Ed Colligan speaks about Palm OS 2.0

While Palm's CFO Andy Brown wasn't exactly forthcoming with details about its elusive next-gen OS, a recent interview with top dog Ed Colligan revealed quite a bit about codename Nova. As if it wasn't official enough already, we're told that Palm OS 2.0 (which is also not the final moniker) will indeed be Linux-based, and Ed continued to say that it would be "driven around the internet and web-based applications." Of course, a Palm interview wouldn't be a Palm interview without at least some mention of the now-defunct Foleo, and the bigwig left a crack in the rumor drawer by stating that he "still believed the idea would be vindicated some day." Trust us, there's way more where this came from, so head on down to the read link if your interest is piqued.

[Iphoneis Apalmclone @ May 28th 2008 12:49PM]

Don't everyone comment all at once now!

[Ellianth @ May 28th 2008 5:45PM]

Here, I'll comment.

The last palm device i owned was running os 5.something. How does the newer version get named 2.0? Can they not count, or am i missing something.

... yes I read the part where the name won't stick, but still, why would you choose a number that you've already used?

[Emre Aydinceren @ May 28th 2008 12:50PM]

Little bit too late.. Palm already kissed goodbye their place in the race.. It is a classic textbook case "How a market innovator, leader becomes 4th with insignificant market share"..

[Magallanes @ May 28th 2008 1:49PM]

"Little bit too late.. Apple with their Newton already kissed goodbye their place in the race.. It is a classic textbook case "How a market innovator, leader becomes 4th with insignificant market share".."

^_^

[pauleyc @ May 28th 2008 12:54PM]

In my opinion the Foleo was already vindicated by the Eee PC. While maybe not as versatile as the Eee, Foleo was certainly the first device of the "miniature sub-notebook with Linux" wave - with a form factor not dissimilar to the Macbook Air.

What I would love to see from Palm is another pure palmtop device, without any of that fancy smartphone functionality (I got a separate cell phone for that, thankyouverymuch). My trusty TX is still in perfect order but a product update would be welcome.

[Anthony @ May 28th 2008 1:06PM]

I totally agree. That's exactly why I came in to post on this. The Eee has been a huge success & spawned many copies already. Foleo was a precursor (albeit a really strange, never produced one).

[DarkLight @ May 28th 2008 1:13PM]

Amen. I'm also waiting for another pure palmtop...

Unlike what most say, non-phone devices are far from obsolete.. I, for one, would be willing to buy a new one should they release something interesting

[SHow @ May 28th 2008 1:32PM]

My thoughts exactly regarding the EEE-PC having already vindicated the concept of the Foleo. People rightly balked at the pricing, but if they relaunched it with some real internal storage (80 GB HD would do it - or lower with SSD) then it would be competive with the EEE-PC but it has real 'instant on' and the looks and keyboard make the EEE-PC seem like a toy. I always thought that the Foleo looked rather nice.

Of course if they could add that internal storage AND bring the price down to at least $399 it could be a killer (well for some people anyway). I don't think they should have abandoned it (I hope they haven't); it needs to be tweaked and repriced and then it could be the best cheap laptop on the market.

Oh - I am also assuming that they would drop this 'smartphone companion' marketing non-sense and beef up the out-of-the-box media codec support.

[Fernando @ May 28th 2008 12:57PM]

Wait, Palm OS 2? Aren't we on Palm OS 5? :P

(I know I know, not official name, still)

[martin @ May 28th 2008 12:59PM]

thats what i was thinking, but since no one cares about palm they could probably get away with calling it palm os 2.0 anyway

[Mark @ May 28th 2008 4:11PM]

Ah, but when there was an OS 2.0, it wasn't Palm, but USRobotics... erm 3Com... which made the PalmPilot Professional/Personal.

But they still called it Palm OS 2.0 on those machines. Wow, over eleven years ago.

[Vic the One @ May 28th 2008 1:03PM]

Dear Palm:

I'm only telling you this for your own good... It's over. There's nothing you can do about it, and believing otherwise is just kidding yourself. You lose. People would pay you a lot more to quit producing your products than they would to keep you doing so. In fact, your very existence means that office space that could be used to design useful products is going to waste. Please quit and let someone competent use them.

Love,
Bartholomew "Victor" T. One Esquire

(anyone who loves palm and takes my note seriously, I don't need to hear about it)

[TareX @ May 28th 2008 1:05PM]

Nothing has been "revealed" here.

