HP buys Palm!

Well this one caught me by surprise!  All of this talk about Lenovo and HTC and speculative buyout quotes of $1.3b.  In the end, it was $1.2b and Old Tech buying ...well, Old Tech.  HP makes some innovative products, but no slam dunks.  Their software has left a lot to be desired - albeit coming secondarily from another company, but admittedly one must admit that the company has style.  They also have deep pockets and a sense of deep commitment to completing things once they get started, something that has been lost in the Palm world for a long time.  I actually admire the determination and drive that this company has.  It all stems from their early days in that garage.

Is it a good fit?  Only time will tell.  HP has been innovating as of late.  I was impressed at first by the Slate, although less so now than before, again due to software issues.  But the hardware looked solid.   I think that Palm brings an incredibly agile software solution to the table for HP that will mount a serious challenge to Apple and could supersede Microsoft Windows Mobile.  However this is where things get a little interesting.  Is HP a Microsoft company or a WebOS company?  What happens to the Slate?  Is WebOS going to be ported like Android?  And will we finally see another company get product integration right?  Only Apple appears to make hardware integration (ie. My Macs talk to each other; to the iPhone etc) simple and seamless. 

I think a Slate with WebOS would be fantastic.  Multitasking right out of the box.  With Palm being so meek at the moment it may be easy for HP to impose its will to make WebOS work in the right way, stopping the silly limitations that Palm has always put on their products which has hindered the company from going forward.  Also with HP we may begin to see more Palm innovation and decent mainstream commercials that will help the company instead of the crazy pandering to certain demographics. 

I think that the WebOS is a competitive platform.  It's not really for me due to its limitations, but I am very happy to see that someone found the value in Palm.  Although I can only hope that HP does something good with Palm, in the back of my mind I am hoping that they are not just buying them to get rid of them.  If they do amalgamate into one company to do good, we could see some very innovative products emanating from this merger.


LDD.

New Palm WebOS to provide some Palm OS 5 compatibility

While perusing the Palm universe today I stumbled upon an interesting news piece from PMP TODAY. Palm has apparently given rights to a company called MOTION APPS to develop a Palm OS emulator. The icon, shown on a video demo and picked up by a few astute Palm devotees, clearly shows an application called CLASSICAL. Uncertain whether this is just a label, folder or program. But it is, for all intents and purposes, evidence that Palm is not leaving its old-school players behind.

Naturally there must be a thousand questions about this, particularly the NVFS question, which all but made the LIFEDRIVE a brick on more than one occasion. However, with a UNIX underbelly this time around, this may be child's play. I'll tell you this: If Palm can create a great experience on the device with WEB OS and also satisfy the old-school crowd from Palm OS5 (yes and beyond...), Palm could not only compete with the iPhone, but they could really create a compelling reason for just about anyone to stay with Palm.

On paper, this all looks good. I cannot wait for the end of the month.


References:

http://www.precentral.net/ <--- Above pictures taken from Precentral.net http://www.pmptoday.com/2009/04/02/palm-pre-to-come-with-palm-os-emulation/

Palm Strikes Back!

Palm today announced at CES the introduction of the Palm Pre. It is a beautiful looking machine. I was very pleased to read that Palm will introduce multitasking to the device and incorporate true wifi. Of course, not many have had the chance to either play with or see the device in person, so I, like you, am relying on 3rd party reports, pictures and videos.

The form factor looks good, but it would appear that the iPhone has been emulated in many parts. Palm has done away with the Stylus and opted for Thumb swipes. Additionally, the swipes are truly "liquid" with no staccato type movements. Second, the Apple Apps store will have some competition, with Palm literally following in the footsteps of Apple to create its own Apps store. The question of course will be, will Palm allow independents to directly put their products on the device or will it be locked down like Apples'?

I did not see any video playbacks and have a few questions. First, will there be legacy support (ie. Smartlistogo)? Additionally, will everything be Web-Centric? What happens when the web goes down? Will it continue to work? Particularly with the combined email accounts.

Anyhow, I think that Palm is moving in the right direction (by the way does anyone know if this really Linux renamed?) and I commend Ed Colligan for coming out swinging. Now, they will have to get this thing on a GSM platform also.

I cannot wait to see a true review of this device and to see this thing in action. I am also interested to see which developers have actually signed on for this device.




LDD.