"Palm Handheld Lifestyles"
June 20, 2007
SHOW NOTES
Our Guest - Justin Nolan, Editor and Chief, PDALive
First launched in 1999 in Singapore by Beng-Yeow Goh with visions to educate and empower the online community with the potentials of handheld computers, PDALive.com has truly grown and matured into the international community it now embodies. Based in the United States since being taken over by Justin Nolan in 2003, it continues to appeal to a loyal user base from all over the world. Today, PDALive.com can truly be considered your source for news on mobile devices of all varieties including not only handheld computers, but also mobile phones and cameras, as well as a resource for collecting cool tips, great deals, and new products. Best of all, PDALive.com is a place to meet amicable people from the world over with common interests in mobile technology, where - in the end - it's all about having a good time.
You can find them on the web at http://www.PDALive.com
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Palm OS The Big Picture
Palm Not For Sale! Well, maybe just a quarter of it
Ed Colligan has said repeatedly that Palm, Inc. is not for sale, but apparently a quarter of it was. Elevation Partners, co-founded by Bono of U2, purchased 25% of the company for $325 million.
For shareholders it means that the individual stocks will be diluted due to the fact that additional shares will have to be issued, but there will be a one-time divided to help make up for the devaluation.
On the management end, there will be three new additions, the most notable being Jon Rubinstein, former head of the iPod division at Apple. He will be the Executive Chairman and will also lead the company's product-development efforts.
So what does this mean?
As usual, Mike Mace sums it up best on his blog Mobile Opportunity
- It’s good that they got a ton of money
- It’s good that they didn’t have to sell out to get it
- There’s probably going to be a bit of a shake up in management
- We shouldn’t expect to see anything cool, new product wise until 2009
Palm Cuts Jobs
Well, unfortunately for some of Palm's employees, Palm has decided to make some cuts. It's been less than two weeks since Palm announced plans to sell a stake in the company to Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners is pouring $325 million into Palm, while at the same time, Palm plans to borrow another $400 million and return more than $900 million in cash to its shareholders. Now that's a LOT of money moving around!
Palm employees were still in the process of being notified of the cuts Thursday afternoon. Some of those cuts are being made immediately and others will take longer to implement, Palm's spokesman Jim Christensen told News.com:
QUOTE
It's a small percentage of our work force," Christensen told News.com, adding that Palm still has openings in some areas. The bulk of the jobs being eliminated are in the U.S. and in Palm's development ranks, though there are some cuts across the company, he said. According to Christensen, the cuts aren't about cost-cutting, but it's about restructuring or reorganizing Palm's team to increase the direct project accountability. In Christensen's words, it's about "eliminating some of the hierarchy."
It's been a busy month for Palm corporate news. They avoided a total buyout in favor of some investment and new board members. They announced their new product, the Foleo. They even, for those that were paying attention, rolled out (the first version of) their new Linux OS on the Foleo. Before all this has sunk in, now some of their employees are getting the axe. Stay tuned for what other developments come about with Palm.
New Hardware
Jeff Hawkin's Secret Project Is Finally Revealed - Foleo
For the past two years, Palm founder and creator of the original Palm Pilot and Treo Smartphone, has been hard at work on a super secret project. At Walt Mossberg's D Conference, he announced the fruit of all that labor and it is the Palm Foleo
Target user of this device is a heavy email user with Treo or WinMo PocketPC phone who needs a larger screen but doesn’t want to lug a laptop. It's primary functions are e-mail and office-type attachments and browsing the web.
Specifications:
- Full-size keyboard with mouse button
- 10 inch screen, 1024x600, non-touch
- 10.55" inches wide, 6.67" deep, 0.94" inches thick. 2.4 pounds.
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (B/G/N?)
- 256MB memory, 128MB available
- SD and CF card slots
- USB port, video out (1024x768) and 3.5mm headphone jack
- Auto sync with email on Treos, after 4-step set up
- 2 working states only: On, Off
- No Sleep, Suspend, Reboot, or Shutdown
Included software
- Docs-to-Go (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- E-mail and contacts synchronizer
- PDF viewer
- Opera web browser
- Photo viewer
- Linux console
All Apps are full-screen only, there is no windowed mode where you could have two applications opened side-by-side. The OS on the Foleo is Linux, not Palm OS, or the upcoming Palm Linux. There is no Garnet compatibility layer, so no PalmOS apps, but there will be an SDK will be released for developers.
