Dance With The Girl That Brung Ya12 November 2001 Okay, before I get started, I promise I'll post my WordSmith 2.1 review next week. But this week, I have to get this off my chest. As many of you know, Carl Yankowski resigned as Palm's CEO last week, leaving David Nagel and Todd Bradley in charge of Palm's OS and hardware divisions, soon to be separate companies. This isn't that big a surprise, as this split has been in the works for quite some time, and that Nagel and Bradley need to be able to make decisions that affect their groups independently. I've heard rumors that John Sculley, who first coined the term "PDA" and pioneered the Newton for Apple, might take over the reins at Palm, but for now Palm is officially "under new management" as it were. So I thought I'd talk a little about what I think the next generation Palms need to be if Palm is going to thrive in the handheld market of tomorrow. I talk to a lot of Palm users that are excited about the prospect of Palm's next generation. PalmOS 5 will be built around the ARM processor, the same CPU architecture that powers the current Pocket PCs. A lot of the Palm users I talk to want to see Palm devices with QVGA color screens, a real browsable file system (rather than the inconsistent hack of VFS), a soft, hidable Graffiti area and dual expansion slots. And while many of enhancements are already available from Palm licensees like HandEra and Sony, it sounds to me like what these users really want is a Pocket PC with a PalmOS skin over the user interface. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people asking for "all the power of the Pocket PC, but running PalmOS!" I think this is a mistake bordering on suicidal, and I'll tell you why. Why was the Palm successful in the first place? Because it's light, simple, and easy to use? Well, that's certainly a part of it, but that's not the whole story. I think the real reason the Palm took off the way it did is that it gave people quick access to the information they needed, when they needed it. As groundbreaking as the Apple Newton was, it was too big, too heavy and too much "like a computer" for most people to use as an organizer. And at its heart, that's what the Palm is: a digital organizer. Yes, it can do amazing things, but the Palm is built for data access. Everything from the small, square screen to the always-available data entry area to the internal "everything is a database" no-file system reinforces this. The Palm is at its best as a omnipresent portal to your data. When you're "in the zone" with a Palm, you aren't even aware of the physical PDA. All you see is your data, then you go on with your life. The Pocket PC is different. Even the name implies that it's a full-blown PC that you can carry around with you. This gives you a lot more power, but it also comes with a lot of the complexity of a real PC. You have a file system to manage. You have device drivers and DLLs. You have shortcuts, memory management, and lots of other things to keep track of that Palms don't--or shouldn't--have to deal with. But if you insist on making a Palm handle those "laptop alternative" duties, you sacrifice Palm's simplicity. You do have to start worrying about file management (and worse, the not-so-elegant kludge of VFS), you have to contend with two mutally exclusive hi-res implementations, you have to ensure that multiple OS-patching hacks work together. A Palm can function as a stand-alone computer, but it's like using a Honda Civic to haul lumber. Since Palm is revamping their OS to run on ARM processors, why not incorporate most of the popular requests into the OS? The HandEra 330 already sports a standard QVGA resolution, a software-based, dismissible Graffiti area and dual card expansion. Why not build on that? Because doing that would take the Palm away from what made it a success in the first place and turn it into a poor man's Pocket PC. The history of the computing industry is littered with the corpses of companies foolish enough to take on Microsoft head to head. And in this case, Palm would find themselves playing from behind, as Microsoft already has several innovative licensees with compelling "miniature laptops" on the market. Toshiba, Compaq and HP know how to sell to the enterprise market, and NEC and Casio have their eyes on consumer sales. But here's the thing: when both devices play to their respective strengths, the Palm and Pocket PC don't really compete. They are both portrait-oriented, touchscreen-based handheld computers, but a Miata and a dump truck are both wheeled, petroleum-burning vehicles. While there is some overlap, Pocket PCs are best suited to people who need to create information on the go, while Palms are best for people who primarily need to access data on the go, usually making only minor changes or additions. As popular as Pocket PCs are becoming, the latter market is still much larger. My advice to Palm would be to "dance with the girl that brung ya." Stick to what made you a success, and build on that. Add power, add speed, add memory, but keep it simple and concentrate on removing as many barriers as possible between your customers and their data. I can see a Palm of the future as a ubiquitous data access portal. Imagine a Palm m505 with fast ARM CPU, a sharp 320×320 reflective--or better, OLED--screen and the as yet unreleased i705's always-on wireless networking. A device that can track schedules, play TV shows, track GPS, play digital music and display high resolution text for ebooks and web pages. Not as well-suited for creating data as a Pocket PC, but as simple and transparent for data access as the Palms of old. A device like this--and a marketing campaign emphasizing the key distinctions between Palms and Pocket PCs--would cement a market niche for Palm devices while simultaneously avoiding a head on collision with the Microsoft behemoth. Palm needs to stick to what made them a household name in the first place. Not everyone wants or needs a PC in their pocket. |