BusinessWeek Confirms Nova OS Launch at CES

I've said it before; I'll say it again:

== "Be CAREFUL about what you read in the Me-Too Media; they OFTEN get it way wrong"

And furthermore, the Me-Too Media often state unfounded opinion and state it as if it is fact rather than hunches and jumped-to conclusions.

In fact, I've posted THIS;

---

Words to remember:

== "...Information posted anywhere
== should not be used as a substitute for
== independent research, and should not be
== relied on to trade or make investment
== decisions. Prudent investors do their
== homework and don't believe everything they
== read..."
==
== "...Never assume people are who they say
== they are, know what they say they know, or
== are affiliated with whom they say they are
== affiliated..."

[derived from the original Yahoo warning that used to be at:

- http://messages.yahoo.com/reminder.html
]

there til my fingers got callused.

BTW, Gekko, how much did YOU lose with sociopathic Madoff? ROTFLMAO!!!

Well, until he saw *this* frikkin post.

Apple, for one, still refuses to budge on certain features--video recording, cut & paste, removable battery, and some kind of external expansion card slot, that have been standard features on even the crustiest Garnet-based Treos for 6+ years now. You all know I am the first one to point a critical finger at Palm but there REALLY is tons of room of improvement on all of the current mobile platforms. Their timing & exectution will have to be near-flawless (and that still may not be enough to save Palm but I'd rather see 'em go down swinging) but there IS an opportunity to strike and take back some marketshare & developer support, especally in the first half of '09.

"Sources say Rubinstein's team also hopes to create phones that make smarter use of data about you. For example, your smartphone could send you an e-mail the day before your next business trip, advising you on the weather conditions in your destination city."

This is all just a bunch of resource-draining silliness that stinks of more Fooleo tomfoolery. I don't want to be spammed by my own device. I just want a ROCK SOLID STABLE & SNAPPY OS with good multimedia capabilities, 3G and beyond wireless support, a full assortment of supported screen resolutions with scalable fonts & AA, and a refreshed version of the classic Palm OS UI & PIM apps. At this stage of the game, I personally don't give a hoot about backwards compatibility (just let me seamlessly & painlessly import 12 years of Palm OS PIM data, PLEASE!) with Garnet but I know that's critical for some folks. Maybe borrow a page from Sony's PS3 playbook and offer a Garnet compatibility layer on the higher-end SKUs or simply offer a Garnet emulator plugin for purchase??

Hardware-wise, I'd basically like a device that resembles the BB Storm spec-wise but without that silly clicking touchscreen. I still want a stylus, even if it's toothpick thin Centro-style but the OS needs to be switchable between "stulus" mode and "thumb" mode.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

I wouldn't read much into that example, btw. I mean, come on, how silly. Unless, you know, for crying out loud, there's NO BUILT-IN WEATHER APP!

Why would someone want a frikkin EMAIL when you could just tap on a Weather icon?

Colligan: So what'd you feed them, Ruby?

Rubenstein: The weather email garbage.

Colligan: You think they'll bite?

Rubenstein: Hey, they never saw the subprime crisis, so I know they'll swallow that malarkey!

Disinfo Accomplished.

I agree that Palm's got their work cut out for them. The saddest thing ever would be if Nova really is everything we've wanted it to be but due to carrier, developer, & mass market consumer indifference, it dies a slow, quiet death. The blame, of course, could be laid squarely at the hands of Colligan, Hawkins, & whoever else approved that disastrous Fooleo project. The Foleo's $ cost to Palm was negligable when you consider the drain on the company's dwindling reserves of R&D talent/ manpower and how badly it tarnished their brand and caused delays to the Nova project.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

"IF"??? stop living in the world of hipster make-believe and come back to reality.

