What Is the Timetable for OS 5?

One of the most frequently asked questions among Palm users is, "When will OS 5 be out?" In a recent interview with the SD Times, David Nagel, who is in charge of its development, shed some light on this. "We’ll have a broad range of platforms in mid-2002 that licensees can choose from depending on their specific design goals." This seems to indicate that while Palm's Platform Solutions group will be finished with OS 5 in mid-2002, how much longer consumers will have wait to actually see any handhelds running OS 5 will depend on the licensees.

Update: According to Palm's chairman and interim CEO Eric Benhamou, a beta of OS 5 will be available during the company's March to May financial quarter.

By that time Palm's split into hardware and software divisions will have been completed long before, so Palm's hardware division shouldn't be getting any special access to the new OS. This leads to the interesting possibility that the first handhelds running Palm OS 5 might not be made by Palm.

Mr. Nagel went on to explain more of the reasoning behind Palm's purchase of Be Inc. According to him, Palm wanted Be's experience in creating software platforms well suited for licencing. "The Be guys have been in the licensing and platform business longer than we have, and had developed more sophisticated bill and process tools that are suited better for licensees than tools we had." With Be's expertise, Mr. Nagel is hoping to greatly speed up Palm's development of the new OS.

OS 5, is being developed to run on ARM-based chips, rather than the Dragonball ones all current Palm OS models use. These will have much greater processing power than is currently available. Mr. Nagel mentioned that it will be able to run on chips with speeds ranging from 30MHz to 700MHz. The new OS will still be able to run the majority of current applications, though there will be some exceptions.

On Monday, Palm announced that it will be using Texas Instrument's OMAP processor platform in its next-generation wireless handhelds, expected out late next year. Palm's contract with TI isn't exclusive so it might use processors from other companies on its non-wireless models.

Thanks to AriB for the tip. -Ed

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Chuckle

I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:21:21 AM #
As if OS 5 even matters anymore . . Palm lost the battle months ago. Not with Microsft, mind you, but Sony. I hope Sony takes a couple weeks off and develops a version of the OS and runs with it the way they have the hardware. Palm bites. Or rather, Palm has bitten.

Note: I have used a Palm for 5 years now. I love my Palm. The company that is Palm now is not the same who I first knew and loved.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:31:03 AM #
I think that's a great idea. While they are at it, they should also create their own version of Windows, too. Think of all the money they would save by not having to pay Microsoft royalties any more.

Dude, are you getting enough oxygen? That's just not the way the world works.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:41:13 AM #
I was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the lack of development of the OS during the past 4 years. There is no defense against the arguement that Palm has snored its way through OS 4.x relying on the tired 'simple is better' mantra as an excuse for not doing anything. I don't necessarily need my Palm to pump out mp3's, but the OS could have been refined and enhanced without complicating things.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:46:54 AM #
Buddy, Palm OS has held its market share very nicely since the introduction of the Pocket PC. Everyone always predicts more sales for Pocket PC, but, the real numbers always tell a different story time and time-again.

Palm doesn't innovate... Sony innovates too much and releases a new handheld every three months...Handspring innovates, but, not the way I like...blah blah blah.

Palm OS gives you all of the innovation choices you could want. You guys just don't know what you want. I mean, they even put it all in a Handera for you and you didn't buy it. Sheesh. No wonder Palm delivers their new handhelds to CompUSA first. You guys are a pain in the ass!

RE: Chuckle
bcombee @ 12/19/2001 12:14:02 PM #
I disagree about progress in OS development. OS 3.0 was a much better programming platform than the previous versions. 3.5 had a lot of substancial rework, with the notification manager and color support and the big new APIs. OS 4.0 has a lot of improvements beyond that to the programmer -- a lot of system routines were sped up, VFS was added, the exchange manager was redesigned to handle messaging beyond IR, and attention manager was added to provide a better way to notifying users about system events than the current alarm setup.

They did all this, while also localizing the OS for Europe and Japan, launching a web initiative with Palm.net, and preparing their systems and developers for the ARM transition.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 12:29:31 PM #
Yeah but I want my Palm to show a zillion bright colors...waah waah...I want to watch hi-def TV shows on it...waah waah...I want always-on wireless email with no cradle for $14.95 per month...waah waah...I want to receive satellite radio broadcasts...waah waah...I want a full-size keyboard to unfold out of the back...I want SD, CF, PCMCIA (both types)...Why won't my Palm give it to me?... I've loved it so much and I have waited so long! I promise I won't send it back five times this time.

