Palm Report Hints at Uncertainty Over Next Gen OS

Alot of the time if a product isn't make a huge sum of money and doesn't look like it will be in the near future (and since Access isn't further developing Palm OS it probably won't be making them much more money) the company that owns it tries to pawn it off some somebody else. In this case Access would be able to gain a large amount of money quickly (and generally companies will take a large sum of money now as opposed to smaller amounts of money over many years) and Palm Inc. would gain control of Palm OS again.

This would be a good time to sell off Palm OS to Palm Inc. since Palm Inc. is (apparently) interested in buying and Palm OS probably won't be making a whole lot of money for Access anymore. I highly doubt they plan on getting more licensees for Palm OS in the near future.

While I understand how the proprietary driver model created serious business problems for licensees, I was actually pretty pleased with the way Cobalt utilized the domain mechanism in the ARM processor to allow for faster context-switching--something Linux can't do to the detriment of its multitasking performance. And while Cobalt's object-oriented architecture initially added a lot of overhead that wouldn't have shown much of a corresponding payoff to users at the beginning, PalmSource planned to expose more of that object orientation to developers over time which would have made the platform increasingly powerful and attractive to developers. Cobalt had some critical flaws, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that moving to Linux from Cobalt doesn't come without a cost.

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

If palm does get the IP from palmsource then the spin off was a success. Remember that the PSRC division was losing money. There is no way the brass at Palm Solutions & hand didn't look at PSRCs work and laugh. They also cringed at the though of putting anymore money towards cobalt or a lame group working on linux.

Remember the PSRC raised additional money (from sony? cant remember or other investors) to help with development costs. That way Palm got to see if they palmlinux/cobalt hack experiment would work at no additional cost. Palm showed profits in the meantime. Other people put up to pay PSRC's bill.

If palm had taken the core (of garnet) away from PSRC immediately, no one would have bought the deal and invested money in PSRc. Thus palm let them go, and hoped they would pull it off and succeed. Yet however investors pushed PSRC to produce, they couldnt so had to sell.

Palm was not going to overpay for PSRC, they had no need of CMS' products. Palm's bottom line feature phone can use some variant of Garnet (PIMs) on linux (where u can't install software).

This is what Access has to know . . . Palm will close up shop on Garnet and Palm OS if they have. They can release their linux product without traidtional Palm PIMs and can move forward with their WM strategy as needed. I think that the Vodafone leaks could be communicating that to Access now . . . as it looks like a winning device. Only the US wants Palm OS.

My question now. . . what kind of game is Access playing by announcing their ALP showing about 1 week before the 10k news would be put out? Who is going to want it if palm doesnt take it? I'll argue that no one will use it. I forget who but there is a major carrier or cell manufacturer in China that owns a majority of access and this may have been their way of getting CMS (well that kinda sounds crazy, but oh well).

Either way: Palm sits with a WM strategy, Palm OS garnet for non 3g phones (except for cdma). Really the Palm OS is only their strategy for the US. I think that your $200 million number is too high . . . what palm is buying is simply going to be IP. No employees, no building, nothing else. At this point palm is probably telling Access either you sell us what we want (IP) or we are totally moving away. We are not going to lease anymore. If we cant work it out we will release garnet devices for the time but will very quickly move to our linux and WM strategy . . . as there will be no incentive for us to stay with Garnet. Worst case we will license package styletap with WM as a last resort or even buy styletap (styletap's creators will look like geniuses if they get bought by palm for predicting the future)

Let me put it this way. . . if Palm's not going to license ALP, then why keep working to hook palm os up to it. No one else will care, especially in China. I would just complicate the device and leave people confused as to "What's this here for?" So in essence it would just be wasted development and money.

It will be interesting to hear from those who attend the conference to see what is actually there.

With standard PDAs dying, I see the three way battle between some flavor of Plinux, WinMob, and Symbian as very disappointing. I had the one of the last POS 5 models (Zire 72) and the FrankenOS was not so good. I now use a Toshiba e800--The hardware is lovely, the software's a blast, the Operating System is a pain in the .....--. The reviews of the few Symbian models that are getting to full PDA functionality (Nokia 770, 9300, SonyErickson 900s) tell the same tale of slow, dysfunctional, PAINFUL.

