“A year ago, investors were losing faith in Palm Inc. The once high-flying company itself admitted to frailty and mistakes. But Palm never gave up, and launches Monday a new operating system — a crucial weapon in its battle to remain dominant in the competitive handheld market. Palm OS 5, analysts say, is a much-needed major upgrade from the pioneer of personal digital assistants’ earlier operating systems.” Read the report at Yahoo!. Update: Palm pins hopes on beefed-up OS.
Palm Launching Palm OS 5
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Let see, accroading to the article, it is faster, multitasking, support higher resolutions etc.
Maybe that was caused by the hardware, but just checking, is the OS based on BeIA?
no, it is not.
work on Palm OS 5 began long before Palm bought Be, but maybe some of the technology went into it or will be integrated in future.
It’s likely to have BeOS/BeIA technology at the lowest levels. How else could PalmSource finish the first release so quickly? I look forward to the higher level API from the legendary Be engineers!
This is a great start for PalmSource. If licensees can come out with first generation products this Summer and maintain compatibility a la “Apple PPC switch” we should have some really cool devices for the Christmas holiday.
I’d like to see some slick tablets in addition to pocket sized devices.
Way to go Palm!!!!
ciao
yc
Most of the details appear to Be straight from the BeOS / BeIA feature list.
From article Yahoo Link:
“Because OS 5 also allows multiple programs to run simultaneously, Cutting Edge envisions a conferencing product that will allow a PDA user to be in a chat window, keep a voice connection going and deliver a document to other participants — all at once.”
From PalmSource Link:
http://www.palmos.com/about/news/2002/061002_1.html
“Multimedia — Higher-fidelity sound and support for high-density screens translate into richer multimedia experiences on Palm OS 5 devices.”
“Wireless — In addition to current support for WAN and Bluetooth, Palm OS 5 supports 802.11b for connections to wireless Local Area Networks.”
“Enhanced user interface — Icons and fonts have been enhanced to support high-resolution displays and to provide greater readability. The user interface can now be personalized with color themes.”
Go Palm Go! Go! Go!
ciao
yc
Man, did you hear about the story of 2 twin brothers. One was an eternal optimist, the other a pessimist. Their father decided to play a trick on them on their birthday, and decided to give the pessimist lots of toys, and he gave the optimist a truck load of horse shit. To the fathers suprise, the optimist was jumping around the manure, happy, while the pessimist sat idly beside his toys crying.
“Why are you crying, my pessimistic son?”
“I’m afraid I’ll break my lovely toys.”
“Son, why are you so happy, jumping in the shit and such” the father asked the optimistic son.
“Dad, I’m sure there is a pony here, somewhere.”
Moral of story – YC is a big optimist.
When I have enough money to buy a PDA anyway, I would buy a Palm over PocketPC only if the OS is more powerful than PocketPC; also only if the battery life is longer. But heck, I rather buy a Mac and a iPod if I’m a millionaire.
palm was in sorry shape under yankowski (spelling?). The shoe salesman thought the best way to run Palm was by investing in colorful face plates. You didn’t see a whole lot of development/innovation at palm during his years. My bet is that palm’s os development was in equally sorry shape under his guidance. That of course means, that i would not be at all surprised if beia was under the hood of palm os 5.
Multimedia users will be able to play back and record digital audio using higher-resolution screens.
What the heck does a higher-resolution screen have to do with digital audio playback and recording???? 😎
they can still play it back after the screen has higher rez.. that’s innovation.. (in marketing..)..
“Let see, accroading to the article, it is faster, multitasking, support higher resolutions etc.
Maybe that was caused by the hardware, but just checking, is the OS based on BeIA?”
Think it might be a bit early for that. IIRC they were walking that path anyway…
Nope, Microsoft will also dominate this space sooner than later. Their product line is too limited to stand stiff competition. Its just a matter of time before Palm is dead. Sorry to be the prophet of doom, but I don’t see how Palm can outduel Redmond in the long run. I wish they had expanded into the desktop market as well.
>>Moral of story – YC is a big optimist:
That is correct!
I think that’s because I have seen so little turn into such big winners, it’s amazing!
Even if there is BeIA/BeOS code used in the new PalmOS, Palm obviously wants to downplay any connection to BeOS. Even if Palm’s new OS is wildly successful, I wouldn’t count on them to turn around and do anything with BeOS/PalmOS on the desktop.
For my money/time/resources, OBOS is still the future of BeOS.
Big deal. Now that I can run Linux/Qtopia on ARM, having PalmOS there seems a bit diminished.
….you all are. You know who you are.
You people have been predicting Palms’s immediate demise at the hands of Microsoft for years now, and it still has not happened.
I know you are still pining for BeOS, but if Palm expanded into the desktop market, it would fatally divide its resources, precisely when Palm needs everything it can get to survive and thrive in its own PDA market.
Companies that sucessfully compete with Microsoft, do so by focusing on their own core market, and not by trying to compete with Microsoft by expanding into multiple other markets where Microsoft already dominates.
