Blogger: Kirk Knoernschild
I purchased my first Palm in the mid-90’s. I upgraded to a Sony Clie (Palm OS) in the late 90’s, and bought a Treo 700p in 2007. Over that span of about 13 years, the only noticeable change to their OS was that it went from black & white monochrome to decent color. Very few new productivity features were added, and the existing applications were never improved. Some 3rd party apps emerged that worked...kind of.
I wrote a review of the Palm Treo after I had used it for a while. Since that time, I've upgraded to an iPhone (note: "I upgraded"). Since that review and my subsequent iPhone purchase, I’ve changed my mind on few items regarding Palm, their OS, and applications. Regardless, Palm squandered a golden opportunity. It's only real competitor in the mid-90's was an Apple Newton. Remeber those? Then Apple was out of the game for about a decade before introducing the iPhone in 2007. During those years, Palm made little news. But this isn't about Palm yesterday, it's about Palm tomorrow. Where they are going, and what they are doing.
Palm claims to have something big up their sleeves, and they'll unveil it to the world at CES in early 2009. Is it really possible that after letting RIM (BlackBerry) and Apple (iPhone) steal their market, they can catch up? It's difficult to believe they can pull it off, but if you dig a little deeper, a hint of possibility does exist. Rumor has it they've been working on their new Nova OS for over four years. They just received an additional $100 milllion in funding. They've recently launched the Palm Software Store. And Palm's leadership certainly has the experience to make it happen. We'll see in early 2009.
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