>> One platform going forward. It sounds like the death of the Palm o/s. > > At this point, all Palm OS has going for it is the vast 3rd party > application space, which the Linux-based replacement for Palm OS will > fully support (it is designed with a "compatibility layer" to handle > Palm OS apps semi-natively, so its handling of well-behaved (i.e., > compliant) apps should be transparent to the user).
To me, Palm finally noticed it was going away if Palm Linux did not come ASAP and strong, and that the Foleo would be a disaster, bigger than the LifeDrive (which WAS a VERY good idea at the time, with good hardware, but a piss-poor implementation). So instead of insisting on something that was already being flagged as a mistake by the market, and taking away part of their limited resources (further delaying the oh-so-delayed Palm Linux), they are concentrating on their final opportunity to regain importance in the blue-flame hot Smartphone market. Those next 12 months will either turn Palm into another Psion, or (we hope) give Palm rewened strenght. Still, to me Palm will not survive in the long run if their do not learn to: - Talk CLOSELY to developers and support them FULLY (it's the software, stupid!) - Fully disclose their APIs to developers (they are the people that make an OS great or useless, by supporting it, and writing good code must be made as easy as possible) - Write GOOD code to support everything they want to offer in hardware in the OS kernel, NO PATCHES AND WORKAROUNDS (stability!) - Offer PalmOS 5.x backwards compatibility in a way that does not compromise the OS if something goes wrong within the emulation layer (stability!) - FIX THAT DREADED NTFS ISSUE! (stability!) - Stay on top of early firmware bugs and issues and quickly provide firmware upgrades - Stop those "useless API changes" from one model to another that make a developer cringe because it has to add code or because he discovers his software was rendered useless, things like "how the LED blinks", for instance If Palm does its homework to TRULY excel, they do have the right idea (power and simplicity) and the possibility to build a GREAT next-generation Smartphone. The good thing is that Palm still has its future in its hands. The bad thing is that it's probably their last chance to do things right. []s Sandro Campos Mancini