[dcny @ May 28th 2008 1:12PM]

Palm your time is over, just give up you already lost to Blackberries, Windows Mobile and the Iphone. Just give up trying to compete for corporate users time to go after Danger and the sidekick since most users of your products are now teens or people in there early 20's.

Hire some young people (13-25 years olds) for a summer jobs and internships they could design a better UI and OS than yall and it wont take decades, just don't forget to take all the myspace, facebook, bebbo, faceparty etc. links out.

Come out with a new design factor how about a slider with a keyboard underneath. Palm even Microsoft can throw paint on old shit and claim it as new what the fuck is your problem your not even doing that Microsoft even has more progress than yall something is wrong there.

[Vic the One @ May 28th 2008 1:18PM]

Oh my god... That last sentence is an abomination! Use a comma or something! But I agree.

[phanbouy @ May 28th 2008 1:22PM]

Colligan has a colligen-injected face

[Mile @ May 28th 2008 1:32PM]

Handspring, baby!

[Marky @ May 28th 2008 2:09PM]

Please. No more treos! Get a new design with a big screen. Take the TX and make it a phone!

[Baz @ May 28th 2008 4:03PM]

Oh, pull-ease, who cares?

Palm is running an OS that is 3 years old on devices that are based on a product that is 6 years old - and which they had to buy into by acquiring Handspring. They abandoned any real development (or interest) in their OS, software or Desktop when they spun it off to PalmSource and they, ACCESS - whose claim to fame and been the truly terrible Palm Desktop 6.2. Meanwhile, their hardware build quality remains death by a thousand cuts with embarrassingly poor Support.

Palm - once the de facto handheld provider to suits, students and other professionals - has fallen so far behind R&D and sales of RIM, WinMob, Apple, Symbian and Linux that they cannot be seen to be any sort of serious product line at all. Palm has replaced quality and innovation with cheap hardware to sell via wireless partners - and the sooner they are jettisoned by these companies, the better.

Unless Palm has a significant epiphany - and I mean earth-shatteringly significant - my old TX (complete with its usual 'issues') will be my last Palm device when it dies.

Colligan - get a new day job....

[Ramone @ May 28th 2008 6:17PM]

Are they going to sell it at Woolworth's? I will have to drive down there in my Studebaker to pick it up.

[Cassini @ May 28th 2008 6:59PM]

Oh Yippee! Palm 2.0. Another Palm product no one will care about!

[ren @ May 28th 2008 9:40PM]

I am unhappy with my TX because of the loss of functionality in the upper right of my touch-screen, but I am still using it by rotating the screen. After all this, I am still willing to buy a new Palm because no other devices have the functionality and software that the Palm has.

[cell @ May 29th 2008 12:49AM]

All this hate for Palm...has anyone seen the available programs for the Palm. There has to be thousands, not to mention the stuff that can become free with a little googling. iPhone or the WinMo can't compete when it comes to program availability. If the iPhone could effectively operate the Palm OS, that would be awesome but until then I'm sticking with the Centro and my countless amounts of programs such as CallRec (a program that can record anything with the clearest quality I have tested), DukeNukem, my long laundry list of Skyscape medical programs, and much more.

[LaughingVulcan @ May 29th 2008 1:00AM]

The thing all the haters would like to ignore is....

The Palm, using it's "3 year old OS" on a "6 year old platform" *still works.*

At least I don't have to do 4 system resets a day like I did the last time I tried to "use" a Microsoft device. And Treos generally work well on the same software, though like those above I'll stick with a separate PDA and phone, thank you.

The reason Palm 2.0 has been so long in development is that it's damn hard to improve on virtual perfection, isn't it?

[tekdroid @ May 29th 2008 7:12AM]

Having never used a Palm device, I can't comment on their products. But the hate level sure is high.

It would be nice to get a list of specifics on what's wrong or lacking with their current line-up compared to the competition.

Has anyone written one up?

[Baz @ May 29th 2008 8:53AM]

See, I'm not a 'Palm hater' at all - if my tech drawer is anything to go by - but my enthusiasm for Palm was generated some years ago when they actually lead the industry in innovation, reliability and ease of use - and not by anything they have done in the past 3 years where these three elements have been essentially abandoned.

They've managed to keep themselves afloat not by leading the industry - or even following the competition at a close distance - but by selling cheap hardware to wireless companies.