10 Fooleo mistakes:

1. Overpriced. Add to that the lack of carrier involvement due to no integrated 3G wireless connectivity (or even a SIM slot) and Palm's declining retail

presence...where would people have bought the thing other than palm.com & Best Buy?
2. Underpowered PDA Xscale CPU circa 2004

3. Too little onboard storage & RAM

4. Totally unexpandable (Fixed RAM, no SSD or 2.5" HD add-ins) aside from CF & SD slots & just 1 USB port, no webcam

5. Too little on-board functionality (no PIM capability, no e-mail client etc), especially as far as MP3/multimedia (no YouTube was just the tip of the iceberg)

6. Relied far too heavily on being tethered to a Treo (plus the cost/hassle of that device). Honestly, the people who can afford a Treo + DUN plan + a Fooleo could've & would've rather just paid for a data plan for a netbook (look at Acer's $99 Aspire One on AT&T now!)

7. It was based on a separate/different Linux kernel than Nova, spreading Palm's already diminished resources impossibly thin

8. Spending $10 Mil + countless wasted man-hours on a device with NO target market

9. Totally limited OS with nearly zero 3rd party apps

10. A "me too" formfactor (netbook) that was about to get flooded by everyone and their brother with lower pricetags, far greater functionality, and more $ in the bank and marketing depts

I'd personally have tried to push the Newton-style "larger than a PDA" formfactor for any kind of next-gen device. Nokia's on the right track (at least FF-wise) with their N series Internet tablets.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Adama, will you be at CES to see what is unveiled?

I won't, but Ed will be. As it happens I'm no longer going to be writing for Brighthand as of the end of the month: due to budget cuts our parent company can no longer afford to pay me.

I agree that Palm's got their work cut out for them. The saddest thing ever would be if Nova really is everything we've wanted it to be but due to carrier, developer, & mass market consumer indifference, it dies a slow, quiet death.

I know nobody likes the idea-including me-but that's a distinct possibility. There's already a turf battle of mobile platforms out there, with the Blackberries claiming business, iPhone taking multimedia, S60 going for the ultra-low-end, Microsoft sitting on everything else, and Android starting to make trouble around the perimeter looking for whoever's weakest (which, in my opinion, is S60).

With all that out there, and all the parties-carriers, developers, "ecosystem" places like Amazon Unbox-are somewhat obligated to choose sides, or at least limit their liability to as few platforms as they absolutely have to support, to reduce costs.

Mike wrote:

If Asus had never announced the EeePC and Palm had nudged the damned price down

But of course, Asus DID announce the Eee. I sympathize somewhat with your argument. I thought for years before the recent netbook boom that there was room for a simple, straightforward sub-sub-notebook running a stripped down OS. The key is though that my vision ran an established operating system, usually Windows Mobile, and was designed to be fully autonomous, not just a keyboard-and-screen extension of a smartphone. It was also smaller, closer to Eee size.

But with the shrinking of "real" PC hardware, that time is now past. They're cheap enough, light enough, and robust enough that there is not and likely never will be a market again for a non-conventional netbook.

Re: hkk's list, I mostly agree, with one note on number four: Don't underestimate the utility of CF and SD. You can get a 8 GB CF card for dirt cheap, and a 32 GB card for not that much. If you're talking about reduced formfactor, primarily as a netbook and companion to a desktop, 16-48 GB solid-state would be pretty good. Just look at the success the original Eee had with only a few GB of storage each.

I'd personally have tried to push the Newton-style "larger than a PDA" formfactor for any kind of next-gen device. Nokia's on the right track (at least FF-wise) with their N series Internet tablets.

I partly agree, but it all depends on the spin you put on the device. If you can combine a few different things-GPS, multimedia, and robust internet-then you can sell it as an independent lifestyle device. Roll all the functions that some people may not want to carry around all the time into an alternative: the iPod Touch meets Garmin, with a touch of the Eee PC thrown in.

What's really needed to get such a niche off the ground is a way to get online without the hassles of cellular, but also without the limited scope of WiFi. This is why I continue to say Palm's best chance of survival is getting in bed with Sprint on their WiMAX network. They should also be hooking up with other companies like Echostar/Dish Network, for instance to provide a way of downloading TV shows from a DVR directly onto the device. It's all about the strategic partnerships.

Or you could just follow Mike Cane's and start to a new blog every year from the perspective of a transient madman ranting about the approaching End Times.

Been there, done that.

I am absolutely stunned at how "viable" netbooks and that whole formfactor/ecosystem is.

