Quote:
|
The question is, are there proven solutions based on Linux to satisfy the demands of corporate customers?
|
I think Palm is focused on corporate customers because they see this as relatively low-lying fruit that could be plucked by integrating Windows Mobile (with some nice tweaks) into their already wildly popular business smartphone. But I doubt they really believe they'll be able to grow the way they need to by just expanding in the corporate market, which is small compared to the consumer market. I think like most smartphone vendors out there, Palm is trying to crack the mystery of how you get consumers to graduate from feature phones that already do quite a bit to smartphones that offer real mobile computing. Their motto is "the future of computing is mobile computing" but they know they've got to convince the average Joe, not just corporate IT, that this is the case.
So does Palm think they are going to be able to make breakthrough consumer smartphones without the kind of control over their platform that they've had historically--in other words, within the constraints of Microsoft's Windows everywhere vision? My guess is that they don't. They may not even feel comfortable being constrained by ACCESS's vision, although that's starting to look like a
pretty exciting and consumer oriented vision. If I'm right, then the reason they are looking at Linux is not to further penetrate the enterprise but to pursue the bigger goal: getting consumers to catch the mobile computing idea.
It's not that Linux is consumer-oriented in and of itself--it's just that it's got a modern kernel and services that they can use to modernize the system that has done so well in the consumer handheld market: Palm OS. Remember: before ALP was announced Palm had expressed enthusiasm for PalmSource's Palm OS for Linux plans and stated that they would migrate to that from Garnet once it was ready.