“Today is the day!” the young enthusiast proclaimed as he made his way to Palm’s website to read about the next series of models to be released.
He had been an avid fan of the super-portable computing devices for well over four years and was looking forward to the next generation PDA that had been promised for so long. The press had been given very few clues about what kinds of machines the 3Com spin-off would be releasing this year but, with the incredible popularity of WiFi on the Windows Mobile-based devices, it was only natural to expect this cutting edge company to release something worthy of rivaling the more expensive and less-responsive portable devices. Although he was quite happy with the Tungsten T2 model that he had been using for eight months, he was looking forward to having the option of checking email and performing simple network tasks on a newer machine.
“What the…?”
The man was confused as he read through the spec sheets. Nothing had wireless connectivity. Nothing had a better screen. Nothing had a better battery. Nothing had more capacity. To top it all off, nothing looked even remotely sexy … a key point of concern when dropping upwards of $600 on a gadget no larger than a poetry book.
Not believing what he was reading, he then checked out some of the press releases that were made available that day. One was with the CEO of Palm who, while presenting the new Tungsten T3, responded to the question about lack of 802.11b capabilities by saying that his customers didn’t want wireless functions because surfing the internet on such a small screen would not be an enjoyable experience. The CEO went on to say that there were no plans in the near future for Palm to have any models support wireless functionality.
“Who the hell are you to tell us what we want?” the angry Palm fanatic asked. “The lack of wireless is the biggest complaint about Palm in every respectable forum online. There isn’t one serious customer that doesn’t want some sort of wireless capability.”
Disgusted with the current offerings, and unhappy with the appearance of the Tungsten T3’s operating system, the mobile computing enthusiast decided to give Windows Mobile a try.

Five years later, he still has no regrets.

I bought my first mobile device almost ten years ago. It was a Palm IIIe with a minuscule 2MB of memory, a 16 MHz processor, and 320×320 monochrome screen. By today’s standards, it was an incredibly under-powered device that offered the very basics of what one should expect from a mobile device. Within just a few weeks of buying the investment, it had already had a huge impact on my daily life. Requiring just two AA-size batteries, the machine could operate for upwards of three days, and it had the storage capacity to contain all of my customer details for (theoretically) sixteen months. I used the machine at work to enhance my productivity, and at home to read books and play the occasional game of Go. Over the next few years, I would continue to buy a new model every March and November, then find new uses for each of the feature upgrades that would come with the newer devices.

Unfortunately, this joy was not meant to last.

Too Little, Too Late

In 2003, after battling yet another dying Palm handheld, I made the decision to buy one of HP’s iPaq models. I had enjoyed superb longevity with HP notebooks and figured that I could expect the same with their handheld devices. I wasn’t disappointed. After nearly five years of use, the very first Windows Mobile device had not only outlived my wildest expectations, but the same lifespan of the eight Palm devices I had owned before it combined. I’m now using HP’s iPaq 211 model, but the now retired HP PDA is still capable of meeting 80% of my portable computing needs.

HP and Windows Mobile could do five years ago what Palm just started doing in 2006: Providing an enjoyable user interface with relatively snappy load times and a respectable amount of freedom when it came to regular people writing decent applications for the platform.

One aspect that didn’t help was Palm’s inability to create attractive looking devices that actually net the needs of the consumers. The ugly Treo’s continued to be ugly while providing the exact same functionality from generation to generation, and the non-cellular models continued to disappoint with uninspiring designs and a lack of focus when it came to making the platform better for the non-savvy technology user. What really signaled the end for the struggling portable computing company was the release of the half-assed capable Foleo.

Having always held out hope for the company, even after switching to HP’s Windows Mobile offerings, I have kept an eye on what Palm can offer the world. This was a company that once inspired me to go out and learn new computing languages just so that I could develop software for the market. It was impossible for me to just leave it in the past. So I’ve kept an eye on future products coming out of their development laboratories. Hoping beyond hope that they can provide something that could re-ignite passion for the platform. But there’s been nothing since the Tungsten T2 … and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the next few years that will convince people to invest in the once-great company.

They’ve lost ground to RIM. They’ve lost ground to Sony. They’ve lost ground to Microsoft. They’ve lost ground to Apple. Heck … they’ve lost ground to just about every company that had anything even remotely resembling competition for the Palm platform … be it in the form of hardware, or software.

How Can They Win

That said, I hope that they do have a bright future ahead of them. While the Foleo may have bombed, there is certainly a market for netbooks. So, rather than create an expensive device that needs a Treo to be somewhere nearby in order to be useful, I’d like to see Palm release something that can challenge Asus’ Eee PC or Acer’s Aspire One. Naturally, this would be incredibly difficult as both companies have a rather loyal following but, with the right combination of software and peripherals, it could be an easy sell.

First, I think that Palm will need to release a netbook that has specifications similar to what Dell, Asus and Acer already offer, but with a super comfortable keyboard. On top of this, Palm’s ability to make devices with some pretty good battery life can certainly come into play as a operational life of over four hours is an absolute must in the market, now. For operating systems, I highly doubt that the Palm executives would want to pay any licensing fees to Microsoft, so this means that Windows XP, Vista and Mobile 6 are not going to be options. However, one advantage here is that Palm will have the opportunity to tweak an operating system like Ubuntu or Debian to suit their needs. We already know that the company has some solid *nix programmers, and I’m sure they’re more than willing to get their hands dirty with some of the more popular Linux distributions.

Next, Palm will need to differentiate themselves from the market by offering a netbook with not one, but two monitors. This has been technologically possible for quite some time but, for reasons beyond understanding, nobody has decided to touch on this. Not only are existing netbook screens obscenely small, they make it incredibly difficult for anyone to accomplish very much work on them. While the netbook is not meant to be used heavily, there are a large number of students and business people who would love to leave behind their single-monitored notebooks for something that can display email, a spreadsheet and word processor all at the same time. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy, either … just a simple little plug-in that connects to the side of the primary monitor or plugs in to a proprietary port located somewhere on the base to provide both the power and the visual signal.

Heck, make it possible to have upwards of three monitors on this device, and I’ll gladly pay upwards of $1,000 for the chance to own one of these things.

Back In The Real World

All this said, we probably will not see anything unique or worthy of the same level of hype that was once afforded to the Tungsten|T and Tungsten|T2 models. Considering their recent defeats, and habitual patterns of unfortunate product decisions, we’ll likely never see anything of note from this company again. Perhaps this economic slowdown will act as the final nail in the coffin, as buyers will be less likely to drop the cash on existing devices, instead opting to buy something from Apple, HP, or HTC.

It’s a shame, too. Palm could probably make a comeback with one or two well-designed products. All they need to do is take the leash off their designers for a month to see what they come up with.