributed two numbers, Skippy, and you're only using one of them. If you use the other one, you're whole argument goes up in smoke.
SIMPLE EXERCISE FOR MARTY FOUTS:
I used your "2.5 x salary" figure to help show you were wrong but explained that the $75 million for PalmLinux completion would actually be comprised of a mix of salaries + licensed/purchased apps. You continue to somehow forget this, Marty. I've also presented the numbers and said where they came from. If you disagree with them then post the numbers YOU feel are correct (current cash/investments, burn rate in FY 2005, burn rate after firings, contribution/losses from China MobileSoft, increases in employee compensation and the resultant required burn rate to deliver PalmLinux before the end of 2006). If you continue to avoid posting your estimates of the figures you'll keep showing us how fecolent you are, Marty. [No doubt you'll come up with another way to dodge this, though. You're a FRAUD, Marty.]
>>> So let's see now... ($100 million cash/investments + $50
>>> million income) - ($75 million fixed costs + $75 million
>>> PalmLinux completion costs) = $0 left over in PalmSource by
>>> mid - late 2006.
> Again: using YOUR numbers to illustrate the point.
Um, Skippy? None of those are _MY_ numbers. They're all yours. (The ones you accused me of lying for quoting, by the way. Where's that apology, Skippy?) And they're all numbers that I've continually stated were wrong.
Disagree with the numbers? Then post the numbers you feel are correct. Time for you to put up or stop yapping, Mr. Fouts.
> What I REALLY want is for Palm and PalmSource to stop the
> games, put adequate resources behind PalmLinux to deliver it
> in STABLE condition by mid-2006 with all of the features I
> have posted about before.
Not going to happen Skippy. But only little kids think that because they don't get what they want that the whole world is going to come tumbling down around the people who didn't give it to them.
Unfortunately PalmSource is delusional if it thinks it has any hope in gaining market share if PalmLinux arrives in mid-late 2007 or even 2008. They might as well bend over now and let Symbian, Windows + other Linux OSes start humping PalmSource's pre-greased rump.
>> Here are a few facts for you:
>> 1) You've got the available cash number wrong.
>> 2) You've got the estimated revenue number wrong.
>> 3) You've got the burn rate number wrong.
>> 4) You've got number of people it would take to accomplish
>> what you want wrong.
>> IOW, Skippy, you still have all your numbers wrong.
Jeez, Skippy, you're slipping. You left that in and still claimed you were using _MY_ numbers. Thanks for the laughs, Skippy.
You're welcome, Marty. But we're still waiting for you to actually refute those numbers + post your "special" version of reality.
>> If I'm so wrong, why don't you post the CORRECT numbers?
I posted a link to the 10K which has the cash number and prior year expense information in it, along with the revenue estimates, none of which match your figures.
You can do your own homework on average salary in the valley, there are pleny of web sites that will give you that. You'll find it's not $100K.
Knowing that, and the numbers from the 10k, you can calcuate the multiplier for burdened cost of an engineer. You'll find it's close enough to 2.5 for ballpark estimates like this one.
As far as the 300/30 difference, Skippy, since you're pulling numbers out of the air, I'll wait until we see your justification for your "300", before I bother to explain how it's been done in the past with 30.
The 10K was used to estimate the numbers. It's time for YOU to do your own homework and show why you disagree. Don't worry - I won't rub your big nose in it when you run away (as usual).
> Here are a few facts for you:
> 1) You are full of feces.
Indeed. Constipation is a hazzard of age. But the new laxative is going to help, I'm told.
I'm afraid it probably won't work in advanced cases like yours. You need a surgical disimpaction + bowel prep, Kiddo. And maybe an zzenima, just for fun.
> 2) PalmLinux will be too little, too late if it is delivered
> two years from now
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. And one not shared by the people who are paying for PalmLinux.
Opinion only according to you, Marty. And I don't recall any licensees specifically licensing just PalmLinux - do you?
> 3) Your arguments will continue to blow up in your face
> because PalmSource/Palm's actions are indefensible.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. But my arguments merely amount to pointing out your errors. You'll find I've said nothing to defend either PalmSource or Palm.
No, a fact. Exhibit 1: soot-faced Marty Fouts.
