Windows Phone Thoughts: The Road To The Windows Mobile Powered Treo 700w

Be sure to register in our forums! Share your opinions, help others, and enter our contests.


Digital Home Thoughts

Loading feed...

Laptop Thoughts

Loading feed...

Android Thoughts

Loading feed...



Monday, September 26, 2005

The Road To The Windows Mobile Powered Treo 700w

Posted by Ed Hansberry in "ARTICLE" @ 04:00 AM


• May 10, 2005: Handango says its Windows Mobile customers are the most satisfied. Market research like this matters. If you are Microsoft, you pat yourself on the back and keep marching forward. If you aren't Microsoft and are making mobile operating systems, you scratch your head wondering where you went wrong, especially if you used to have over 80% share. If you are making devices that aren't running Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, you think about doing it. There are no PalmOS 6 Cobalt applications for sale on Handango's site.

• May 23, 2005: First PalmSource obituary written in mainstream press. "With a few million users hooked on an obsolete software platform, not even the hardware side could get moving." Solution: Hardware side to switch to a non-obsolete platform.

• July 1, 2005: PalmSource effectively kills PalmOS - Cobalt and Garnet shoved into the basement with its BEoS properties. Shifts focus, yet again, to PalmLinux. Of course, one could argue that Cobalt never left the musty basement as there are still no devices shipping with it. PalmOne has to take notice. The word "Palm" will never mean the same thing again. Palm, Inc. is fully engaged by this time with Microsoft and Windows Mobile. A Windows Mobile powered Palm device is inevitable.



• July 18, 2005: Windows Mobile Treo rumors kick in to high gear. This picture, which is an obvious fake did get the model number right and threw gasoline on the fire of speculation surrounding the next Treo.


(Click for larger image)

• August 5, 2005: Authentic pictures leak! Howard Forums member Roc a fella lets the cat out of the bag by posting pictures and video of the new Windows Mobile Treo with a Verizon logo on it. Palm apologist propaganda goes to DEFCON 1. We are told everything from it is a fake video running on a 650's video player to it is a prototype released to drive the price of PalmSource down to it is a slide show because no one tapped the screen during the video. Oh yeah, there are rumors of a Treo running Cobalt too, of course, but almost two month later, not a single picture or video of that has come out.



• August 11, 2005: Palm CFO Andrew Brown endorses Windows Mobile. "In an interview, Palm Chief Financial Officer Andrew Brown said that building a Treo that runs on the mobile version of Windows might help the company woo corporate customers who have been reticent to buy its Palm OS-based gadgets. "CIOs don't get fired for using Microsoft products," Brown said, though he did not say whether Palm has such a product in the works." Still no PalmOS Cobalt devices.

• September 9, 2005: ACCESS buys PalmSource. We later learn that several companies, including PalmOne, are interested in PalmSource, but a Japanese company that makes browsers for mobile devices wins the bid. They want the Chinese mobile phone market and through PalmSource, they get the properties of China Mobile and Linux expertise. It is increasingly clear that a next generation PalmOS for mobile devices like PDAs and smartphones is not likely. Many had hung their hopes on PalmLinux to replace Garnet by 2007 or 2008.

• September 20, 2005: Business Week confirms the existence of the Palm Windows Mobile Treo. No one confirms the existence of a Cobalt powered anything.

• September 22, 2005: Revealed! The Treo 700w, running Windows Mobile. Engadget gets the scoop. Denials reach a crescendo eliciting howls of anguish not heard since Smeagol lost the ring to Bilbo in that dark dank cave... where Cobalt 6 also happens to reside.



• September 26, 2005: Bill Gates to help announce the Windows Mobile Treo. That brings us to today. Palm, Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Verizon Wireless Announce Press Conference for Sept. 26 - SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Sept. 23, 2005--Ed Colligan, Palm, Inc. president and chief executive officer; Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect; and Denny Strigl, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, invite the news media to join them for a press conference on Monday, Sept. 26, at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco beginning at 9 a.m. PDT."

The web casts will be available in 3 bandwidths. I have confirmed the 56KB link works over GPRS on a Windows Mobile 2003SE device with Windows Media Player 10 on it and a Windows Mobile 2003 device with WMP9. I couldn't get it to work with Pocket PC 2002 and WMP8. I don't know about Window Media Player version 8.5. 56 kbps, 100 kbps and 300 kbps or broadband. Thus, the Windows Mobile powered Palm Treo is born. Enjoy the show!

Tags:

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...