In a way, I'm not. Despite the obvious desire for a power/portability ratio, there's never been a real market for something between the size of "handheld" and "laptop" because nobody wanted to give up pocketability for anything less than full features. Thus, the simple solution: make the laptop smaller. In past years it would have been a stripped down thing running a pocket OS, but today it's possible to do it with the real thing. It's all about being able to do things. The old middle-market units couldn't approach laptops, so they bombed. Netbooks can.

I totally see your point about CF & SD. But I love the fact that after just a year or so, there's already a handful of different netbooks (almost) for every need. We just need faster Atom CPUs and a MUCH better mobile chipset from Intel.

I'll admit that I haven't paid much attention to the world of X86 chipsets and video hardware lately, so I'll take your word for it. Still, what I've heard of the Atom seems like it's going to make a basis for some fine small-formfactor devices.

As far as "a way to get online without the hassles of cellular", I agree wholeheartedly. Palm & Sprint have already been in bed together for some time. I've said for years that Sprint needs to go ahead and cut their losses and jettison the antiquated iDen network and really bet the farm on WiMax.

Agreed. The Nextel side of the company is responsible for a lot of their customer hemhorraging, and I don't forsee it getting better. The only thing that Nextel had going for them was Push-To-Talk, which was rapidly copied by other carriers, and ruggedized phones, which you can build for anybody. It's a dead end technology anyway, and continuing to try and keep it alive is just going to waste time and money. Stop the bleeding now. WiMAX is where the growth is: they've got at least a 1-2 year head start on every other player in getting 4G out there.

Besides which, those moves play into each other: killing iDEN frees up spectrum in the much coveted 800 MHz range. But this spectrum is outside the usual band, so using it for CDMA 850 is out of the question. But it CAN be used to provide WiMAX. Sprint's obligated to use the 2500 MHz band for wireless by FCC terms of their merger, but adding 800 MHz WiMAX on top of that would make deployment easier and coverage better.

The Echostar/Dish suggestion is also a good one. I really figured (and hoped) that more would come from the Archos/Dish partnership.

The problem with Archos is that they're pitching what is really a single use device in the age of universal utility. It's a media player which, if you pay an extra $30, can also vaguely browse the web. That won't do at all. They had the right idea, but they would need to go all in on it, and most importantly, not try to control every aspect of the ecosystem. That way just lies stagnation.

What you describe is extremely close to the thing I'm envisioning. It's not quite a media player, not an internet tablet, but a kind of bridge device that brings together all of the sectors of your electronic world.

GPS, sat nav, and Google-style location based services, as well as smart GPS functions. DVR downloads and live streaming audio/video from your home entertainment system. Computer activities like web browsing, email, social networking and YouTube.

Imagine a device that lets you look at a program guide, choose which things you want to record, and it instantly tells your home DVR to record them-no matter where you are? Or knows where you are, where your next appointment is, and gives you an intelligent warning as to when you need to leave? Complete with traffic reports factored in? Broadband internet everywhere, providing an instantaneous link to the world, news, weather, sports, and instant shopping for new music, movies, programs?

Take the integration further: buy a song, or an album, over the air and the music store automatically delivers a copy not just to your device but also to your home media center. The same for a movie: it provides a stream, or a compact download version for your device, and a high-quality one back home, that's waiting for you when you get there. It's the same principle as remote DVR scheduling, just one step further.

All of it is quite possible with current tech-hell, I've done a lot of it in less polished form, with my Blackjack II, with my Slingbox, with TCPMP, with Google Maps. That's the key to the next killer device. The iPhone went huge not because it did new things, but because it did things right out of the box. What we're talking about is an evolution and tying together of technologies that are already out there, the way that mobile video and music was already there before the iPhone made it easy.

There's the future: your world in the size of a paperback book.

[unfortunately, I can't supply a link since my memory is way hazy about the context of said commentary]

The Redfly, eejit. Not "small laptops." It was the Redfly. NO ONE saw Asus coming.

CEOs get paid to "see things coming." regardless, it's all academic at this point.

mike, please stick with pop culture and fiction. technology and economics are not your areas of expertise.

Spoken by a guy driving a Herdmobile and running his life with a kiddie cellphone.

Next!