So, even if this story does go somewhere, I am betting that it won't go where I want to go. It won't end in a stable, quick, powerful OS that allows me to do what your TH55 does. I was too mad at Sony and their proprietary memory stick debacle to buy one, but I am beginning to wish I had bought several. Nothing since has come close.

The only new Palms that you kids will be able to buy in the not-so-distant future will be WINMOB Treos. That's it. Game, Set, Match - MSFT.

If palm does get the IP from palmsource then the spin off was a success. Remember that the PSRC division was losing money. There is no way the brass at Palm Solutions & hand didn't look at PSRCs work and laugh. They also cringed at the though of putting anymore money towards cobalt or a lame group working on linux.

Actually, the spinoff WAS initially a success, but not for the reasons you state. The PalmSource IPO generated hundreds of millions of $$$ from what was an utterly incompetent part of Palm. Lead into Gold. Benhamou and the other alchemists at Palm have done their Enron tutors proud.

Remember the PSRC raised additional money (from sony? cant remember or other investors) to help with development costs.

Sony paid a paltry $20 million for a 6% share of PalmSource in 2002 (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=4331) but ultimately bailed out on the platform when it became obvious that PalmSource was incompetent and could not be relied upon to deliver an OS for the type of products Sony was planning. If you look at how much independent hacking of PalmOS Sony did over the years in order to add features Palm/PalmSource was incapable of including it becomes obvious that Sony and other licensees were getting next to nothing for their licensing fees. (Sony's designs are currently being recycled in the VAIO UX50 Windows device, but most of their PalmOS R&D ultimately was wasted after a sea of empty promises and slipped deadlines from PalmSource.)

That way Palm got to see if they palmlinux/cobalt hack experiment would work at no additional cost. Palm showed profits in the meantime. Other people put up to pay PSRC's bill.

Wrong. Palm was actually counting on Cobalt and had to scramble when it proved to be a massive dud. If you're familiar with Palm's product line since 2003 you'd realize that these devices were never intended to be running a hacked-up FrankenPalmOS basd on buggy old PalmOS 5 code. Palm simply did what it could to try and compensate for PalmSource's failure. Most of PalmSource's money has been derived from Palm. Sony etc haven't funded much of PalmSource for a LONG time.

If palm had taken the core (of garnet) away from PSRC immediately, no one would have bought the deal and invested money in PSRc. Thus palm let them go, and hoped they would pull it off and succeed. Yet however investors pushed PSRC to produce, they couldnt so had to sell.

I think you're confused about the timeline. Palm spun off PalmSource to make a quick buck, fully intending to fold the company back into Palm a few years later. If you look closely at the PalmSource business model (look at how much they got per license) it's obvious that PalmSource would NEVER survive as an independent company. It was just a matter of time before they would be back with Palm.

Palm was not going to overpay for PSRC, they had no need of CMS' products. Palm's bottom line feature phone can use some variant of Garnet (PIMs) on linux (where u can't install software).

Palm was SHOCKED to see Access push the price as far as it went. Palm had put a poison pill into their PalmSource contract that would have scared off most sane companies. (Palm would get rights to the OS no matter who bought it. There was also special wording designed to scare off Microsoft in case they dared run afoul of monopoly laws by trying to buy Palm and killing it off.

This is what Access has to know . . . Palm will close up shop on Garnet and Palm OS if they have. They can release their linux product without traidtional Palm PIMs and can move forward with their WM strategy as needed. I think that the Vodafone leaks could be communicating that to Access now . . . as it looks like a winning device. Only the US wants Palm OS.

At least that's what Palm will tell Access. If Palm is smart they had already planned for the possibility of losing PalmOS and the day they spun off PalmSource and have alternate OSes ready and waiting. We'll see soon enough if Palm is smart.

My question now. . . what kind of game is Access playing by announcing their ALP showing about 1 week before the 10k news would be put out? Who is going to want it if palm doesnt take it? I'll argue that no one will use it. I forget who but there is a major carrier or cell manufacturer in China that owns a majority of access and this may have been their way of getting CMS (well that kinda sounds crazy, but oh well).

PalmOS (actually PACE) is an afterthought for ALP-OS. Kinda like adding chrome wheel and a spoiler to a car: might improve the sales, but completely unnecessary.

Either way: Palm sits with a WM strategy, Palm OS garnet for non 3g phones (except for cdma). Really the Palm OS is only their strategy for the US.

