Report: Palm's next-gen cellphones slipping deep into 2009

Palm's long-awaited update to its cellphone software will be finished by the end of the year, reports The Register, but handsets based on it won't arrive until after the first half of 2009.

As most OS development projects do, Palm OS II has slipped a bit. Palm CEO Ed Colligan indicated in May 2007 that handhelds equipped with the software would be available in 2007. Two months on, and that timeframe had expanded to 2008, and by October 2007, Colligan was saying fans will have to wait until the end of 2008.

This idea, that it will have a completed operating system floating around unsold after years of delay, does not convince. Palm has the airs of mid-1990s Apple, and its attempts to crank out a successor to what's now called Mac OS Classic.

Palm OS II-based smartphones now due H2 2009 [Reg Hardware]

[#1 posted by ckd , September 22, 2008 7:54 AM]

Unfortunately, I don't see any Palm equivalent to buying NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back. (That's why I'm switching from my Palm TX to an iPod touch.)

[#2 posted by technogeek , September 22, 2008 8:09 AM]

Unfortunately, Palm may have lost a lot of users when they brought out several models with progressive touchscreen calibration issues. (I have one of those, but it isn't far enough out that I can't live with it; a friend's is pretty close to unusable at this point.)

I really prefer the Palm approach -- keep the OS simple and open and designed to run on an appropriately-powered device. Windows bloat on a palmtop is inappropriate; closing the platform Apple-style makes it less interesting. (I've got an archery-round timer loaded on mine; just try finding that sort of specialized tool on a closed box!)

But Palm seems to have lost its focus, at about the time they tried to split into hardware vs. software businesses. Recombining hasn't healed that; they're no longer leading the way in either.

Until they get back on track, the idea of committing my cellphone to my Palm makes me just a bit nervous. And with the schedule slippage, other open platforms may start eating their lunch.

I want them to succeed. I'm not betting on it.

[#3 posted by Rob Beschizza , September 22, 2008 9:45 AM]

Technogeek, I think you're right -- it's the little unsexy things, like unresolved technical flaws, that really matter when it comes to losing customers already won.

Lenovo's bigger X-series notebooks spring to mind.

[#4 posted by strider_mt2k , September 22, 2008 9:59 AM]

Yeah the little technical things.

Like selling off your OS, gutting the staff of the talented programmers, and playing corporate name-changing games instead of developing innovative...anything since the idea of NTFS.

[#5 posted by Rob Beschizza , September 22, 2008 11:40 AM]

Well, THAT TOO!

[#6 posted by radarskiy , September 22, 2008 10:24 PM]

"I don't see any Palm equivalent to buying NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back"

They already did that five years ago when they bought Handspring and brought the founders back, which is how they now have the Treo.