Will Palm License the WebOS?

[Hook]

Enlighten me, please. Why do you state that it was a mistake to license the Palm OS in the past?

Part of it was, IIRC, that Sony complained about a competitor controlling the OS and I think that was pat of the impetus for the original split of Palm into Palmone and Palmsource. That was certainly a mistake.

[Mi An]

One could say the same thing about lack of hardware competition for Blackberries and the iPhone.

I would. The iPhone already has eReader, by far the most used app on my aging TX. And it has Pleco (my chinese dictionary) in development. It's high on my list, but a good pull out keyboard, especially in landscape, would put it higher.

That said, Blackberries have an incredibly solid business following with a fairly consistent and homogeneous set of needs, and Apple is as much about status symbols as it is about gadgets. Palm's appeal is less focused than either, and at this point, far less cemented. Palm needs hardware competition more than either of those two platforms do, in my opinion. I speak as a long-time fan.

[Adama D. Brown]

I disagree (that it's better not to license). Competition is better, and leads to better results for consumers. Palm isn't going to provide the perfect hardware config/layout for everyone, but another company might.

Yeah, but Palm doesn't want to be competed with. It may be better for consumers, but not for Palm. They want it so that if you are looking for their platform, you MUST buy what they offer.

[r0k]

I disagree (that it's better not to license). Competition is better, and leads to better results for consumers.

Yeah, but Palm doesn't want to be competed with. It may be better for consumers, but not for Palm. They want it so that if you are looking for their platform, you MUST buy what they offer.

I agree, ADB. Palm doesn't want competition on their own OS and platform right now. I sometimes wish Apple would license OS X to Acer for the AspireOne since Apple refuses to offer a netbook, but overall I'm satisfied with Apple's model to control it's own hardware and software. Ultimately it has led to better devices with better integration than if Apple were distracted dealing with drivers over which they have no control.

I've been dealing with Linux wifi driver issues on my Aspire One and while I don't mind that much as a Linux user, I doubt the average OS X user would put up with such a situation. Sure, while I sometimes wish Apple was a little more open, I don't mind at all seeing Palm pursue the same closed OS/hardware model.

[questionfear]

Yeah, but Palm doesn't want to be competed with. It may be better for consumers, but not for Palm. They want it so that if you are looking for their platform, you MUST buy what they offer.

I agree. The thing to remember with any company, whether it is Apple, Palm, Microsoft, your corner grocer, etc., is that they all exist to make money. They aren't creating something solely so your life is more convenient; they're creating something that makes your life more convenient so you will give them fistfulls of cash for it for a long time to come.

Palm has never been interested in being a software company; their bread and butter is their hardware. Personally, my view is that unless you're purely a software house (Microsoft, Google, the new Symbian association), then just developing your own OS and hardware makes more sense, and has obviously been wildly successful for RIM and Apple, so why not repeat what made your competitors successful?

[Ed Hardy]

Enlighten me, please. Why do you state that it was a mistake to license the Palm OS in the past?

Part of it was, IIRC, that Sony complained about a competitor controlling the OS and I think that was pat of the impetus for the original split of Palm into Palmone and Palmsource. That was certainly a mistake.

Right, that's the heart of it. Licensing the OS brought in some money, but in the end nearly killed the platform.

Sony forced Palm to split into two companies -- palmOne with hardware and PalmSource with software -- because it believed Palm's OS development favored Palm's hardware.

The split was a huge distraction away from developing products, and was meaningless because not too long after Sony dropped its Palm OS license. So then PalmSource went off and made a couple of OSs that palmOne had no interest in called Cobalt and ALP, forcing palmOne to go back into the software business.

Back to current times, palmOne is named Palm again, and PalmSource is a division of NetFront, forced to scratch up interest in ALP beyond Palm.

If Palm had never licensed the OS, there would have been no Clie line, but development on the Palm OS wouldn't have stopped for 5 years.
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[hal]

Well, this has been quite enlightening. I usually thought of the "lots of Palm licensees" era as the Palm Golden Age. May have been, but then, such business model must have turned unsustainable for some reason. At last, I'm learning the reason.

Thanks.

[_Q_]

Back to current times, palmOne is named Palm again, and PalmSource is a division of NetFront, forced to scratch up interest in ALP beyond Palm.

You mean ACCESS. NetFront's their browser product.

[hal]

One option, but it's clear that right now it's a far shot: ACCESS and its ALP may come around, with the faint possibility that it holds Palm legacy apps compatibility. I ain't speaking with a source behind, it's just a chance.