Windows Mobile makes the most sense in the long run unless Palm IS CERTAIN that PalmLinux will be both completed and rock solid by 2007 AND they will own PalmLinux. If anything can't be guaranteed then betting the company's future on a vaporware OS would be insane.

I think that your $200 million number is too high . . . what palm is buying is simply going to be IP. No employees, no building, nothing else. At this point palm is probably telling Access either you sell us what we want (IP) or we are totally moving away. We are not going to lease anymore. If we cant work it out we will release garnet devices for the time but will very quickly move to our linux and WM strategy . . . as there will be no incentive for us to stay with Garnet. Worst case we will license package styletap with WM as a last resort or even buy styletap (styletap's creators will look like geniuses if they get bought by palm for predicting the future)

If Palm has no solid contingency plan for a new OS, $200 million seems fair and is a LOT more than Access would get from anyone except Motorola. If Palm is prepared NOW to move the whole works to Windows Mobile they really don't need PalmOS since they already have a cheap licensing agreement to buy only the number of licenses they want until 2011. If Palm is looking to buy PACE so they can build it into Windows Mobile (or to be allowed to include a StyleTap Platform clone without threat of lawsuits) then $100 million may be reasonable. It will be interesting to see who blinks first (Palm Vs.Access) and if Palm walks away from the table how long before they reveal their long term OS plans. And here's a newsflash: There are no remaining PalmSource employees worth hiring!

TVoR

If I was Colligan, I'd be asking these questions:

1. What do the majority of our customers (Enterprise and carriers) want? FrankenGarnet? WM? Something else?

2. How much longer can Palm Inc. cobble/patch FrankenGarnet together to do what it needs to do to compete with other device OSs?

3. How much additionally does it cost for Palm, Inc. to support two OS's? Could palm Inc. focus on ONE OS and redirect the "saved" R&D dollars into competing better with that one OS?

4. What will the sales revenue/margins/profits/stakeholders impact be if Palm shiiit-cans FrankenGarnet for all new future Treos and simply uses WM? Short term? Longer Term?

5. If Palm Inc. does switch to exclusively selling WM Treos, will the long term effect be a commoditization of the Treo along with all of the other WM phones where the unique differential (PalmOS) is now gone and will that ultimately destroy sales? Can Palm add enough value to WM to make the Treo unique and yet still keep prices competitive and yet still keep margins favorable?

6. Does Palm Inc. have the time or the resources to build a new proprietary OS from scratch? Should it even be done even if it can?

7. Is ALPO a viable option for the future in part or whole?

8. How can I get the stock price up so I can dump all my stock options and grants and get out of this rat race like Hawkins did?

Everything I write is THE "best stuff". Be honest: deep down you know you agree with 100% of what I say...

"My question now. . . what kind of game is Access playing by announcing their ALP showing about 1 week before the 10k news would be put out? Who is going to want it if palm doesnt take it?"

Let me put it this way. . . if Palm's not going to license ALP, then why keep working to hook palm os up to it. No one else will care, especially in China. I would just complicate the device and leave people confused as to "What's this here for?" So in essence it would just be wasted development and money.

Looking at how modular ALP-OS appears to be, adding PalmOS support through PACE is a relatively trivial undertaking. I wouldn't be surprised to see that versions of ALP-OS without PalmOS could be specified as easily as you specify options at a car dealership. If a company as small as StyleTap can produce StyleTap Platform for next to nothing, Access should have no problems given the fact that they have the source code to PACE.

VR,

I concur, that's good stuff.. But, for much less than they paid, Access will not only be giving away key Palm OS ownership, but would be sowing the seeds for a MobiLinuxPalmOS rival.

Why would they sink $300M+ and then take much le$$ (assumed) than that to raise up the main OS competitor? I can't see Access selling.

Thanks, Rev. I don't think Palm and Access are direct competitors. Access seems to be going after the "global (especially in Asia) smart dumbphone" market while Palm will likely try to keep carving out a niche in the smartphone market primarily in the USA.

After seeing how quickly Access scuttled PalmOS development it's obvious (assuming they did due diligence) that they never intended to keep PalmOS alive. Marty is right about China MobileSoft being the key, but I believe potential profits from the sale of PalmOS to Palm or Motorola (essentially "flipping" PalmOS) made the deal workable.

