A handheld named "PSP"
(which was a great interest of mine)
helped Sony hunt down and destroy the Clie.

strider_mt2k

@Jurisprudence: I too once was the owner of a Clie PEG-TH55.

Not as clumsy or as random as an iPhone,
but an elegant handheld for a more...civilized age.
For over a thousand generations Clie Owners were the avatars of advanced Palm OS handhelds in the galaxy...

before the dark times
before the Empire

-now the Clie are all but extinct.

strider_mt2k

I really really hope that somehow they manage to find a way out of these extremely bad times. I had a Sony Clie Th-55 (still trying to get it repaired) and it blew away the pda competition, and in some ways still does. And as everyone was saying their leadership should be put up against a wall and shot. The best thing they can do now is turn to the community that grew up developing 3rd party apps for the palm os and simply ask for assistance and talent. But i doubt they have either the balls or the creative mind to think that one up. Crying shame.

Jurisprudence

Palm makes phones?!? Oh hell, I heard they were making toasters or something...

kir

I agree with the consensus, bad cave man vision and extremely poor leadership. Palm made bad deals with the phone carriers and their PDA sales dwindled because of lack of features and moving with the times.

I recently dumped palm in favor of pocket pc phone, by far 10 times more advanced and loaded with 1 stop shop of features.

I kind of feel sorry for them, they were "the PDA" of choice.

stingray

Invention and Innovation are key to differentiation. With Android phones coming out, and the iPhone 2.0 its hard to imagine a niche for Palm. They need something radical, different and exciting.

altus

@Samifumi: True. But still charging 2005 prices for an old, defunct, yet functional OS is outrageous. I remember being geeked out of my mind when the TX came out, the specs were ahead of the curve and the smartphone craze was in its toddler stages....how in the hell can you justify still charging full price for essentially a treo with no phone. Palm had the ball and fumbled, WinMo picked it up and scored.
I have a Tungsten E that serves as a nice coaster while I use my T-Mo Dash for the long-haul. I so wanted an Treo but after the 600 T-Mo stopped carrying them.

Damn you Palm

One2ManyCords

I remember the days of the Tungsten | C. That device wowed everyone I showed it to. It was almost as fast as my laptop at the time!

Stang70Fastback

Poor vision, poor leadership.

Honestly, I think part of Palm's problem was the fact there was always a middleman in between the manufacturer and the consumer. That middleman was the carriers, who delayed release to the consumer (how long for Verizon to get the 755p? where is the Centro?).

Palm should have used some of their standing to really push Carterfone application on the wireless carriers. But, they just jumped in bed with the carriers, and got screwed.

Samifumi

Too bad. Remember when Palm the only name PDAs, like xerox to copiers?

BTW, I have Palm m100 on eBay right now - just $10!!!

[cgi.ebay.com]

se7a7n7

I still keep my Clie TH55 handy. IMHO, it's still better than any PDA offering from Palm.

I hope the iPhone SDK spawns equivalents for TealAuto, PowerOne Financial Calculator and an encrypted app for storing passwords, etc. When that happens, it'll only be a gaming machine to keep the kids occupied in the back seat. They, by far, use more of the battery than I do.

Tank

@strider_mt2k: His shirt said Palm... He is pretty nerdy though... he might be A nobody, but he definitely has a body... It might not be a GREAT body, but it will pass for a body. He probably has a little too much Greypoupalm on his palmwiches, but still...
But believe me- THAT PALM LOGO WAS AAAWETHENTIK!!!

Jorin

They need to take the Foleo and turn that into the new Eee PC.

nakmario

I own a Centro, it is a very solid phone. It might not be flashy, but its also not $500 and has the magic abilities to cut and paste, run 3rd party apps and get 3G speeds. Call me crazy, but its a pretty damn good smartphone for $99. The problem for Palm is that it is very low margin, so even though they are selling a lot of them they are not making a lot of money from it. I think its just to tide them over from totally bleeding to death before they can release their new OS.

Also, for you folks who think Android is going to be anything less than a flop you are kidding yourself. I predict a handful of phones will release with it, some small vendors will branch from the main source and it will become another-ran in the market. No large vendor is going to go full bore with an OS hobbled together by a consortium. HTC might release one or two handsets with it, but will still sell 95% WinMo, just like the rest of the off-name brands.

cruci-fiction

@Jorin:
You sure it was a Palm Rep.?

You sure it wasn't...no one?

strider_mt2k

Pssst... Would somebody tell Palm they went out of business in 2001?

bobdobbs

GUESS WHAT I HEARD!!!
Here's the deal... Palm needs at least what the other major OS's have, but more than that they need to SELL THEIR FEATURES!!! The reason Palm is still around today with the SAME OLD OS is becuase IT WAS AHEAD OF ITS TIME. Now?... well now, its pretty much just as good as everything else out there. (Some might say a little better, maybe fanboys like me!)
So whats next? They need to get ahead again with something truly innovative that blows consumers away.
I spoke to a Palm rep that came into my store the other day (major carrier) and he reluctantly devulged they're working on making the next OS Cross-platform. So maybe if I just had to have a WindowsMobile app, I could buy it and install it on my Palm! To me that's pretty innovative... Is it enough? Is it coming soon enough?... My answers to those questions are "maybe" and... "no."
I can't for the life of me understand how Palm expects to get by without their new OS until 2009! Its just absurd! Even being the fanboy I am... Android here I come. I think Android is gonna kill the market. And in 2009 if Palm is still around to release "NOVA" it sure as hell better run my Android apps!!! ;-\

Jorin

@ninjatales: They don't own an OS anymore.
They sold it to pay for golden parachutes and name changes.

strider_mt2k

Very sad picture of a once common household name. Their OS is in dire need of an upgrade in terms of visuals and their hardware desperately needs to look somewhat attractive with different form factors - sliders, clamshells, and candybar styles.

Getting into the sub-laptop category is a great idea also but requiring it to be connected to another Palm device like how the Foleo was designed is a big NO.

WAKE UP PALM!

ninjatales

@cruci-fiction: I dont think anyone disagrees with you about the cost and overall value of the Centro. That is the ONLY phone they have thats selling and in all honestly, its probably priced about $49 to high. You can NOT run a business on one product and the your 'engine' be 15 FUCKING years old!

bigMoneyMIKE

@bigMoneyMIKE
You can run your business for a while on it, especially when you have a bunch of cash like Palm does. They are in a fine position to lay low and work on their new stuff. Like I said, the Centro is solid and will help keep them from bleeding too much cash until they are ready with the new shit.

cruci-fiction

.
My Verizon 700p is the third Treo that I've owned, dating back to 2002. I'm nearing the end of my two-year contract, and the Palm offerings look...exactly like they did two years ago.

freccia

@strider_mt2k: Yea true. They sold it to PalmOne or something cuz they split up their company into hdware and software to foster competition. Unfortunately it made them weaker. Garnet then bought it up couple of years back and let the OS stagnate.

My take on it was to have Palm redevelop their OS. The stuff they have right now is outdated and I'm not in favor of their WinMo-based devices.

ninjatales

@freccia:
Your right. My Palm Centro is nothing better than the 700p for software. It does all the same things. The hardware though is much better, drop calls are nearly gone, and I reset the unit about half as much as I did my 700p.
As for a pocket PC Windows mobile phone, what does it do that the Palm Centro can't?

Razta

It is too bad. I've had a number of PDA's and frankly Palm's always worked the best, were more reliable, have great freeware and you didn't have the same headaches as one has with MS products like MS Mobile. I only switched because other brands have smaller profile. If Palm got smaller, I'd be back!

fayth