---------- ---------- PC Pro Realworld Computing: Paul Lynch - PDAs

Palm pays homage to Psion

Some time before the conference, Palm had announced new models: the IIIe and Vx, as well as finally moving to national (USA national, that is) distribution for the VII. But the bigger announcement was the deal signed with Nokia to use the PalmOS in a new Nokia communicator style mobile phone for the North American market, to be released in mid 2001. This will use the Palm user interface and API layer, running on an ARM processor on top of Symbian's EPOC32. That dictates a pen interface, and gives access to Palm's developer community. Presumably the phone will drop Symbian's EIKON user interface, as was hinted was possibly by Symbian at their developer conference several months earlier. However, at this time Palm and Symbian haven't been able to make a mutually intelligible announcement about a joint relationship except via Nokia.

It is a little known fact that Palm use a third party kernel from Kadak. It has been criticised for lack of multithreading, although in fact it supports 4 threads in the PalmOS version - only one of these is available for user processes, however. So moving to a new kernel should not be too difficult a problem, and will offer quite a few advantages to Palm developers, especially if they can benefit from Symbian's superior developer tools. In fact, if Palm can bear to stop bickering with Symbian, there is a really excellent combination waiting to emerge. Part of the preparation work that Palm are conducting, presumably for their IPO, is to separate the device making business units from the OS development. This reminds me most strongly of what Psion were going through several years ago, but also has an unhealthy resemblance to the licensee antics of Apple, which had unhappy results. What makes Palm look more like Psion and less like Apple is that they already have successful licensees working with them from Symbol and IBM through TRG to Handspring.

Palm, just like Microsoft at the Windows CE Developer Conference, seem to serious misunderstand wireless communications. They managed to conduct a panel discussion on the future of wireless communications without a European on the panel, which is like a Star Trek conference without a member of the original cast. Having spoken to Palm Europe employees, I know that they are aware of the vast differences between wireless in the USA and Europe, but Palm don't seem to understand that at a corporate level. Last year, launching the Palm VII, a US only device, at a conference where the President of 3com opened proceedings with a speech on "globalisation" looked like fumbling, but this topped it. I know that a significant proportion of PC Pro readers use infra-red to synchronise, and many use an infra-red equipped mobile phone for communications (at least, the ones who write to me) - but a vanishingly small proportion of American mobile users do so, for the simple reason that IR mobile phones have been available in a very small area for a few months only. While on the subject of infra-red, one of the best tricks to play was to beam address information to a Palm user from a Psion Revo; most don't realise that it is possible.



Words and design by:
Paul Lynch
Last updated: January 24, 2000

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