[Bob Russell]

Originally Posted by Pride Of Lions

Everything these mega-conglomerates do is about making as much money as possible. The decisions they make take years to come to fruition, and if they judge wrong it takes years to address and correct them.

Yes, it's about the money. But, fortunately, they have to produce something worth buying to get that money. And despite the way it looks like they're taking the long way around, I believe that the Palm companies have a leadership that will eventually put Palm where it needs to be. At any rate, you've at least found the Zodiac2 that satisfies your needs for now! Nobody knows for sure, but I do remain very optimistic.

And so far the defections on the developer side have been relatively light. Even if they are willing to jump ship, there's a huge investment that's been made by these folks in the PalmOS platform, and it might be harder to leave than you think. If the writing is on the wall, they'll leave, but I believe that it's more than a pure business play with a lot of the great developers. We forget it sometimes, but these are some really nice and generous people that we have in the Palm development world. They really care about their work, their customers, and the PDA world in general. My hats off to them!

Originally Posted by Laurens

BobR, I hope you're right, but I am not as optimistic as you are. Fact is that PalmOne's leadership wants to focus on SmartPhones, because they no longer see real growth in the PDA segment. They are not doing so bad in the PDA market anyway, but it's not enough because there's no real growth.

Your perspectives certainly makes one stop to consider, and your opinion carries great weight with me. I agree that PalmOne is almost "betting the business" on smartphones. But I don't know that cut-back economy versions of a Treo would really get the job done for the consumer even if they are more affordable. I'm not convinced that they will find long term success with smart phones, but they might. And Palm is still very ambitious and ready to take risks to take hold of the grand prize. But my point is that even if they fall short, and have steady but not growing sales, I believe they can "make a living" on traditional PDAs without having to dominate.

As long as they can sell enough to support the establishment of Cobalt on Linux, and they can continue to make some great PDAs, I think Palm will survive. But PalmOne management surely won't think that way (just looking to survive), because even if it would be an acceptable outcome for the consumer, it would be considered a failure by the ambitious corporate mogul. They want to be Walmart, not the local watch shop in a small town. Time will tell, but for now I'm still optimistic

Originally Posted by Ballistic

IMHO PalmSource is laying the groundwork to put themselves in a position where Palm OS/Linux could potentially become the dominant handheld computing, wireless handset, and embedded Linux systems OS of choice.

I sure hope so!

Originally Posted by TadW

I love your article Bob! I am sick and tired of the investment community who is trying to turn palmOne into a Fallen Angel. Those wannabe analysts from Wall Street became accustomed to unreasonable returns in an unreasonably short time frame, and easily forget what and who stands behind a company such as palmOne. They have to see the big picture. palmOne revolutionized the market for PDAs, and they are not dead yet. Who cares if the T5 wasn't the big winner, or if the Treo 650 has had some supply problems. palmOne is still delivering promising products and it is only a matter of time before they get it right again.

Thanks TadW! As much as the investment community and corporate leaders are ambitious to our detriment, it's also the whole reason we have Palm and other companies in the first place. I guess we have to take the good with the bad. I do agree with you completely.. despite some wrong turns or a preoccupation with smart phones, I still think they'll get it right again for the traditional PDA also.

@drc54.... Be patient and prices will fall. Despite my complaints about the T5, I would love to have one myself. And software authors for the essential software like DateBk5, ShadowPlan, backup programs, etc are all doing what they can to make things work despite the problems. It could be worse...