Palm R.I.P.

Now that Palm has just officially announced the new Treo 700w running Windows Mobile its clear that Palm has put the final nail in its own coffin. While the Treo has been a very popular gadget it never really was because it ran Palm OS, more that it was a good encapsulation of phone, PDA and keyboard. The keyboard was the key - businessmen just don't scribble with a stylus, or do Graffiti but they have been known to peck with their thumbs. So now that Palm has put Windows Mobile in its ever popular Treo package there really is no reason to ever bother with Palm OS again.

Palm OS is, and always was, a pigs-ear of an OS that lived largely unchanged for way too long. Even at its inception there were other more advanced OSes in use on PDAs (like the predecessor of Symbian - Epoch). That Palm OS lived so long is a wonder, or maybe a mystery, perhaps a testament to its fiercely loyal user base who kept buying new Palm versions with wreckless abandon, much like Apple fans keep ugrading to the latest iPod every year (or even six months these days!).

Unfortunately for Palm their newer customers were less loyal, less likely to use Palm for anything other than reading email, occasional Internet browsing and keeping their phone nubmers. With email and a browser there never was much need to add 3rd party apps to the device and this made moving away from Palm, or in particular Palm OS, a very easy thing to do. As far as I know the new Windows Mobile based device wont even run old PalmOS apps, the press release certainly doesn't say so - although it hints that perhaps they have ported some Palm application features, but nothing about binary compatibility via a simulator.

With PalmOS (the company and the software) sold off to the Japanese company Access, it seems only a matter of time before Palm itself is producing only Windows devices. At that point it'll just be another competitor in the already crowded SmartPhone space. Even Microsoft has a big splash about Palm's switch to Windows, they must be peeing their pants with delight that PalmOS is finally dead (it just hasn't stopped moving - yet). Can Palm compete in the smartphone space? I really doubt it. As I mentioned the Treo is a nice design and all, there is a loyal hardcore following, but really the just don't have the edge to become the Apple of smartphones. The big guys like HP and Samsung who can exploit economies of scale, direct supploy of LCD and flash memory, will surely eat their lunch on pricing alone.