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Originally Posted by BobR
I think PalmOS still offers an advantage (near term anyway) over pure Linux or Windows. It's designed for small screen, and mobility. And the basic apps are pretty good. They are working hard on gui improvements. And they strongly believe the user experience on traditional desktops does not translate well (yet) to the handheld market. I think I agree, which means they may still be relevant. Especially if they're working with Jeff Hawkins on that new OS for LifeDrive that we're guessing is his infant business line at Palm Inc.
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I think the futures of Palm and Palm OS clearly have Linux playing a major role. It is no coincidence that Palm is hiring Linux developers. It will be much easier to build a scalable platform that can be used in everything from featurephones, smartphones, handheld computers (the future of PDAs), and small tablets, and even a true "Palm Desktop" OS. Linux scales up or down very well.
By a true "Palm Desktop OS", I mean a Linux-based full desktop operating system like the one used in IBM's SoulPad (Debian Knoppix). A future LifeDrive like device could convert into a desktop computer with a desktop GUI when connected to a host computer. Our handheld devices are quickly becoming our primary computing devices, especially when high speed wireless connectivity becomes ubiquitous, and desktops are becoming irrelevant as we start carrying all of our data around with us or have it available online. The SoulPad + LifeDrive concepts are the direction we're heading when it comes to carrying around our computing environment and data.
I would also venture a guess that the OS and software that Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky are working on at
Numenta are going to be based on a *nix operating system for the very same reason: Scalability.
Mobile, low power x86 processors by Intel will help out Palm and PalmOS for Linux just as much, and possibly more than Microsoft and Windows. With Apple switching to Intel, they'll probably take advantage of these new chips in new innovative mobile devices.
Brian