When I read RT's
comment "I Was Naive!" at PalmAddict this morning, I felt as if the author was speaking out of my mind. Long before Sony joined the PDA euphoria, palmOne (at that time still called Palm) had been the only big PDA player, and definitely the only one with PalmOS-based handhelds.
Do you remember the Palm V (and later Vx)? For how long had it been Palm's #1 model? I can tell you: for many years - until Sony entered the game! Sony came and slaughtered the market. And henceforth Palm was forced to actually invest some money in new hardware design. The m500/m505 came, and it didn't take long for the T-line to approach.
Then Sony left the spectacle again - and with it an overly disturbed PDA market with dozens of PalmOS-based handhelds called Clie. What a relief for palmOne. Its management probably took the entire research & development budget to spent 6 luxurious months lying on the beach of Virgin Gorda. Then it must have noticed that their wives were running out of money and so decided to refurnish the Tungsten E and call it Tungsten T5.
Competition is the whetstone of talent. When Sony left the PDA market, palmOne lost its talent.