The wide range of software that is available for Palm was largely created by Palm enthusiasts and companies during those days when Palm had a clue. Newer software development has less to do with recent Palms (short of patches and hacks companies have created to make the Palm work as expected) and more to do with the computer OSs these archaic devices must work on. The fact that most of my most useful (and fun) software on my TX was an OS5 (again, see 3 years ago) tweaked version of an even older program says a lot, I think, for where Palm (and its software developers) have gone.

Or not, as the case is.

[LaughingVulcan @ May 30th 2008 5:53PM]

I apologize for taking your comments and attributing them to a "hater," but there are plenty of Palm Haters out there whose main complaint is that it's old tech....

I'll readily agree that resting on one's laurels is a dangerous business strategy at best. Almost as dangerous as allowing R&D to eat up one's profits completely, or for a company to develop "shiny new toy" syndrome - only to discover the market doesn't want it. (Witness the Foleo. Apparently Palm recovered from SNT before going to a commercial release that they ultimately deemed unprofitable. But I digress.)

I would suggest, however, that Palm has survived by having had the most economical *and* most stable platform out there in Garnet. At least in the 'pure PDA' market; I find Palm's placing 90% of their eggs in the Smartphone basket disturbing. Maybe that's just personal, as I mentioned above. I don't think so, though, as remember that Palm's rise to power was built on the fact that it was cheaper than a Newton, even though the Newton was the technologically superior platform.

But my other personal preference is this: I used to be a hyper-early adopter. I owned a Newton 2000 the week after it came out, I have a Sony Reader bought within the first six months of launch, I've owned Tablet PCs, and I had a Tandy 1100 Laptop and before that a Model 100.

And I've learned to mightily distrust that which is on the top of the heap for it will fall, probably sooner than I'm ready for it to. I've learned to distrust that which is the flashiest because when you scrape off the surface, you find yourself asking how long it will be practical. I've learned that the most expensive thing almost never translates to "best value."

At any rate, in relation to Palm, those who want to label it a 'dead platform,' and I'm not lumping you in with that (or that you're a hater per se,) first need to ask themselves exactly how it's incomplete. Because there is literally *nothing* that I can think of that my Palm doesn't do at this point, that I would want it to. And, amazingly, it does nothing that I *don't* want it to, either. It just works, day after day, in the tasks that I need it to.

But I would rather have the T|X around for the next twenty years, then be forced into 'upgrading' into something which ultimately brings me less value. YMMV, but it still works for me.

[Optimist @ May 29th 2008 6:48PM]

Palm is so over. Sell it short and let it plummet.

[qrius @ May 30th 2008 7:40PM]

Palm - look at Google's Android. Looks like they beat you to the Linux based OS, and they're doing a great job! (saw the android demo video).

My 755p... the only thing it's good for is texting. b/c why? no voicedialing, and my sync won't work (tried on 2 diff PCs!). sometimes it does work, but then it creates duplicate entries! Ugh.

Eagerly waiting for Android...

[Garlic Bread @ May 30th 2008 8:09PM]

Palm,

A former great company that is now a LOSER. Hey lets work with Microsoft and port over our stuff to windows mobile. Lets take our best most creative people and instead of having them work on cool new stuff - lets get them to make the Palm OS work on Windows Mobile. Yes lets do this because there is so much for us to gain. Wrong - losers.

They took a great product and made it shit - the leadership that made those decisions all need to go do something else. No credibility, no product - without question one of the biggest dissapointments in the last 5 years.

Hung up my Treo 650 - hung on as long as I could - now using an iphone - yeah it need a lot of improvements - but I KNOW that it will happen - its not Palm - the company led by losers.

Interesting even as I write this comment I can feel my blood pressure rising as I think about what Palm could have been and what a loser they are now.

[OziD @ May 30th 2008 10:23PM]

I own a Centro. I'm not disappointed in the phone. It does everything I ask of it very well. It's just ugly.

Hopefully their OS blows away everything else.

My biggest qualm with them is they bundle Versamail, but they make Chatteremail and charge 50 bucks for it. What a crock.

[Axel @ Jun 1st 2008 4:25PM]

Having owned the original Pilot from USR and a Palm Pilot V, I must say I ditched the V only when Palm refused to update a proper Mac client, thus abandoning a large (en)gadget loving user base.

Then, when they started to embrace Windows Mobile, I knew it would only be downhill from then on. Nothing good ever came out of a collaboration with Microsoft, except for MS ofcourse.