Another Treo 800w/Gandolf Picture?

http://morningpaper.typepad.com/morning_paper/2007/07/is-the-800w-des.html

Eh. It's a small blurry picture of no real use...

But Palm COULD still "request" one of their ODMs to whip up a special flagship Treo with a built-in GPS chipset (have you seen how small & miserly some of those have become) without having to tinker too much with the OS for inclusion in their "Mercedes" device....couldn't they?

And wouldn't it behoove Google to gently "encourage" Palm to introduce GPS-equipped handsets into their lineup? After all, Palm's made a rather good showing of some surprisingly well done GPS cradles/accessory bundles, so why not go all out and actually integrate it into at least one of their devices?

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

I believe Palm has officially given up on trying to innovate and realize they are too small to compete with the big boys, especially now that they have squandered away the three-year lead that Handspring had given them with the Treo.

HTC is able to produce several new models every year. There is simply no way that Palm is able to compete with model cycles like that. So if you can beat 'em, join 'em. In order for Palm to be customizing devices running Windows Mobile, they would need:

1) Microsoft's permission.
2) A dedicated team of codemonkeys devoted to developing and supporting features that are not standard to Windows Mobile.
3) To believe that the effort required to do "2" would result in a financial payoff greater than the costs required to do "2".

When was last time you remember Palm making the effort to do something the hard way?

PalmOS 5 has finally reached the end of its lifecycle. The FOOLeo's Linux + a PalmOS "emulator" like PACE are a pragmatic solution Palm's desire to have its own OS. Does Palm have the codemonkey talent to develop + support its own OS? (Remember: this is a company incapable of issuing bug-free bug fixes, incapable of developing basic applications (email, security, MP3 player, video player, etc.) A far more realistic (lazy/cheap/safe) solution is to become Just Another WindowsMobile Licensee (JAWL) in the short term and buy StyleTap Platform. Again, Palm is acting like a company more interested in surviving long enough to get bought out than a company planning for long-term independent future.

The most important question to ask these days is "Who would want to buy Palm?" It's not as if companies as naïve as the (now-rueful Access*) grow on trees...

TVoR

* Any guess as to how long it will be before the PalmSource "kiss of death" brings Access to its knees? Anyone look recently at how Access has been faring financially since it acquired PalmSource? W T F were these guys thinking?

Is that the Gandolf? I believe it is.

Ew. I like the colour and the keys, but those hard buttons are hideous. Say it ain't so!

As for Palm churning out cookie-cutter WinMob devices: I imagine they'd keep their one-handed nav enhancements, threaded SMS and Today plugins, but maybe nothing new from here on in. to be honest, I'm happy to hear that: WinMob's enterprise features are mostly standard anyway, and I'd rather Palm spend time perfecting their own new OS than wasting time with MS'.