Well stated TVOR, but what is the bottom line? Will Palm get the original code from Access for $1 a copy? Will they get rights to the whole thing? Will Access and Palm each get rights to it and put that skin (or emulator) of the old Palm OS on top of a new Linux base?

With standard PDAs dying, I see the three way battle between some flavor of Plinux, WinMob, and Symbian as very disappointing. I had the one of the last POS 5 models (Zire 72) and the FrankenOS was not so good. I now use a Toshiba e800--The hardware is lovely, the software's a blast, the Operating System is a pain in the .....--. The reviews of the few Symbian models that are getting to full PDA functionality (Nokia 770, 9300, SonyErickson 900s) tell the same tale of slow, dysfunctional, PAINFUL.

So, even if this story does go somewhere, I am betting that it won't go where I want to go. It won't end in a stable, quick, powerful OS that allows me to do what your TH55 does. I was too mad at Sony and their proprietary memory stick debacle to buy one, but I am beginning to wish I had bought several. Nothing since has come close.

Thanks, TR. I think Palm wants it all - just so Access couldn't dilute the perceived value of Palm's PalmOS devices by making ALP-OS (featuring PalmOS compatibility) available on cheap featurephones. Realistically, Palm should only try a KISS strategy: graft PACE onto Windows Mobile and be done with it. Reviving Cobalt, conjuring up an in-house PalmLinux, etc. are voodoo strategies best left unexplored now that the company has no room for further errors in execution.

I STILL think PalmOS blended with Windows Mobile would be the premiere mobile OS, offering the Palm name, app library and history along with the safety of choosing a Microsoft standard. Licensees would get the best of both worlds, Palm would benefit from Microsoft doing all of the heavy lifting and best of all: the code to create "PalmWindows Mobile™" ALREADY EXISTS. Palm cannot afford a third vaporware OS.

When I realized that Cobalt was dead I assumed PalmOS was in trouble and started stocking up on devices. I'm glad I did. My CLIE VZ90, UX50 and TH55 along with my Samsung i500 are the last good pure PalmOS devices ever made. These devices do everything I need from a PDA, so even if Palm OS disappeared tomorrow I would not be affected.

>>>>> "We are going to have to play hardball with those dumba$$es at Access so we can cherrypick the parts of PalmSource IP we need to create a Palm-branded "PalmLinux™"

Too late. Even if by some miracle or hardball bargaining position Palm did indeed manage to convince Access to relinquish control of its IP to them for incorporation into a new Palm branded OS...the move would be moot. Such a platform would take yet another two years for Palm to fully develop an entirely new OS, with bits and pieces of Garnet/Cobalt code mixed in, and pressed into hardware.

Wrong, Kent. I don't think Palm is dumb enough to try to create PalmLinux from scratch so late in the game. "Windows Mobile featuring PalmOS" (courtesy of PACE) for the high end and a VERY SIMPLE Linux distro with Palm PIM for the low end is a safe, easy to implement strategy. Both of those OSes could ship on REAL devices in less than 6 months if given the green light today.

In the meantime PalmOS has faded into irrelevance, Windows Mobile has become the leader among data centric (convergence) mobile platforms, and third party developers have moved on to other platforms that have a clear future. So what does Palm gain in the end? They have their own proprietary OS, and come full circle back to their roots.

PalmOS has faded not because it's a bad OS but simply because of mismanagement. The fact that Handspring's hacked PalmOS STILL works better than anything else on the market suggests PalmOS is not yet irrelevant. With a little foundation work (broadband support, cleaned up telephony) and a fresh coat of paint (complete set of apps including backup/tabbed launcher/security/remote device deletion/Office-compatible suite/email/MP3 + video/SMS and IM clients/file manager/etc.) even PalmOS 5 could soldier on as "PalmOS Classic™" for another year or two.

The only clear advantage I see that gaining full control of PalmOS development gives them the ability to jurisdict development direction, and enable great flexibility and customization into its design.

You missed the BIGGEST advantage, Kent: the ability to differentiate Palm's devices from the hordes of others coming to market. Palm as a brand still has great name recognition and a lot of goodwill built up from its days as the best known PDA company over the past decade. The Treo one-handed UI is also the best UI I've ever seen in ANY mobile device besides the (much more simplistic) Apple iPod scroll wheel.