Chuckle & get sober
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 2:23:21 PM #
Linux on the PDA like the Zaurus will give Palm a pretty hard time in 2002.
You guys seem to be focused on self contemplation - the same fault as the gorgeous Psion followers and producers did - until they suddenly disappeared 2001...


RE: Chuckle
frauen1 @ 12/19/2001 2:24:17 PM #
What these comments illustrate is how bad the PalmOS guys need to get moving. My theory is that Palm hardware was driving the OS too much - the split will definitely improve the rate of OS innovation. As to the hardware, hopefully they've removed the guys who kept waffling w.r.t. the direction. Given the state that the old team left the business (cash flow problems, etc.) it will be interesting to see if they can come up with some interesting devices in a short time. PocketPC is definitely getting mindshare (if not market), and MS has shown they can get a lot of mileage out of mindshare.

RE: Chuckle
frauen1 @ 12/19/2001 2:28:29 PM #
Oh, as to the Linux PDA, I think they're a year or two behind the PalmOS/PocketPC crowd, but they're pretty sharp. The first Zaurus won't be a hit, but watch the second or third device when they release them. I think Sharp's definitely watching what Sony's doing in the PalmOS space - they've definitely become the "golden boys" for the moment at least.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 2:32:09 PM #
As soon as one comes up with a decent Palm emulator for Palm programs on Linux OS / Zaurus and similar hardware, Palm will have to run for its money

Emulator
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 2:37:53 PM #
Of course, then developers would not have to bother with the 20% of the PDA market that is non Palm OS. They could just stick to developing software for Palm OS with it's 80% market share and still have access to the other hardware via emulation. Palm OS would, then, be the universal software development platform. Then, would they be screwed?

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 2:58:49 PM #
>Then, would they be screwed?
developers not - Palm hardware yes

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 4:09:20 PM #
It should be obvious to even the most rabid Sony-hater that Sony has the momentum. (I have a 505-never owned a Sony). The Sony that is about to be released is certainly functionally superior to the 505 AND it has the "form factor" that has until now only been seen in the Vx/ 50x. When it is released Sony will certainly be the premier handheld in all non-wireless Palm-OS PDAs. I would imagine that Sony is working on something that will be superior to the Handspring/ Palm wireless models. They are among the leaders in virtually every area in consumer electronics at the high-end. With their in house ability and virtually unlimited funds I can't see how they won't be on top. Maybe they won't be the first, but they will probably have something better in 3 months. Can somebody tell me why I'm wrong?

Tuckermaclain@yahoo

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 5:10:18 PM #
One word: Handera

RE: Chuckle
Smaug @ 12/19/2001 7:24:55 PM #
Handera? You gotta be kidding me, Handera doesnt have anywhere near the monetary amount to compete with sony. Handera can probably at most release 1 pda every 9 months, Sony can do it every 3.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 8:29:13 PM #
>Yeah but I want my Palm to show a zillion bright
>colors...waah waah...I want to watch hi-def TV shows
>on it...waah waah...I want always-on wireless email
>with no cradle for $14.95 per month...waah waah...

Nope...$4.95/mo. ;)

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 9:30:12 PM #
Sony is dead in the PDA market. They have one notable feature, a high-res color screen. The other Palm device makers will have the same, if not better in a few months time and Sony's name lags far behind Palm and Handspring in the PDA purchasing public's eye. Sony had their moment, but are fading fast.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:21:44 PM #
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about. SONY has had the largest overall increase in market share of any handheld, regardless of OS, in the past year... from 3% to >10% of the market. And yes, their high-res color screens are definitely drawing a crowd. I used a PalmIII, then IIIx, then TRGpro, then HandEra. While all these were great handhelds, my SONY Clie N760C is amazing by comparison. HandEra will increase in popularity once the SD slot is good for ANYTHING other than memory. But, people want color in a handheld like they want color in a computer monitor. I doubt that all the color detractors out there are sitting at home staring at B&W TVs?!?!? Face it, a good, easy to read, color screen is worth a lot. Add real, usable memory expandability and a few other cool features (USB, LiPoly battery, MP3) and you have a pretty nice little package!

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:25:06 PM #
"Sony is dead in the PDA market. They have one notable feature, a high-res color screen. The other Palm device makers will have the same, if not better in a few months time and Sony's name lags far behind Palm and Handspring in the PDA purchasing public's eye. Sony had their moment, but are fading fast."

cool we got ourselves yet another ANALyst :)
Did you even study the history of any of those company you are writing about ?? Do you even realize what Sony is capable of ?? LoL Go back to your cave and continue to convince yourself that Clie is dead :)

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 11:38:05 PM #
> [ ... ] While all these were great handhelds, my SONY Clie N760C is amazing by comparison.

