Palm Has No Plans to Support Symbian

According to Gartner DataQuest, Palm shipped 1,082,000 handhelds (PDAs and Treos) in the third quarter of 2005.

Perhaps their bank balance is a little healthier than many folks here think.

Even RIM only shipped around 800k units in the same period - so Palm, despite all the negative spin her in the PIC discussions, still have solid sales and are enticing new users (and upgraders) to part with cash.

Even if sales drop off over the next couple of quarters, we should be into the first generation of Palm Linux devices by then and the handheld landscape could take on a whole different appearance very quickly, if they make the right design decisions now.

For example, I don't think many punters here will tolerate a revolutionary new Palm if it looks like a revamped T|E and lacks USB host connectivity (something the Linux kernel can handle very nicely).

KultiVator

However, I ALWAYS give credit where credit is due and I think Palm should be applauded for several decisions:

1. Doing their part to push Bluetooth as a "serious" wireless standard early on. The first BT device I ever owned in any shape or form was the T|T back in '02. To date Palm has shipped nine separate devices with Bluetooth functionality standard. That's quite impressive for a small company with a glacial release schedule.

2. Ditto for SD. Arguably even more important than Bluetooth...my first SD-enabled device was my m505. I then bought the first SD digicam (Panasonic iPalm) in '02 so I could standardize on one format...and it's been the same ever since in a parade of handhelds, mp3 players and camcorders. Say what you will, Palm's SD woes have been nothing compared to Sony and their maddening revolving door of Memory Stick permutations & sub-formats (Pro, Duo, MagicGate etc).

3. Shoring up the lowend of the handheld market. Right now there's a huge vacum that exists between $40 Royal/Casio/Sharp organizers and $200+ PDAs/Smartphones. Aside from cheap cell phones there's nothing occupying that sector other than Palm's Zire/Z offerings. Also due to the inherent limitations of FrankenGarnet and Palm's preferred component purchasing (160*160 DSTN screens, 32mb memory chips, white plastic cases), Palm continues to field strong entries into this surprisingly high-margin sector makes perfect sense. What's the cheapest Axim you can buy new? $250ish now that the X30 line is gone? Slogging it out in the $100 PDA market (sold at Target to MILFS) may not be the most glamorous or high-growth segment of the market but it _still_ fills the corporate coffers and funds future Treo/LifeDrive development. This falls in line with KultiVator's comments above. Maybe enough Z22s will eventually be sold so that Palm can wrangle Graffiti 1 back from Xerox (yeah right!)

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5

Sadly Palm have long lost this imepetus. It has just launched a device which still uses Bluetooth 1.1 when the current standard is at 2.0 and other companies (Apple, Dell, Toshiba etc) have been shipping products using Bluetooth 2.0 for some time now.

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower

...likewise there are Palm OS devices that support BT 2.0, just not from Palm.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=8173

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

And another thing ... Palm's raison d'etre is NOT to make a contribution to an amorphous 'industry' thing. They are engaged in a business of producing handheld computers which users want to buy, and doing so in a manner which will put food on the table for Palm's stockholders, employees and suppliers. That's the objective (if it's not, then the Board should be fired). If competitors want to follow Palm's lead, then that's up to them.

Your is best appreciated by remembering the context - by bearing in mind scores (if not hundreds) of your tongue-in-check posts regaling us to the glories of Sony Memory Sticks, etc. And the wonderful punch-line (how you can type it with a straight face?) you accuse others of being clueless about technology, about losing all shreds of credibility, etc. Brilliant; such wonderful irony. Your Nobel Prize for Comedy was so well deserved.

I look forward to hundreds more posts from you on how the Sony CLIE line will destroy Palm, how Palm is incompetant (as compared to those masterminds at Sony), etc, etc, etc.

Bozo.

Surur

Wow! So this means that Palm is dumping wince! :)

I wonder if this is related to the recently announced closure of the wince division at microsoft, the "repositioning" of many wince engineers onto "other projects", and the rolling of the wince product into the "entertainement" division? :)

Pehaps Palm just doesn't want to be associated with a losing platform like wince? :)

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"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

None of them have set the world on fire. Why not ? They run windows. They don't have the palm marketing, or ease of use.

What the treo does well, or at least, better than the others, is integrate a phone into the PDA - or put another way - bring full PDA flexibility and ease of use to your phone.

Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Redmond
Posts: 12309848243

My local Cingular reps just told that he didn't like the
color of Treo's at all. "I never did like that shiny color.
I'm going to be immediately halting all Treo sales. Yeah,
I'm not going to sell another Treo. I didn't get where I am
today by giving customers what they want and I don't intend
to start now. I don't care what people ask for. From now on,
they get huge clunky wince boxes that look like darth vader's
helmet."

Wow! Maybe it's true! :)

Moron. :)

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"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

> "...I talked to our Sprint business rep (based out of the Sprint HQ). He said the Sprint's focus is on Windows Mobile, no longer PalmOS..."

Since when did Sprint *ever* "focus" on Palm OS? What does that even *mean*? The claim is so weak and vague it could literally mean *anything* -- very handy if people actually challenge you on the facts. OK, let's press on: :)

> "...They will continue to sell the 650 as long as it is a hot seller. The 650 will likely be the last PalmOS-based device by Sprint and once sales slide, the 650 will be gone..."

This is brilliant. First of all it is not clear if the shill is editorializing, or if this is still supposed to be a quote from the imaginary "sprint rep". Notice the banal obviousness of "they will keep selling Treo 650's as long as they are hot sellers", and "once sales slide, the Treo 650 will be gone". These trivial observations are true for all phones. The clever part here is the lie, slipped between two banal and obvious truths: "The Treo 650 will likely be the last PalmOS-based device by Sprint". Did you spot that? :)

This is an astonishing claim, considering the source is *apparently* supposed to be mere sales rep. Maybe he's a clairvoyant sales rep, or a sales rep with some other magical powers. Of course, this could simply be the shills editorialization... a handy "out" in case someone from Sprint specifically challenges the lie. :)

> "...I expect the 650 will sell well into next year but don't expect a new PalmOS-based phone, at least from Sprint...."

The shill is now clearly editoralizing his opinions, rather than claiming to be quoting market-moving insights from a magical sprint sales rep. :)

Again, spot the banal and obvious truth: "the Treo 650 will sell well into next year", but carefully note the lie slipped onto the end, "don't expect a new PalmOS-based phone". Again, he doesn't say, "there will not be another PalmOS-based phone", merely that we "should not expect" one. :)

This type of juxtaposition of truth, ambiguity, and lies is essential for the successful shill, and critical when you are trying to build credibility for your lies. :)

All in all, that's some great shilling you "found" there, Surur. I'd give it a 8/10. Please congratulate your colleagues. Much better than your "work". :)

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"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

The next Treo is running WM and when it comes out the 650 will be over a year old. Whatever Palm says about their OS plans for Treos after that is just talk right now. From the perspective of the operators they are selling Palm OS Treos this year and will be selling more WM Treos next year. Beyond that, they don't know. Any way you slice it that's a move away from Palm toward WM and there's not surprise in it being characterized that way.

But if you think after the enormous success the operators have had and continue to have with the 650 that they've decided not to talk with Palm about future Palm OS Treos then you're a lot more gullible than I usually give you credit.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog