Rumor: Palm Going to Pick Intel Instead of Motorola

Posted By: Ed Tuesday, June 19, 2001 12:25:49 PM

It has long been known that Palm's next operating system, OS 5.0, will run on chips using ARM technology. The big question is, who will make those chips. The big candidates are Motorola with its next generation Dragonball chips or Intel with its XScale ones. According to recent rumors, Palm is currently leaning towards XScale.

If true, this would be quite a switch. Until now, all Palm handhelds have run on processors from Motorola. This includes all the Palm OS licensees, too. Motorola has made it clear that they want to keep Palm's business and have announced chips clearly intended to be used as Palm's upgrade path.

Building on Intel's StrongARM technology, the XScale microarchitecture core is manufactured on Intel's advanced 0.18-micron process technology. It offers low power operation ranging from one ten-thousandth of a watt to 1.6 watts, and performance that allows it to operate at clock speeds approaching 1 GHz. Naturally, the high end chips aren't likely to appear in handhelds without some major improvements in battery technology.

Just last week, Motorola unveiled its next generation of Dragonball microprocessors. The first of this group, the Dragonball MX1, is the first ARM core-based chip from Motorola and offers speeds up to 200 MHz. It will have Sony's Memory Stick and an SD interface built in. According to Motorola,it will have best-in-class low power consumption in active, sleep and shutdown modes.

At PalmSource in December, Palm executives demonstrated current Palm software in emulation mode on a development board built around an ARM processor. The ARM chip used on the development board was made by Cirrus Logic, but Palm said at the time that this didn't imply a commitment to any processor manufacturer.

Recently, Palm's CEO Carl Yankowski said that OS 5.0 is currently scheduled to be released in the second half of 2002.

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Correct move

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 12:57:05 PM #
I think this is definitely a correct one. Motorola has very bad reputation for their product and the company. Look at the trouble they bring to Apple (PowerPC), look at their cellular phone got beaten by Nokia.....

In microprocessor world, Intel is the leader, no reason to choose a second tier company.

RE: Correct move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 1:26:12 PM #
Palm is going to have to ensure that Intels's service level agreements are in Palm's favour though. Intel is after all a symbiote of Microsoft.

I can't speak for Apple, but...
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 5:12:08 PM #
... I can tell you I have owned both NOKIA and Motorola cell phones, and there is no comparison -- Motorola's product is far superior to the Nokia. Perhaps Nokia's price point is what got them the leadership in market share. Not a lot of teenyboppers can afford $200 phones.

On the other hand, not too many business users care whether their phone can change colors, either. Performance and capabilities are key, and that is where the Motorola outshines every other product I have ever had (and that is quite a selection, I might add.)

So the Intel chip might or might not be a better fit for Palm. Right now, I don't have a lot of faith in Palm's management, and their ability to make sound business decisions. They better hope that whichever direction they go, it turns out to be the right one. Palm can't afford many more mistakes. (And as a loyal Palm user, I want to see the company live long enough to give birth to the next couple of generations of Palm device.)

RE: Correct move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 8:16:56 PM #
Hell no, I have Nokia cellular phones and my brother use Motorola cellular phone, Nokia cellular phone kick Motorola phone's butt. Motorola phone design is worse, feel very cheap, the user interface very confusing, as for performance, at least the sound quality, Nokia is better (both are GSM).

The only thing I can say good about Motorola phone is some of the models are small, really small.

RE: Correct move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 8:53:27 PM #
poor people. just because Motorola doesn't release their new phones in USA, doesn't mean they don't have good products. If you have chance, you should check out what Motorola phones that other countries have..

All I can tell you is my i1000plus...
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/20/2001 12:00:56 AM #
...kicked the behind of both the Nokia and the Sony phones I had before it. Maybe it was the service. In my office, the Motorola is the only one that I could use with any dependability. And I almost never have a dropped call with the Motorola/Nextel phone. (The Nokia/Airtouch phone was the worst, the Sony/Sprint a close second-worst.)

RE: Correct move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/20/2001 2:33:47 PM #
"poor people. just because Motorola doesn't release their new phones in USA, doesn't mean they
don't have good products. If you have chance, you should check out what Motorola phones that
other countries have.."


Wa ha!! Got ya. My brother is in Asia! He and his girlfriend are using three different models of Motorola phones,
he is not tackie so he doesn't have too much complaint about the performance, but he did tell me how confusing the
user interface is before I put my hand on it and I agrred with him. However, I do like one of the phone his girfriend has, the V8xxx something like that,
I probably will buy one later!

Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 1:27:36 PM #
Will the new Intel chip support the older and currently very large base of existing apps? Perhaps some type of emulation mode? I hope so. Nothing like switching gears in mid-stream and leaving all those developers and owners of older, Motorola based units hung out to dry.

And now for the soapbox...

The whole notion of planned obsolescence is something we should not stand for any longer. My Palm IIIx (with TRG memory upgrade), may be a bit slower that the latest Palms/Visors, but it still runs all the same software and does EVERYTHING I need it to. I'm not upgrading to a newer model until some REAL benefit comes from it... like better, high-res screens, memory expansion, connection options (e.g. USB), etc. Oh wait, I've almost described the HandEra. Now there is a company who knows what users want! (BTW... I'm not an employee of theirs or stock holder, I just happen to think they listen to what we ask for)

Why should we continue to buy new HW every year, just be cause some yahoo in marketing wants to by a new car with his company bonus? I hope Palm (and the rest of the community) stops this "but-the-latest-and-greatest-now" attitude.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 1:55:08 PM #
Bad fingers (what do you want, I'm using a PC and not my Palm! :-))... that post should have said...

Why should we continue to buy new HW every year, just be cause some yahoo in marketing wants to buy a new car with his company bonus? I hope Palm (and the rest of the community) stops this "buy-the-latest-and-greatest-now" attitude.


RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
emmert @ 6/19/2001 1:56:33 PM #
Then don't buy the "latest-and-the-greatest". They are not planning obsolescence. They are trying to compete with other PDA manufactures and meet consumer demand. No one is making you upgrade.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 2:12:32 PM #
Palm has committed to supporting older apps.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 2:24:40 PM #
>> Then don't buy the "latest-and-the-greatest". They are not planning obsolescence. They are trying to compete with other PDA manufactures and meet consumer demand. No one is making you upgrade.

That was my point... I'm not buying into this and will not purchase one unless it has the options that really outshine the competition. To me, the cost of going to a newer model (say the 5xx for now) makes no sense. Why would I spend the money on something only marginally better that my nearly 3 year old unit?

Also, if the newer models do not support the older apps (and I really hope they do), then you will be forced to upgrade if the developers move to the different chips. How else will you get new apps? Developers are not going to support multiple platforms for very long... it costs too much.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 3:21:52 PM #
The article mentions this:

"At PalmSource in December, Palm executives demonstrated current Palm software in emulation mode on a development board built around an ARM processor."

It would be very stupid if Palm decided to switch to ARM processors and lose the single most important advantage it has over rival platforms: its huge software base.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
Ed @ 6/19/2001 3:59:04 PM #
I'm not sure if I didn't phrase the article very well or if you guys aren't reading carefully but the article says that Palm has an ARM-based processor running current Palm apps in emulation. An emulator will be built in to OS 5.0 allowing it to run almost all old applications. The exceptions will be the ones that ignore Palm's rules for creating apps and directly access the hardware.

So set your minds to rest, OS 5.0 won't require all applications to be rewritten.

---
News Editor
Palm Infocenter

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 7:35:15 PM #
Not only has Palm already said that ARM-based PalmOS will run older Palm apps in emulation, Motorola's recently announced DragonBall MX1 actually has nothing in common with the old 68K DragonBalls other than name and peripheral support set. Since there are no special 68K-like things in the ARM-based DragonBall, there is no advantage to Palm to stick with the DragonBall processor family. They are free to choose whichever is the better processor, or to choose both. (Although the Dragonball MX1 and Intel XScale are based on different ARM designs, the difference wouldn't be so great as to lock PalmOS into running on one or the other.)

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
Legible @ 6/19/2001 9:10:39 PM #
I think people have to stop writing directly to the hardware and start using all the documented APIs. Otherwise, your application will break everything something's changed in the hardware.

RE: Will the Intel chip run the Motorolla apps/utils/etc.
CarlJ @ 6/19/2001 9:12:18 PM #
Why should we continue to buy new HW every year, ...

Remember, we're the lunatic fringe of the Palm market, nobody said we had to upgrade every year. The vast majority of Palm users never upgrade -- they're still happily using their original devices.

That was my point... I'm not buying into this and will not purchase one unless it has the options that really outshine the competition.

Again, you seem to be framing this as some kind of protest (i.e. "Hell no, we won't upgrade!"), while Palm continues to be much more interested in getting new customers to buy Palms. No one ever said that anyone had to upgrade. If we do so, it is because we want new toys (personally, I like my new 320x320 screen).

Remember, it's Microsoft that more or less forces people to upgrade on a regular basis, with constant releases of incompatible versions of Office, Windows, etc. Palm, on the other hand, has had remarkable compatibility across their entire line -- there are still programs being written today (granted, not the latest color arcade games or word processors) that will run on every model back to the original Pilot 1000's. What Windows software is being written today that will run on five-year-old hardware?

Consider a similar case: the original Palms (Pilots) didn't have color. When the IIIc came out, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, about how all the monochrome Palms were doomed, everyone was gonna have to throw out their old hardware, replace their old software, etc. Well, now color has been available for a long time, and quite a few apps support color -- but how many require color? Do you even have to take off your shoes to count them all? Ababall was touted, just in the last month, as "the first game that requires color" for the Palm.

Color improves on monochrome, but hasn't come anywhere close to killing off support for monochrome (developers are smart, they see "gee, if we go color only, the market is hundreds of thousands, if we support both color and mono, the market is tens of millions"). I suspect the new ARM-based CPUs will share the same relationship to the DragonBalls. Palm will almost certainly handle the Dragonball-to-ARM move in much the same way that Apple handled the 68k-to-PPC move, with emulators on the new systems to seamlessly run old apps, at least until it gets to where everyone and their mom have junked their old hardware (which may be quite a while, as we've seen from this discussion :-).

My $0.02,
-- Carl

oooooh bad move

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 1:57:02 PM #
Thats a pretty bad move for palm. Motorla's chips may not be as fast as Intels,
but every one knows that architeturally they are better designed. I would rather have a G4 than a P4.
Also with the built in iterfaces on board, i means they can make smaller devices, with BIGGER screens.
Maybe everyone should take a hint from Handera on that one.


Intel is much better than Crapporola.
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 2:06:18 PM #
.

RE: oooooh bad move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 2:32:08 PM #
You must be a CrApple PowerPC bigot. Probably still pissed off your Cube shuts off when it overheats and the cracks marring its finish.

What the hell does architecture have to do with success? Case in point: Intel vs PowerPC consortium. Intel is the undisputed champion.

And you're confusing the old segmented architecture (64K blocks) of the 8086 with the modern flat-memory architecture of current Intel chips. Hell, the 8086 hasn't been around for the last 15 years.


RE: oooooh bad move
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/19/2001 2:47:22 PM #
I think the one which is designed for handheld device is based on ARM and is different from x86 architectur!!!!

RE: oooooh bad move
wilco @ 6/20/2001 10:30:00 AM #
Granted that Steve Jobs is right and that the Motorola processor had a better architecture than x86/Intel's, the speed difference is just so big that its hard to explain to non-tech customers (who form the bulk of the buyers). The situation is the same in the handheld processors: Motorola: 33Mhz vs Intel: 200 Mhz. While the next generation Dragonball is 200Mhz, its still in the works and by the time it launches, maybe Intel would have upped the speed of its own processor.
Just a question. Since most next generation PDA Processors probably will be ARM-based, are they interchangeable, the way Intel, AMD, and Via/Cyrix processor do on the desktop PC (albiet with different chipsets)?

hmmmm

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/20/2001 1:08:57 AM #
palm's a bit slow, aern't they?

RE: hmmmm
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/20/2001 9:12:47 AM #
Yes, they are. They run at only 33 MHz right now, whereas Windows CE machines run at or over 200 MHz. If I only knew how I could enter PIM data faster... I might just actually *need* processing power then. ;) Oh, and, yeah: Corporate people definitely need MP3 playback and videoplayback on handhelds, for they have secretaries for PIM functions.

Won't it be just tactics ?

fkclo @ 6/20/2001 7:04:45 AM #
Well, I guess any one will try to create competition when it comes to sourcing. Had it been that case that Palm is only looking at MX1, there will be much less bargaining between Palm and Motorola.

Now, "Palm is looking at XScale as well" sends a strong signal, " You are not the only choice" and Motorola will have to put on the table something more to attract Palm's favour.

It appears to be all about tactics in positioning for negotiation. And Palm Inc. does have an upper hand.

Francis Lo
Hong Kong

RE: Won't it be just tactics ?
EdwardGreen @ 6/20/2001 7:46:41 AM #
The New DragonBall MX1 is ARM (920T core if that interests you) based an runs up to 200Mhz as stands, and has the same peripheral systems as the Super VZ: Analogue Digital Converter, TFT Controller and MS and SD card support, and USB on chip but with added Bluetooth support. Power requirements are supposedly similar to present DragonBalls. The MX1 offers on chip DMA and Memory as well as MPEG4 and MP3 capabilities through an on chip Multimedia Accelerator and support for JTME (Mini Java!).

The MX1 sounds impressive as an all in one sollution, I wonder what Intel have to offer the Palm community. Equally PalmOS isn't the only OS that will run on MX1. Motorola claim that EPOC, PPC, and Linux are also options.

It will be interesting to see if all PalmOS Licencees follow Palms lead on which chip to use.

-
kHiTeDev

RE: Hmmmm

altema @ 6/20/2001 1:26:27 PM #
Remember to keep comparisons relative: do both processors perform the same tasks in the same number of clock cycles? This has not been the case in the past, with Motorola having anywhere from 4 to 1, to a 7 to 1 processing advantage. This is why a 120 Mhz PPC seems sluggish compared to a 16 Mhz Palm, and also why you can overclock a Palm IIIc to the equivalent of a PPC running at 291 Mhz (which WILL begin to effect battery life, but it will still last longer than a typical PPC).

To get a correct performance comparison, use the following formula:
X/Y=Relative Clock Speed
where X=Actual Clock Speed and Y=the number of clock cycles needed for a complete processing loop.

Other variables come into play when one processor is single threaded, and the other is not, as you cannot simply say that a dual-pipe processor is exactly twice as fast due to internal cache layout, data re-assembly, etc.

RE: RE: Hmmmm
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/20/2001 1:55:36 PM #
Aren't Palm's currently using processors based on their late 70's early 80's 68000 series processors. The best speed instructions such as adding take 4 cycles. But for every access to ram add an additional 4 cycles. Multiplies roughly 50-70 and Divides over 120 cycles. I've wrote quite a few C/ASM progams on the palm to see how much it can cope with, and it would struggle with very simplistic doom games, no textured floor or perspective.

Compared to a PPC with each instruction in 1 cycle. These instructions are interleaved meaning it can stall in bad cases. But on average should get 1.2-1.5 cycles per instruction.
So your Palm at 33Mhz would equate to about 7-8 mips
whereas the PPC at 133Mhz would be over 100 mips.

The reason why the PPC feels sluggish is that it is using a very in-efficient OS. (Why is your PC still slow at 1GHz). Because Microsoft don't write optimal code.
However Palm have kept their OS very simple and efficient.

RE: RE: RE: Hmmm

altema @ 6/20/2001 3:20:33 PM #
I'm not sure what the current Motorola chips are based on. What machines were the 68 series used in? I'm more familiar with the 65 series which did screen updates, memory addressing, and everything else in one clock cycle. The chip I would prefer is the one with the best combination of features performance and reliability, regardless of who makes it. Perhaps someone from Motorola and/or Intel can shed some light on this area.

In regards to the OS efficiency, Windows is the tightest, most efficient piece of code out there bar none. Well,.. except for everything else on the planet. The situation reminds me of a car I think was called the Pumpkin Seed, so named because of it's shape. They took a straight 6 from a Ford Falcon, and put it in this little streamlined body, and set a speed record at the salt flats. If they put the same engine into a tractor trailer, we would get an example of what happens when you put a decent processor in a Windows device.

BAD MOVE WITH INTEL

Dan @ 6/21/2001 3:55:17 AM #
Motorola have always had a stronger chipset than Intel, not to mention "useability" of the OS. Speed is not everything & you cannot compare the cell phone biz to the chipset biz. Two different divisions with different customer demands.

Steve Jobs is correct this time!

Dan, UK

OS 5.0.. summer 2002

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/21/2001 5:52:04 AM #
What is that? Summer 2002? It's tooooo late, Palm!

What a waste

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/21/2001 8:53:11 PM #
Palm thinks by going to ARM they can drive the price down by going to
competitor like Intel. They don't seem to understand that they're
killing off their installed software base. This is the platform's
strongest asset, and biggest differentiation. Palm is going to kill
themselves, even in the best case scenario where lots of new
third-party Palm software is written for an ARM processor, eventually
someone's going to figure out how to make a competitor's ARM-based PDA
(like Ipaq) run ARM binaries written for the Palm without using the
Palm OS. Good-bye competitive advantage!

Motorola is being stupid too, instead of providing an upgrade path
based on 68k, which they alone sell, they are pushing Palm to ARM,
where they have any number of choices (Intel is the strongest, but not
the only one ARM's licensed to). Check out
http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/prod_cat/taxonomy.jsp?catId=M98651

For twice the cost of DragonBall VZ, you can get a ColdFire 5407 with
over 20 times the performance (MIPS)! But do they migrate to
ColdFire, which is almost identical to 68k and has libraries available
to translate those 68k instructions that Coldfire doesn't support?
No, they go to ARM, which is completely incompatible with the existing
DragonBall chips, and probably lower performance (couldn't find MIPS
info, but if it uses a ARM9 core that runs at 200 MHz it will be).

dumb, dumb, dumb... Maybe MOT figured they had so much success getting
Mac users to run their old 68k binaries slower on their new PPC-based
PowerMacs, it'd be fun to do it again with Palm.

RE: What a waste
Ed @ 6/21/2001 9:12:14 PM #
> They don't seem to understand that they're
killing off their installed software base.

OS 5.0 will have an emulator built into it that will allow the new Palms to run all current Palm software. While emulation is slower, I believe that a 200 MHz chip can emulate a 33 MHz one fairly easily.

---
News Editor
Palm Infocenter

What's new?

Antônio Lamas @ 6/22/2001 1:45:06 PM #
My IIIxe is great! Why buy a new model if the only diference is a box (ok! and a clock too...). We need more than this to do our upgrade!

Bad Move! PALM leaves its Motorola CPU users in the dust

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/26/2001 4:57:09 PM #
People were already upset that the version 4.0 OS would not be able to be installed on older Palm devices with flash memory. Now OS 5.0 seals the fate and makes obsolete the Motorola processor machines from being upgradeable to the new version.


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