Seeing that it is more expensive than any of those ever were, it had better be. Unfortunately, the N760C isn't technologically impressive. A pixel-doubling screen and built-in MP3 play may have wow factor (for a Palm device) now, but those features are quickly becoming old hat. A great color screen would be worth a lot. Sony's screen is neither great (in some stand-out way), nor is it in a price range that 99% of people find worth it. A 10% market share over one quarter (where sales were low anyhow) is tiny in comparison to total devices sold over years. You sound like a Pocket PC pudit making statements like that. The handful of people who wanted to and had the money to buy a high-end device like the 760 have already done so, and its sales are already sagging. The rest are waiting for the next thing, and it won't be coming from Sony.

RE: Chuckle
thcrw739 @ 12/20/2001 3:52:16 AM #
I have he4ard nothing but complaints about sony devices and customer service...ony a few pluses on the devices them selves, if people would stop and think a minute....yes there is always improvment to be made in anything hardware and software, but i think a new Palm OS comes out before the other one can show true potental.....work on the software with the present color screen's and you shall see what you really have..
Oh why is Handspring hardly ever mentioned? I think they are the best units with palm os to date... how many devices do you know the have an exspation to use an adpter that can use not only CF, Smart, and memory sticks? these units may be 50 dollarspeice but come on lets see your palm use a spring module or a sony memory stick or your sony use a spring module etc...smae goes for the other units. handspring knew what they were doing when they sold palm and came up with a better idea....Steve...ok now for you blah,blah,blah

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/21/2001 2:08:38 AM #
"I have he4ard nothing but complaints about sony devices and customer service..."

O really :)

"ony a few pluses on the devices them selves, if people would stop and think a minute....yes there is always improvment to be made in anything hardware and software, but i think a new Palm OS comes out before the other one can show true potental.....work on the software with the present color screen's and you shall see what you really have.."

Have you even looked at what Sony did with Palm OS ?? I think they are really unleashing the true power of color screen on Palm. Just face it Sony not only innovated alot Hardware-wise, but also on the software side, which Palm and Handspring stopped doing for quite some time already. Well of course all those Palm Software written by Sony will run on Clie, the same goes for software on Visor.

"why is Handspring hardly ever mentioned? I think they are the best units with palm os to date... how many devices do you know the have an exspation to use an adpter that can use not only CF, Smart, and memory sticks?"

Is there any Springboard modules that could use any memory stick modules !? ...... hmm .... let me search, I don't know ... seriously ..... find me some..... But I can tell you right now that Panasonic has released a Memory stick modules that could use SD Cards.

And I think that brings me back to "why Handspring dropped Springboard in Treo" Because it's too Freaking HUGE !!!!! that's why they can't fit that thing in Treo "Not a different product line it's also Running palm OS". They learnt from Visor Edge that if your device is slim, you can't really plug the Springboard module in it without using an adaptor, and ppl don't like crarying adaptor with them. That's why the design of Springboard modules are fundamentally flawed, and the size of it is only good for Nintendo gameboy.

RE: Chuckle
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/19/2002 7:57:16 PM #
I still think Handera could pull it off. It doesn't really matter how many models you release in a given amount of time. What matters is quality and what you do with it. The reason Sony has so much going for them right now isn't the flurry of model releases. That just makes me think that they are releasing units before they are "complete", adding what should have been an included feature in a future model and calling it "new". Why not release updates for the flash ROM that I don't have to pay $50 (plus ship it to them) for?

If Handera releases a good, QVGA (already a standard in PPC world, and it looks better than pixel doubling) color device with good audio and their current feature list, they can pull it off, and they won't need another product release in 3 months.

I really like the Clie, but I *hate* proprietary expansion like Memory Stick. I can pay less for a 128MB CF card than a 16MB Memory Stick. I might even buy a Clie now if they could give me the dual CF and MMC/SD expansion that the Handera 330 offers.

Palm should work with Sun

I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 4:50:20 PM #
Both C# and Java (which are essentially the same language)
are very persuasive to developers because they cut
development times greatly and improve quality and
reliability.

With 32bit chips, Java could become the major development
tool for Palm. That means for Palm giving up some
control, but the alternative, a proprietary, non-standard,
C/C++-based API will simply not work. Besides, if Palm
doesn't do it, someone else will: the only thing that
has kept Java from being used widely on Palm is the
anemic processor.

RE: Palm should work with Sun
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 5:11:24 PM #
Many are predicting that the two main development platforms for Palm will be J2ME and C/C++ in the future.

Palm should work with MSFT
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 5:15:13 PM #
Palm should embrace MSFT's .NET "Hailstorm" technology/strategy. Sun is the Polaroid of the computer business.