But given the above point I just made it remains a futile attempt and wasted strategy. Not to mention a costly one, as I seriously doubt Access is going to give away PalmOS IP for free. Palm could end up paying several hundred million for Garnet/Cobalt. They can't afford to incur such costs, unless some major suitor acquires Palm and then IP from Access.

$200 million for all PalmOS IP is fair. But if ALP-OS actually ships in the next year with PACE on board, PalmOS will truly be worthless to Palm at that time, as any two bit company willing to license ALP-OS from Access could crank out cheap handsets and become a Palm competitor.

The legality of Palm including a SytleTap Platform clone in their Windows Mobile devices should ultimately decide whether or not Palm pays whatever Access is demanding for the rights to PalmOS.

It should never have come to this...

TVoR

The network is the computer.

Don't forget now!

i want to see some answers to my questions #1-8 above.

Thus they have had lots of time to develop its alternate OS.
This bold move of ending the agreemant with Palmsource implies to me that they may be far closer to release than we think.

Guess again, brah. Look up when Palm "bought"
the Palm name from Cousin PalmSource.

And sorry, but Palm does not have the codemonkey power to develop a decent OS in 5 YEARS much less 1 or 2 years. If creating a mobile OS was easy PalmSource's Cobalt would not have been a catastrophe, PalmLinux would not have been vaporware, Motorola's phones would not be crippled by a HIDEOUS OS (HideOS?), Nokia's 770 would already have have telephony completed, Sony Ericsson would not have needed 3 years to get their OS polished...

>>>Palm was actually counting on Cobalt and had to scramble when it proved to be a massive dud.

If by "counting on" you meant "didn't have an alternative to but never liked", then yes, they were "counting on" Cobalt.

Indeed. That's what happens when you get stuck with a few dozen Holy Be Engineers from "Gassée's Gang" and have to put them to work and then lose the ability to control what those pie-in-the-sky dumba$$es do because you've spun off the company and can't reign them in once they lose sight of the "big picture" and start trying to recreate their "glory days" from when Be could have become the next MacOS.

I was only at PSRC for the end of the "Cobalt blues" but people who were there for the whole thing say that Palm never liked Cobalt, never wanted it, and only went along because it was the only PalmOS option available.

That can't be true. Dianne Hackborn says Cobalt was the best thing since sliced bread! I'm not hearing you, Marty. La La La! La La La!

The problem with all of the 'what will Palm do now' scenarios is that Palm is not a software company, and hiring up to 130 linux programmers doesn't make you one.

Which is precisely why Windows Mobile + StyleTap Platform makes the most sense. By the way, Palm likes to think of themselves as overflowing with software "engineers" and codemonkey goodness...

I have no idea what Palm is up to now, but it would insane for them to think that they could become a player in embedded Linux development. So I suspect that's what they're up to.

No time for that as a primary OS, but Linux + Palm PIM should be easy enought to whip together.

At this point, Palm's best bet is to reimplement their PIM aps to the winmobile APIs and try to differentiate at the application layer.

Yes.

Otherwise, they're either

a) just another winmob player and aren't big enough to play in that pond

Yes

or

b) are the nth in an infinite series of embedded linux wannabes.

When you say nth do you mean "last"?

TVoR

That much is a given. The bottom is falling out of the PDA business right out from under Palm's feet, as it is for the rest of the industry. We can count the number of months Dell will remain in this segment on one hand now. At the rate of decline it won't be much longer before the breakers kick in, where the amount of revenues generated from traditional PDAs literally doesn't match the bill of sales from hardware development.

Smartphones are the answer, but the problem is that Palm isn't innovating fast enough. The 700 series is already outmatched by the competition and yet Palm hasn't completed its product rollout. An exmaple of a formula for success: Apple dominates the space it competes in and still remains far ahead of its nearest competitor. Conversely, the GSM Treo 700s haven't even begun rolling off the assembly lines and already they are yesterdays news. Right now the Motorola Q is THE most coveted smartphone North America, followed distantly by the Nokia E61. Treo 700? What's that? Don't believe me? Look at this chart that tracks weekly interest among handset vendors. Look where Palm is at...

http://www.competenews.info/vantage2.jpg

Unless and until Palm moves the ball forward with some exciting new products, they have no hope of even keeping up with the lead dogs in this pack, let alone outpacing them.