> 4) Your posts here will convince approximately no one that
> the PalmOS platform is not in danger of being Netscaped.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. But it's OK, it's an opinion I share. I'm not posting to convince anyone, Skippy. I'm posting because you reply and the replies make me laugh out loud. The time spent on the posting is worth it for the humor that results. (I still think you and I are the only ones reading our exchanges, Skippy.)
No, another fact. And I expect quite a few people are reading this thread and marvelling at how inane PalmSource employees like you are.
> 5) We would be better off if you would spend more time CODING
> and less time POSTING USELESS SPIN here at Palminfocenter.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. Besides, Skippy, I thought you had me pegged as a "Linux Lord", and you agreed that the Linux part of PalmLinux was stable. If so, Skippy, what should I be CODING? Surely a leet linux lord would we wise enough to leave the gui and apps code to the gui and apps people?
Yet another FACT, Marty. You are a codemonkey dealing with Linux on Palm. And as I said before, ARMLinux is not the main problem - it's INTEGRATING PalmOS/Cobalt scavengings and Linux, while maintaining backwards compatibility. That's what might take 2 years to accomplish. And I would hope that all of the codemonkeys learn to work together for the good of the PalmSource collective (troop). No more Be Vs. Palm cliques. No more Apps Vs. APIs Vs. GUIs Vs. Kernels Vs. Drivers teams. All for one, one for naught. Oops - I mean "one for all". Kumbayah, Marty. Kumbayah.
> 6) Those of us posting under TVoR's User Name probably care a
> LOT more about the PalmOS platform than a hired hand like you
> EVER will.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion. And by the way, Skippy, how many other user names do "those of us" (cybil, is that you?) post under here. Sometimes it feels like I'm in a forest of sock puppets.
Fact. No other names (learn to read). But your Glen/Glenda routine was getting a little tiresome, Mr. Fouts.
> 7) PalmSource and Palm are not as clever as they like to
> think they are.
Not a fact, Skippy, an opinion.
Fact. And the games may have now cost Palm ownership of PalmOS.
> 8) PalmOS competitors currently have more advanced OSes
> available than PalmSource does.
Oops. You screwed up there, Skippy. If by 'available' you mean 'deployed and in the hands of consumers', you've actually stated a fact.
Fact (whether talking about available or developed OSes).
> 9) PalmOS competitors have more development resources than
> PalmSource does.
Damn. Two screw ups in a row, Skippy. Yup, that's a fact.
Fact. (Mismanagement has resulted in PalmSource losing many of its best engineers over the past 5 years. I trust you were able to scoop up some of the Tapwave victims before Palm could hire them all...)
> 10) Time will prove who was right about
> PalmOS/PalmSource/PalmLinux. And it will not be you.
OOPs. Tried to sneak an opinion in there after a fact, Skippy.
No, fact.
> Since Palm will soon own PalmSource, your point is moot.
There you go with "soon" again. When I first checked, "soon" to you was '06. Then it was last week. What is it now, Skippy?
Things change, Mr. Fouts. My revised estimate missed the actual takeout date by around a week. Yes, I was wrong about the apparent winner in this bidding war, but that is Palm's fault - not mine.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> 1) You are full of feces.
Indeed. Constipation is a hazzard of age. But the new laxative is going to help, I'm told.
I'm afraid it probably won't work in advanced cases like yours. You need a surgical disimpaction + bowel prep, Kiddo. And maybe an enema, just for fun.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
1) His short postings become far more frequent
2) His insults become far more juvenile.
Skippy, you'd save yourself a lot of trouble by simply admiting that you were wrong to claim that "When PalmSource gets bought ALL licenses are VOIDED!"
That's what an adult would do. It's little kids that throw tantrums when they're caught out making mistakes.
Marty Fouts
Lead Linux Lizard
PalmSource Core Technology Department
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
I hope you weren't offended by the feces humor. We have a longstanding tradition of that here at PIC and I was merely giving you a "welcome".
Take care,
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
> PalmSource was bought, the licensee would be effectively
> excluded from the loop.
Um, no, Skippy, it doesn't say that at all. It says that a certain kind of briefing stops. That, by the way, is a long way from "VOIDED", Skippy. You should stop trying to spin your mistake and just admit that you were wrong. Again.
