LogMe to Release Remote Desktop Tool for Foleo

I think Palm's Men in Black nabbed Ryan last night or early today... ;-)
He's been out of the loop and hasn't gotten back on a couple of news items I've worked up & sent his way.

FYI he's been on the east coast this week so we figured things would be slow.

Back On Topic:

David, perhaps you can shed some light on this one for me. Regardless of my feelings towards the Foleo in and of itself, if I were at Palm I'd be a bit concerned hitching the ol' corporate wagon to a bunch of pretty small firms for much of the Foleo's functionality.

Little outfits--even the seemingly high flying ones (AvantGo or Brayder Technologies, anyone?) can be here one day, gone the next. How does a big outfit like Palm prepare for little hiccups like that?

Now, the 3rd party apps added by users are one thing, but how would someone like Palm go about protectng themselves & the integrated functionality of their products if one of these little fish in their "expanding circle of developers" goes under and/or encounters some legal issues that might bring distribution or updating of a bundled app/utility to a standstill?

In your opinion (or anyone else) are the hurdles that would present themselves in a Foleo-type situation more of legal/financial or technical in nature?

Just something I've always been curious about since the inherent capabilities of handheld-type devices seem to hinge more on stuff like that than, say, a desktop PC which can always remain servicible in a fallback mode of just the components of its OS.

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

Often, if you've got some application from a third party that's critical to your product (like Docs to Go on the Foleo) you insist that that party keep their source code in escrow and that the code become available to you on the condition that the developer goes out of business or fails to respond in a timely manner to support obligations. When my company develops applications for customers we usually deliver the source code and developer documentation to the customer when each version of the application is complete, but I know others who keep the source in escrow through some company that provides this service. If the 3rd party developer is worried about giving away their secret sauce to a company that might use it to compete against them later, escrow would provide some assurance that the customer couldn't do that.

If the application is central enough to the product Palm might also insist on a closer partnership where some of their own developers work shoulder-to-shoulder with the 3rd party developers. This enhances the knowledge transfer (in both directions) and makes it easier to bring development in-house if something in the contract or a subsequent mutual agreement triggers such an event.

Lastly, acquisition is always an option.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

**FYI he's been on the east coast this week so we figured things would be slow.**

Whaddayasayin' HKK? We east coasters are outta the loop? Lemmetellya that right here in the north Georgia mountains, we git sum info. I've got a liddel homemade capture device that's been stealin some serious broadband off the microwave tower up onna mountain behind the cabin. You wouldn't believe some of the streamin' vids I'm gettin.

Now, concerning the little foxes that could spoil the Foleo's vine. Palm can almost always absorb a dying company when it's on the rocks. A lot of the stuff on my Treo now was once independent.

Pat Horne

That was not aimed at you, but at cervesas (*), who appears to be in total denial about PALM and what they are outright doing and saying. I have no idea how the post, however, got into this thread!

But CERTAINLY not directed at you.

Lol!

=========

(*) To show just how much The Cult Of The Poster applies to me (inversely)...I took 6 years of Spanish and, on first reading the ID "cervesas" knew that it meant "beers". But only TODAY, =years= later, did I connect that translation to the last name of the person with the ID.

Giggle!

And, to my amazement as I l;ooked further having giggled at myself over that brainfart, I found out that this guy only has =6= years of development experience!!!

OH MY GAWD! I've been thinking of him as EXPERIENCED and WELL VERSED all these years and he's got only SIX GODDAMNED YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE!!? Talking about pulling the wool over my eyes - yow!

Jesus.

I'll treat his posts appropriately from now on.

Sheesh, indeed.

> ...he's working on his new Top Secret mobile site...

Excellent - good for him.

Since the field is maturing it's time to get a-WAY from specifically-centered into the generic.

Plus, we all know how long the Palm in PALM is going to last...