"You're right, Carl, the cellular market is huge with smartphones being only a small part of it. But the people who buy smartphones know what else is out there and while others like RIM, and Apple have come out with new, innovative products the last few years Palm's current top of the line is only marginally better than what they were selling three years ago when they were the bleeding edge. Go out and play with an iPhone for a couple of minutes and you'll see how far behind Palm has fallen. "
Palm know doubt hinders itself by not even adding things that have been available on it own products (Wifi) or licenses (GPS) products. I played with a iPhone the 1st day it came out, and yes they do have some neat and never seen before features like the large dual touch screen and sharing of the wireless revenue, but the have done some crazy stuff too like forced wireless activation in order to make even the non-connected features like playinh music and video work. People are wowed now and are ignoring this, but wait until their contracts begin to expire and they are not able to pass the device down to a family member as a music/video (it is merely a shiny brick without activation) only device. Apple won't look so good then. Sure everyone is harder on Palm because they have been the busy too long to allow new products to bully them around. People want them to strike back and fast. The slower they move the less faith people have in their punch and future. People have been saying is down count every year and every year Palm proves them wrong. People want Palm to throw the knockout punch in the first round, but Palm doesn't mind going the distance. "They've been left in the dust and the Foleo isn't likely to do much to encourage smart phone especially at $600. I can get a full laptop for that much and the only thing I would miss is fast boot and a pound or so." Your statement was said over and over back in the day when people where slapping a springboard in their Visor and making a Visorphone. That thing looks like a brick up to the ear and will never catch on is what they said. They were both right and wrong. Yes the brick wouldn't fly, but the refined brick has and is still doing fantastic as a Treo. The Foleo is going to make waves in the laptop/mobile computing arena in much the same way the Visorphone did for the cellular market. "The only reason I can think that the Foleo might make any sense is as a development test platform for the Linux-based Treo." You are more on point here. It will help transisition the Palm OS developers to the Linux world. "Otherwise it's nothing but wasted resources. It won't sell well." Well see how the 1st edition does. The improved versions will shape every device that follows and others including your beloved Apple will follow it with their versions. "If people are so starved for a Treo's functionality today why aren't they using Treos? AT&T will give you a 680 for free with a 2-year contract so it certainly isn't price and they're all over the stores so it's not availability or mindshare either." Price certainly has something to do with it. Most consumers will opt for a free phone over a pricy phone. Once the see that their are free alternatives to the less-featured phones they have been getting, they will most likely move that way. Another factor is cost of data plans and SMS pricing. Some wireless vendors are still robbing their customers of $50 or more for data plans; which is higher than I pay for Cable (and I share this connection on multiple computers). Using Treos often includes the need to use data and the carriers are prohibiting this with price. Their networks can't support everyone on it at once, when this is possible they will decrease this cost (eventually Internet will be included automatically in various service: cable, landline, wireless, municpalities, etc). "As for what capabilities the Treo is missing how about HSDPA? How about built-in A2DP? " Not a show stopper in most camps. You just went over the head of 97% of the market. "How about stability? I have to reset my 680 at least twice a week and that's a no-op for most people. My wife doesn't understand how I can deal with it, though she's not the technophile that I am. :-)" Most instabilities are caused by 3rd party apps. The only way to control this is have a pre-screening of all apps or to close their system like Apple. This obviously is against the Palm way and they have to live with the backlash of being open. Customers quickly blame Palm when a develop creates bad code because they sold the hardware (even though they didn't provide the sofware). People do the same in the PC world but the impact is felt less to Microsoft. "All of that said I am a big fan of Palm and I really hope they get their act together. Otherwise the iPhone 2.0, whenever it comes out, is looking pretty good." The next iPhone most likely be something to see. Let's hope they Palm does do something great, but if they don't the market is big enough for both (and even Google). If we are having the same talks in 5 years then Palm would have lost too much ground. Today they have plenty of time to please both levels of mobile device users. Thanks, I'll see you on the web! Carl W. Brooks http://www.Palmloyal.com Palm Podcasts, Daily News, Software, Hardware, Mobile Email Services and More!