> While Palm's contract prevents them from being cut out
> completely (and can extend their contract), the freeze-out
> accomplishes essentially the same goal. Keep denying this if > it makes you feel better, but the rest of us see the buyout
> clauses for what they really are.
But wait, Skippy, you've just contradicted your contradiction to your original claim. Nice one that.
But no, skippy, even if there was a 'freezeout' of roadmap briefings, it doesn't accomplish the same goal as voiding a license.
A voided license would mean that the vendor would have to stop shipping product containing PalmOS. A "freezeout" means that they'd have less advanced notice of what's in PalmOS, but would still get software updates and still be able to ship. "freezeout" in this context is more like 'chill down'.
Of course, given that the buyer is Access, and Palm's a customer of theirs, not even you could imagine that Access is going to stop PalmSource from briefing Palm, so the whole point's rather moot.
Er, wait, I guess _you_ could imagine that. You've got the wildest conspiracy imagine I've encountered since I ran into the UFO nutters.
Marty Fouts
Lead Linux Lizard
PalmSource Core Technology Department
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
http://www.guidenet.net/resources/wanker.html
This is obviously the 'style guide' used by The Voice of Refuse.
RE: When PalmSource gets bought, ALL licenses are VOIDED!
(Please try hang in with me here.)
"When" refers to a particular point in time. It is not used here to refer to a process or an extended period of time. It is a point in time.
"PalmSource gets bought" identifies just when the point in time is. It has not yet happened, but if Access has their way, it will happen and it will be soon. Incidentally, it will not be Palm doing the buying, contrary to what someone stated so emphatically elsewhere, and attempted to mock anyone who held a contrary belief.
"ALL licenses" indicates universal inclusion. It does not allow for exception. And in this instance, the author chose to emphasize the word "ALL" by putting it in caps. He obviously believed there were no exceptions.
"are VOIDED!" There are multiple definitions of the word "void", but since the topic concerns licenses, I assume this definition is accurate: "Having no legal force or validity; null: a contract rendered void."
Now, in response to having it pointed out that he was wrong, TVOR had this to say:
...the previously-discussed contract states that when PalmSource was bought, the licensee would be effectively excluded from the loop. While Palm's contract prevents them from being cut out completely (and can extend their contract), the freeze-out accomplishes essentially the same goal. Keep denying this if it makes you feel better, but the rest of us see the buyout clauses for what they really are. (emphasis mine)
Amazing spin. He could save himself a whole lot of energy by just saying, "Yep, I got that wrong." Instead he must assume the readership here is of sufficiently low IQ so as to believe that words like "effectively excluded" and "essentially" mean the same thing as "VOIDED" and "ALL" when he also had to admit that they "can extend" and are "prevented from being cut out completely."
TVOR is spinning faster than a Whirling Dervish at this point. But no one need fear. If past behaviour is any indication, he will either ignore it and hope everyone forgets, attempt to discredit anyone who points out his errors by spewing copious quantities of verbage and insult, or keep spinning until he has convinced himself he was right all along.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8042#111429
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
-------------------------------
Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com
RE: Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
I wonder if he'll have a nervous breakdown if someone other than Palm buys PalmSource, or worse, no one does.
RE: Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
I wonder if he'll have a nervous breakdown if someone other than Palm buys PalmSource, or worse, no one does.
Get back to work, Marty. More PalmLinux code and less useless chatter from you please. Remember: you posting more SPIN and obfuscations here at Palminfocenter isn't going to help delivering PalmLinux any faster.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
Only to stockholders, the SEC, lawyers...
For the rest of us, it's all academic.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm eCONomy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
How PalmSource is REALLY doing: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8026#110958
RE: Does ANYONE not realize that Palm will buy PalmSource?
(Ok, start spinning; you've got plenty of it to do now.)
I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."
Right. Every one of you whinging b*stards read this:
...and if I get my way on here, some of your days are numbered.
RE: Right. Every one of you whinging b*stards read this:
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
Well, no Cobalt is now official.
Still waiting for Cobalt...Garnet 5.99999999999999999999999 will not cut it in 2006.