Palm's Ed Colligan confirms: no new Palm OS till end of 2008
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Oct 3rd 2007 10:19AM
posted Oct 3rd 2007 10:19AM
Just in case you missed the mention in our post about Palm's Q1 FY08 conference call, or the earlier report about the company's new OS getting more delays, take notice: Ed Colligan did indeed confirm that we won't be seeing a new operating system on Palm devices until the end of next year. Of course, with a track record like this crew has, we're not holding our breath, and would seriously suggest you follow suit.Read -- Palm admits new OS 18 months away
Read -- Colligan Talks About Next Generation Palm OS Progress
In 18 mos, the Google phone will already be out and selling like hot cakes, the iphone will be in its second rendition, Blackberry will have out several new models and there may even be a Zune phone. Oh, I forgot to mention, Palm will be out of business too.
Okay, Palm see you then... if you're still around.
Palm, seriously, I was really in your corner. First, I really am not big Treo fan but you guys are the original quintessential-PDA phone people. But just like Samsung did Motorola with it's thinness title, HTC is taking your PDA title (*note- Yes, it does have WM, but almost all HTC devices have WiFi).
Second, and most important. Seriously, it is ULTRA-FORGIVEABLE (if I spelled it correctly)if you don't have a new OS until the end of '08. But, to keep Palm alive, just play around with the hardware and design of the Palm. Make an ultra-thin Treo with WiFi and you've got it in the bag. Hell, seriously, just take your Treo 750, make it ultra-thin, add some WiFi, up the camera to at least autofocus 2MP (although 3.2MP would be best), and throw in some GPS, and you've got a hit on your hands. Just put WM6 on it for now, until you redo your OS and the world will love you again.
Dude, seriously, take this advice.
Yeah, saw some important mistakes, I'll fix those:
"...Samsung did Motorola with its thinness title..."
"...I really am not a big Treo fan but you guys are the..."
"...just play around with the hardware and design of the Treo."
Also, Palm, you know what you should do that would be ultra innovative and would make a lot of people switch to the Treo. If you made a device that could run the Palm OS as well as Windows Mobile, like Mac does with Windows and Mac OSX. I'm telling you, it'd be a hit.
Fun fact: the Treo 750 is also called the HTC Cheetah. In addition, you'll notice the Treo 650 has a nice HTC bootloader. Palm hasn't just let HTC take over, they've willingly assisted!
(Yeah, yeah, I know Inventec or whoever makes most of the PalmOS Treos now.)
Any way, since Palm has hit a dead end on their GSM Treos and CDMA will not keep them afloat forever, I agree they're going to have to get creative with the form factors of their products. The Centro and Treo 500v are both a bit, well, fugly. Most people have been quite skeptical about their looks.
So here's what you do, Palm. Take the Centro and 500v innards and in about 6 months, shrink them. Then, hire designers that actually know what they're doing. Make sure their end product is small and looks good. I suggest large amounts of focus groups.
And then pray that you're going to be able to hang on until you finish your new OS.
is it time for palm to just give up developing an o.s. and bite the bullet, license symbian, uiq and just build there own custom interface layer on top?
It seems to me that a lot of people are dogpiling on Palm right now, bashing just for the sake of bashing. The reality is that, feature-for-feature, the latest Palm devices are every bit as good—and in many ways superior—to other smartphones on the market.
Other than it's age, what's wrong with the Palm OS? I've owned a Treo 650 for 2 years and it's been a perfectly capable smartphone. The ONLY time I've had trouble with the phone is when I installed a buggy 3rd-party app. Multitasking seems to be the only limitation
The Centro appears to have the utility of the 650/680/700/755, plus 3G and a hi-res touchscreen, all wrapped in a much smaller, lighter package. The only complaints I have read are the small keyboard—already dispelled by hands-on use—and it didn't look sexy oh good grief!). I don't worry too much about looks, but IMHO, it looks a heckuva lot nicer than the Q, Dash or Blackjack (all of which are rather drab).