-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com

I hope that is the case, but my gut tells me that the future will be a UMPC running Windows. Hey, when Jeff Kirvin trades in his Treo for a WinMob smartphonehe you gotta wonder...

"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

PDA market booming? you must have been hallucenating, silly. now stop sniffing that glue with your Radio Shack comrades.

Resources are finite, and shareholders demand a return on their investment. If you want to stay in business, you focus on where the demand is. The trend is clear.

-----

Canalys has just released their Q2 2006 worldwide smart mobile device research report on the smartphone and handheld device shipments. The latest research from Canalys highlights the continuing shift from handhelds to converged devices. Overall year-on-year market growth of all smart mobile devices was largely unchanged from the previous two quarters at 55%, but converged device shipments (smart phones and wireless handhelds) rose 73%, while handhelds continued to slide, down 33% compared to the same period one year ago.

I've wondered about that too. I don't think Palm is run by idiots nor are they blind; everything that's being discussed here in this thread has surely already been discussed in their boardrooms, and hopefully a long time ago. (One would hope.)

When they announced the Treo 700w, what surprised me most was not that they'd finally decide to tip their toes in the Microsoft pond (don't drink from it), but that they'd already been working on it for two years.

What other secret projects have they been brewing? Is one about to come to the boil? Their silence on their future OS plans is extremely annoying.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Palm...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

Beyond that evidence, we have the activity (or rather inactivity) of the few remaining players in this space as ultimate proof. HP has stated they see traditional PDAs as dead market, and plan on shifting to smarphones. Dell hasn't produced any new model in what...two years now? And will likely soon exit this space just as they did with DAP. Palm meanwhile hasn't released a single new handheld model all year, and is unlikely to do so. Your assertion that PDAs are somehow a booming underground success is flat out silly.

As per your statement about Symbian S60...David said it best, it's time you take a close look at the latest wave of S60 third edition devices. Because this ain't your grandma's Nokia featurephone OS anymore. Devices like the E61 and N90 are in every way a rich smartphone environment. One that effectively trumps RIM and Windows Mobile Smartphone (not PPC). The E61 is among the very best Smartphones on the market today. It's embedded web browser (based on Apple's Safari rendering engine, WebKit) is hands down the best, and certainly most innovative, mobile browser in the industry. It makes Blazer, NetFront, and Pocket IE look like sad caricatures.

-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com

A few points:

1) Traditional smartphones (think Treo) are an endangered species. Featurephones and low end semi-smartphones (running variants of Windows + Symbian + Linux) are already cannibalilizing this market. This is already becoming a commodity market, much to Palm's chagrin.

2) Real Windows™ tablet and micro laptop devices are the future, the goal being a CLIE TH55 or UX50-sized device running Windows with few compromises.

3) Traditional PDAs must evolve upmarket + into new niches to survive. Always-on connectivity, multimedia and remote access to desktop applications are the key. Yes clever PalmOS powerusers can already do a lot of these things by selecting the right third party apps, but Palm must deliver this right out of the box. NOW. The only problem is they waited too long. With traditional laptops now available for $500 and UMPCs already evolving rapidly, the raison d'etre for the "nouveau PDA" is evaporating as quickly as a vaporware SD peripheral in the desert sun. Low price is not enough to sell these devices. Any way you slice it, Palm is screwed unless they find a buyer this quarter. Bringing a well known individual on bord in an effort to legitimize Palm's position would be a smart way to help polish the fading paint prior to a sale, wouldn't it? I wonder what happened to the exec PalmSource promoted prior to their sale? Is McVeigh available? ;-O

TVoR

If the device market diversifies as I expect, you and several thousand others like you will probably get your wish. But the idea that micro-laptop devices running desktop Windows is "where the market is going" as a whole is just proof that you need to spend some time with normal people. The PC itself will die before that happens.

Any vision of mobile computing that suggests it will become mainstream because a vendor delivers all the right software out of the box is wrong, too. Even you don't believe it, TVoR. Slap yourself around a bit, please.

Outside a few basic things that already ship on Palm devices, 90% of the software people will use will be stuff that 90% of everyone else will have no interest in. If no vendor succeeds in making discovery and personalization through software easy enough to enable that kind of software market (and someone will) I doubt mobile computing will ever become truly mainstream. Personalization is the killer app for mobile.

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