One interesting side note is that there is no support for Calendar, Tasks, or Notes. In other words, it doesn't offer full PIM (Personal Information Manager) support. Only Email and Contacts are synced from the Treo.
However, some third party applications have already been announced, including MotionApps' Dayscape and Astraware's Sudoku and Solitaire. So I guess you can choose to be ultra productive, or not.
The Palm Foleo is supposed to be availble sometime this summer for $599 with a $100 rebate. It currently works with both PalmOS and WinMo Treos and is expected to work with any WinMo PocketPCs. There are plans for support for RIM and Symbian and even the Apple iPhone.
So what does this new product offering do exactly?
It’s a confusing device to say the least. Most of the feed back from Palm OS users and the media have been head scratching. In fact, there's been enough questions generated, that Palm released a Podcast, to have Jeff Hawkins answer many of the questions.
Mike Mace says it’s a sub-niche device. Smartphones are a niche of the overall phone market and the Foleo is a sub niche of the smartphone market. C|Net Questions Palm’s "Comeback" with the product. The fact that C|Net feels that Palm needs to make a comeback speaks volumes in and of itself.
Here's our take:
1. It IS the successor to the Dana AlphaSmart. Unfortunately that's just another series of niches, such as professional writers.
2. If DocsToGo supports PowerPoint presentations, meaning that you could hook up the Foleo to an LCD projector and actually give PowerPoint presentations, then many people in marketing would jump on this product. Unfortunately, that's yet another niche.
3. Maybe it's a gateway device. This is the start of a new evolution in mobile computing and the Foleo is a 1.0 release that starts this trend. What does that mean? Well, we could see Treos without keyboards, or more of a UMPC approach to computing with everything being mobile.
Rumors!
[RUMOR]Treo 800w Coming To Verizon On Sept. 13
- WinMo 6 OS
- 320x320 screen
- No antenna
- Possibly same hardware as 755p
[RUMOR] Treo 755p Coming To Verizon on July 4
[RUMOR] Palm "Gandolf" Coming Soon With A Bold New Look
- Naming convention will be Treo 5XX
- One version with Windows Mobile 6 Standard, the other is a new non-touchscreen edition of the Palm OS
- Multiple colors
- 135 grams; 117 x 65 x 13.8 mm
- 2.4 inch QVGA screen with 65k colors
- 2 megapixel camera
- Bluetooth 2.0 w/ A2DP support
- 3G + HSDPA
- 256 MB onboard memory with 64 MB of RAM
If true, this will be Palm's first non-touchscreen Treo. The lack of touch screen will make these Treos thin, something people have been asking of Palm for a while. Of course to make a Treo as thin as a Dash, BlackJack and Q will mean no touchscreen. While there have been many non-touch screen Windows Mobile based devices, this will be the first touchscreen-less Palm OS based device. People shouldn't be too concerned with the lack of touchscreen, Palm has engineered the Palm OS Treos to be completely usable without ever really needing to use the stylus or touch the screen. I have been wanting Palm to do this for a while, lets see how this turns out.
New Updates
AT&T 680 Update Released
- For Treo 680’s purchased before June 11, 2007
- Improved power management for better battery life.
- Camera update for improved battery life (available previously as a standalone update).
- Helps correct distorted characters that can occur in the title bar of the Phone application.
- Helps fix device "freezing" that may occur under certain conditions.
- System Lockout improvement for increased security.
- Support for the new Daylight Saving Time legislation (available previously as a standalone update).
- Provides better support for networks unique to some Caribbean, Latin American, and Asian countries.
- Updates Cingular branding, replacing it with the new AT&T branding.
Sprint Treo 700p Update Pulled
- To be re-issued any minute now
- No current planned update release date for Verizon 700p
- Palm says no need to issue updates for 700p on other networks than Verizon and Sprint since those 700p’s already have newer ROMs
"Find" Vunerability Patch Released
- For the Treo 650, 680 and 700p
New Accessories
TCL Releases MultiFunction TX/T5 Module
This small module attaches to the bottom of the Palm TX or T5 and adds a Microphone and Vibrate sensor all in one device. So if you find you wish your PDA had these features, for $20 you can add them back, albeit with an external widget.
Some Fun Stuff
Past Palm Commercials
Old Palm Print Ads