RE: Palm should work with Sun
popko @ 12/19/2001 5:25:55 PM #
"Sun is the Polaroid of the computer business."

That kida upsets me. Sun did a lot for the world of computing and if you have any idea about Sun the it's business, you wouldn't have said that.

RE: Palm should work with Microsoft
Ed @ 12/19/2001 5:26:14 PM #
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said in the past, "No offense to the Pocket PC, but we might need to bring .Net services to Palm and other devices." He emphasized that .NET "might" be ported to the Palm OS.

There were even rumors back in October that Microsoft would even licence the Palm OS to make sure that .Net works on the Palm OS.

www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2537

---
News Editor

RE: Palm should work with MSFT
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 5:47:11 PM #
MSFT/INTEL's approach to enterprise-class products is an infinitely scalable series of servers and storage and devices - all based on industry standards - that are more cost effective and more flexible than SUN proprietary alternatives. Proprietary, one-vendor architectures are plagued with high costs, high gross margins, and high prices, that over time will come under considerable pressure. In non-proprietary multi-vendor software and hardware architectures, innovation is high and costs are low through commoditization.


RE: Palm should work with Sun
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 6:15:09 PM #
> all based on industry standards

When did Microsoft start following industry standards? Or are you defining an "industry standard" as "what Microsoft uses"?

RE: Palm should work with Sun
Smaug @ 12/19/2001 7:26:21 PM #
Your kidding right? I hate .NET vehemently, why? It makes people do things the microsoft way. With java, you get a much more mature and developed enviroment, and with Liberty in 6 months you get passport functionality, which I am opposed to but its there. .NET is, I feel, rather useless, Java can already do all those things. Yes, sun has awful hardware, blah blah blah. No reason to hate java, what I feel is still the most versatile, and easiest to develop for language.

RE: Palm should work with Sun
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 7:45:59 PM #
Hmm, I'm a developer and I don't find either languages very "persuasive" on the Palm (or PocketPC) platform. Please explain why you feel that Java or C# is a great environment for Palm, given that neither one can produce an application which fits in today's Palm handhelds (while leaving space for other applications).

I don't think the DragonBall is the reason that Java hasn't taken the Palm world by storm....modern PCs have a lot more powerful processors and neither Java nor C# have taken the world by storm there either (name one major retail application, game, etc. written in Java or C#). Java hasn't taken the world by storm for the same reason as C# won't - it's bloated and slow. This is a non-issue when the application is a corporate-type thing where you can just throw more hardware at the problem, but it's death in the retail space.


RE: Palm should work with Sun
popko @ 12/19/2001 8:58:07 PM #
Good point. But then someone on this forum has already said that future = connected (wireless that is). So if you have the back sever doing all the diry work by using java/c# based apps, Palms can just refesh the screen ...

RE: Palm should work with Sun
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/19/2001 9:22:48 PM #
"So if you have the back sever doing all the diry work by using java/c# based apps, Palms can just refesh the screen"

NAH...If I'm on an airplane, for instance, and I want to do some real work on my PDA/Notebook, I don't want to have to rely on the server to do the "dirty work" - because the server don't fit in the overhead bin! I like my computing power local, thank you. I don't want to be tied to/at the mercy of some server (of course that bastard McNealy would love it).

Last Chance

I.M. Anonymous @ 12/20/2001 4:33:36 PM #
Ok, Palm has generally stayed with the same interface for the entire 10 or so years. They NEED a change! Wow, they made the battery icon look 3-D. Ooooh, they made a bug fix.

This is Palm's last chance at the market. If not, for sure PPC's are going to gain market. They need to get some REAL LIFE business hardware available, and I am NOT talking about 240x240 digital cameras, I am talking about Wireless LAN's, modems, etc. Palm has done great, but we must face it: Simplicity isn't a factor any more Palm. You cant brag about it. Not everyone are retards! Any general comments? Will Palm stay ahead?

RE: Last Chance
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/26/2001 12:55:43 AM #
I can click a program in my Palm and have it display before the button is up, while my iPaq will make me wait 10 seconds. (Handbase or Money) It's not about being easy, it's about being effective. Palm is effective and very good. We maintain a network of 500+ PC's and no one continues using a Pocket PC for long. You tend to see the hobby types on the boards and for them the Pocket PC is great, it's a toy. Palm does not need to rush for them, they will always go for the show. Palm needs to do it right and follow their current path. Also,,, I know I have been using the Palms for a while but it has not been 10 years yet. Also your childish "retard" statement tells more about you than your choice of handhelds.

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