Monday, March 27, 2006
Does Palm Inc. Need ALP?
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "ARTICLE" @ 06:00 AM
http://brighthand.com/article/Palm_Must_Commit_to_Linux
Just over a month ago, PalmSource's new owner, ACCESS, announced the Access Linux Platform, or ALP, as the next generation of the venerable PalmOS. Ed Hardy at Brighthand is convinced that PalmSource needs Palm, Inc. to survive, and seems equally convinced that Palm, Inc. needs ALP to survive. Current PalmOS devices run PalmOS 5, which is little more than PalmOS4 running in PACE, the Palm Application Compatibility Environment. It was meant to be a stepping stone allowing developers get used to the new ARM architecture, not to be in the market for four or five years.
ALP will theoretically bring "desperately needed features like concurrent multitasking, allowing it to run multiple applications simultaneously." O RLY? :? For years we've been told that either we don't need multitasking or have been told Palm does do multitasking, so long as you redefine the term multitasking to suit your needs. I could have told you four years ago PalmOS needed multitasking. Oh, wait, I did. Happy to have you on board Mr. Hardy! :)
"It seems obvious to me that Palm, Inc. and the other licensees need to keep up with the times. Or they should if they still want to be in business in a few years. Palm, Inc. must give up its devotion to Palm OS Garnet. No matter how many tweaks it adds to this operating system, it is just too far behind its competitors."
I couldn't agree more, but I disagree with Mr. Hardy's line of thinking. He is convinced that ALP is the next logical step. Now hold on, because I don't want to shock some of you, but I am convinced the next logical step is selling quite well right now at your local Verizon store, the Palm Treo 700w, a Windows Mobile 5 device. It supports a killer push email system (or will when the MSFP ROM update is available), has Microsoft Office support, supports the latest wireless broadband technologies and is supported by one company that excels at hardware design and has a skilled sales force getting the device into the hands of carriers, and is supported by another company that is busy at work on the next version of Windows Mobile, ensuring it will work with Office 12, Exchange 12 and communication technologies that are still in early testing phases. Why would Palm, Inc. want to add what amounts to a third operating system to its stable of products, an operating system that has no firm availability date, no developer kit available yet and could easily be 12-18 months away from release? Day one, that product would continue to run many PalmOS 4 applications in yet another compatibility environment. Developers were burned once by switching resources to make PalmOS 6 applications for an operating system that never saw the light of day. I suspect many will sit by and wait until products start shipping before committing time to them. So the end user is stuck with a new device and no great software for it.
ACCESS definitely needs Palm Inc. if it wants to carry the PalmOS namesake forward and try to restore it to the glory days of 2000, but Palm, Inc. does not need ACCESS or ALP. And will ALP really be a true PalmOS successor as many envision, or will it be more of a Symbian type OS that allows carriers to customize, and allows some degree of tweaking by end users, but not really a full blown consumer oriented OS like Windows Mobile and PalmOS 5? I personally am betting ALP will be a huge disappointment for PalmOS fans. Not because of some technical limitation, but because of how ACCESS will ultimately target it. I don't know if ACCESS gives a flip about having a seller like Palm, Inc. that will sell products with the OS directly to consumers. I suspect they are more interested in working with carriers to make custom devices that become unique to the carrier and tend to have higher profit margins and customer retention.
Just over a month ago, PalmSource's new owner, ACCESS, announced the Access Linux Platform, or ALP, as the next generation of the venerable PalmOS. Ed Hardy at Brighthand is convinced that PalmSource needs Palm, Inc. to survive, and seems equally convinced that Palm, Inc. needs ALP to survive. Current PalmOS devices run PalmOS 5, which is little more than PalmOS4 running in PACE, the Palm Application Compatibility Environment. It was meant to be a stepping stone allowing developers get used to the new ARM architecture, not to be in the market for four or five years.
ALP will theoretically bring "desperately needed features like concurrent multitasking, allowing it to run multiple applications simultaneously." O RLY? :? For years we've been told that either we don't need multitasking or have been told Palm does do multitasking, so long as you redefine the term multitasking to suit your needs. I could have told you four years ago PalmOS needed multitasking. Oh, wait, I did. Happy to have you on board Mr. Hardy! :)
"It seems obvious to me that Palm, Inc. and the other licensees need to keep up with the times. Or they should if they still want to be in business in a few years. Palm, Inc. must give up its devotion to Palm OS Garnet. No matter how many tweaks it adds to this operating system, it is just too far behind its competitors."
I couldn't agree more, but I disagree with Mr. Hardy's line of thinking. He is convinced that ALP is the next logical step. Now hold on, because I don't want to shock some of you, but I am convinced the next logical step is selling quite well right now at your local Verizon store, the Palm Treo 700w, a Windows Mobile 5 device. It supports a killer push email system (or will when the MSFP ROM update is available), has Microsoft Office support, supports the latest wireless broadband technologies and is supported by one company that excels at hardware design and has a skilled sales force getting the device into the hands of carriers, and is supported by another company that is busy at work on the next version of Windows Mobile, ensuring it will work with Office 12, Exchange 12 and communication technologies that are still in early testing phases. Why would Palm, Inc. want to add what amounts to a third operating system to its stable of products, an operating system that has no firm availability date, no developer kit available yet and could easily be 12-18 months away from release? Day one, that product would continue to run many PalmOS 4 applications in yet another compatibility environment. Developers were burned once by switching resources to make PalmOS 6 applications for an operating system that never saw the light of day. I suspect many will sit by and wait until products start shipping before committing time to them. So the end user is stuck with a new device and no great software for it.
ACCESS definitely needs Palm Inc. if it wants to carry the PalmOS namesake forward and try to restore it to the glory days of 2000, but Palm, Inc. does not need ACCESS or ALP. And will ALP really be a true PalmOS successor as many envision, or will it be more of a Symbian type OS that allows carriers to customize, and allows some degree of tweaking by end users, but not really a full blown consumer oriented OS like Windows Mobile and PalmOS 5? I personally am betting ALP will be a huge disappointment for PalmOS fans. Not because of some technical limitation, but because of how ACCESS will ultimately target it. I don't know if ACCESS gives a flip about having a seller like Palm, Inc. that will sell products with the OS directly to consumers. I suspect they are more interested in working with carriers to make custom devices that become unique to the carrier and tend to have higher profit margins and customer retention.