Palm isn’t stupid; they aim to keep their own market and perhaps expand into the smartphone, wireless PDA, and wireless webpad markets, if/when/as these markets develop.
Expanding into the desktop market won’t happen unless Microsoft is prevented from using its monopoly power to prevent OEM’s from selling PC’s with non-Microsoft OS’s.
Until then, Palm/BeOS on the desktop is a non-starter. Palm is not going to throw away millions of dolloars of its limited financial resources just to (briefly) make a few BeOS loyalists happy.
I wouldn’t call releasing a desktop OS throwing money away. It does quite nicely for microsoft. it is true that splitting resources would be dangerous for Palm but the desktop OS market is a LOT bigger than the market for PDA os’ and even cell phone os. Those two later markets may just be going nowhere. the cell phone market could well be to Palm what the Internet appliance was to Be,too little too late. It is really looking like the smart phone market is doomed to do little or nothing.
I also don’t think that beos loyalists are the only ones that want an alternative to MS. Major coporation and small businesses want that now too. Linux has mindshare there but the MS antitrust case is closing and there might (maybe) be an opportunity to preinstall an os other than windblows with OEMs. Ultimately, if the conditions were right (big if i know) Palm could make a lot more money from selling a desktop OS then a PDA or cell phone OS.
Big deal. Now that I can run Linux/Qtopia on ARM, having PalmOS there seems a bit diminished.
<sacarsm>Really? Oh goody, I would get to run 90% o handheld applications and have a wide range of PDAs to choose from with Linux/Qtopia!</sacarsm>
Until Linux get standards, Linux for the handheld (and the desktop for all that matters) isn’t going to happen.
I know you are still pining for BeOS, but if Palm expanded into the desktop market, it would fatally divide its resources, precisely when Palm needs everything it can get to survive and thrive in its own PDA market.
I hear most peopl who are clamouring for BeOS from Palm want it licensed to BeUnited. So Palm would have nothing to loose, and perhaps something to gain.
Expanding into the desktop market won’t happen unless Microsoft is prevented from using its monopoly power to prevent OEM’s from selling PC’s with non-Microsoft OS’s.
Entering the desktop market is much harder than that. The desktop comprise of so many niches. You are better off picking a model like Apple, or perhaps like Amiga (licensing to hardware companies, but not the ROM). They must also make deals with ISVs of that niche you are targeting.
OEM deals – well unless there are consumer demand, they might just pull the plug. Unless you pay them, and they get to use your OS for free. Which means small companies can easily die off, without users even using it.
I wouldn’t call releasing a desktop OS throwing money away. It does quite nicely for microsoft. it is true that splitting resources would be dangerous for Palm but the desktop OS market is a LOT bigger than the market for PDA os’ and even cell phone os. Those two later markets may just be going nowhere. the cell phone market could well be to Palm what the Internet appliance was to Be,too little too late. It is really looking like the smart phone market is doomed to do little or nothing.
Yes, I could see people running to the stores buying an OS with practically no hardware support and new software…. NOT. The desktop market needs reason to change OS. Sure, ease of use can be a factor, but if your winmodem and Ethernet card don’t work, and there isn’t any drivers from the manuafcturers itself… well, I would forget about getting the desktop market.
the desktop market has a reason to change. Its called MS licensing practices. Corporation are livid which why they are starting to consider linux.
Palm also has a considerable developer base already. Look, i personally think that openbeos is the way to go for the multimedia crowd (Me), but money wise, Palm would be fools if they don’t use their development base to expand (perhaps slowly) into the desktop space. you don’t have to do it right away. Perhaps you start out by builing an enterprise and developer base with the small PDA. you then use that to expand into larger devices and to ecompass the functionality of the desktop until you are effectively a desktop. You do it gradually and you do it by providing value (MS does not do this) to the enterprise space. The gradual part means you can also build up hardware and application software support.
the mono os culture will become a thing of the past. MS’s prices are painful and the risk of disruption to a mono os network is far higher than it is to one using several OS’s. 9/11 and hackers are changing the way people think. As far beos being dead, Look at the adoption curve for OS technology. It is running roughly 20 years (at a minimum) behind the state of the art. Unix, no spring chicken, is just being adopted on the mass desktop now. the technology that lies behind beos could have its day yet.
I would agree that entering the desktop market at this time is deadly. (aka throwing money away) This is because antitrust remedies against Microsoft are not in effect yet.
I believe that the unresolved OEM antitrust issues and the fact that Palm needs to focus on the handheld OS at this time is the reason why PalmSource is not in the desktop OS business.
Palm may produce tablets before desktops but a desktop OS will come after the antitrust remedies go into effect.
Palm spent 11 million dollars on Be’s engineers (and BeOS) but they were willing to spend $250 million on Extended Systems (for enterprise level PDA support) before that deal was soured.
Just look at Palm’s priority and their willingness to spend their very limited cash on M&A. If Palm has the money, the expertise and the opportunity to expand their business — they would go into buying or expanding into stuff that Extended Systems is working on —- AND DEFINITELY NOT EXPANDING INTO THE DESKTOP OS MARKET.