NEWS AND TRENDS FROM Think you can do better than Palm’s executives? THE MOBILEVERSE Try to follow the bouncing PDA! start It’s 2005. Your PDA DO YOU: business is tanking, A Milk the PDA business for all it’s worth. but Treos are selling (Turn to page 25.) like hotcakes. B Milk the smart-phone business for all it’s Unfortunately, you’re worth. (Turn to page 83.) tied to an obsolete C Make a risky jump to Windows Mobile. operating system. (Turn to page 28.) THEM’S A BARGAIN! What happens when 5,500 Virginians PALM TUCKERED OUT show up to get their While its PDA market founders, Palm’s smart-phone business hands on 1,000 has taken off. The Treo has been a tremendous success, driving used Apple iBooks, Palm to a whopping 50 percent of the U.S. smart-phone market each being sold (though it holds only 5 percent of the market worldwide) for $50? Beatings, and helping propel the company through two solid years of attempted vehicular unbroken revenue growth. In retrospect, it’s lucky that Palm manslaughter, and bought Handspring, the developer of the Treo, in 2003. one poor woman PALM Unfortunately, the underlying operating system isn’t doing so urinating on herself, well. Palm OS 5.4 is a dead-end street. It has poor support for that’s what. multimedia features and lacks multitasking capabilities. Windows Mobile, by contrast, has been multitasking for years. It’s also got a built-in web browser, extensive support for audio and video, and corporate-friendly security features. TODAY, GONE Palm OS developer PalmSource (which was acquired by Japanese software developer Access in September) AND SHE’S STILL attempted to bridge the features gap last year with a brand- WIRELESS new operating system, Cobalt, which was multimedia- and Now you can look good while multitasking-friendly. But the OS was a fl op, requiring too you’re recycling — and pay good money much memory and processing power to be practical, and no for the privilege as well. Elsewares.com TOMORROW companies ever released a Cobalt-based device. turns old gadgets into wearable art, from Implicitly acknowledging the failure of Cobalt, PalmSource necklaces made from used capacitors Palm is about to make the biggest decision of its has stated its plans to switch to a Linux-based architecture. But ($25) to bracelets made from Ethernet a commercial version of the new Linux OS won’t be available cable ($14). It’s instant corporate life: Switch to Windows, or face oblivion until late 2006, with devices based on it unlikely to be ready geek cred for your nontechie for sale before 2007. Palm can’t afford to wait that long. girlfriend. Palm lovers, get out your hankies. This about 18 percent, according to Gartner. story is a real tearjerker. What’s more, the PDA market is increasingly END GAME The company that single-handedly created irrelevant. Today’s phones are more capable and M:Metrics senior analyst Seamus McAteer predicts that Palm FLOWER POWER the personal digital assistant with the Pilot 1000 can hold more data than 20th-century phones will announce a Windows-based Treo by January 2006. Part purse, part in 1996 is at a crossroads. Down one path lies could. Why carry two devices when one will do? Over the long run, that will spell the end of Palm OS-based notebook, the Tulip Windows. Down the other path: stagnation, Palm has seen the writing Treos. “Who wants a Palm-based Treo when the company has E-Go (www.tulip- decay, and perhaps death. on the wall. “There’s no PALM PDAS: GOING, announced that it’s migrating?” says McAteer. ego.com) launches If you buy a Treo next year, there’s a good question that the traditional GOING, GONE? Without a major upgrade to Windows, the company may this month in chance that it will be based on the Windows PDA business has declined,” well be dead in the water, increasingly unable to compete with Europe and aims to With a steadily declining Mobile operating system, not the venerable Palm Palm CEO Ed Colligan said PDA market, Palm has no smart phones that offer more whizbang features. mix high-tech with OS that has powered all prior Treos and PDAs. in a June teleconference. choice but to bet the farm But it’s a risky move. Many of Palm’s customers have stuck high-fashion . . . GET MOBILE At press time, Palm had made no announcement Accordingly, the company on smart phones. with the company simply because it’s not Microsoft. “Going not to mention high Having to pick just one winner about a Windows-powered Treo, and Palm is putting its most intense Sales of Palm OS-based over to a Microsoft operating system will not win the company price. The Diamond every month makes Mobile PDAs by Palm and cry! This month we’ve got 20 refused to comment for this story. But all signs efforts into the smart-phone Handspring (millions) any friends among its current customers,” says Gartner’s Kort. model, which prizes: Custom Mobile skins point to an imminent platform switch. business. And with Palm accounting for 60 percent of PalmSource’s features white gold for your iPod or iPod Mini, 2000 7 courtesy of Gamer Graffi x “Ever since Palm acquired revenue, losing even a fraction of that business would be a inlay and 80 carats 2001 6.7 (www.gamergraffi x.com)! FOCUSED ON PHONES Handspring, it has really serious blow for PalmSource. of diamond stones, To win, just send us a name 2002 5.1 and address, and let us Let’s get one thing cleared up right away: Palm’s focused its resources on Still, Palm’s executives aren’t likely to spend a lot of time will set you back a know whether you require days as a leading vendor of PDAs are over. In becoming a stronger player 2003 4.2 worrying about the fate of their sister company. Palm has to mere $345,000. a regular or a Mini skin. 2004 3.7 IPOD NOT INCLUDED! We’ll fact, the company’s share of the worldwide PDA in the smart-phone market,” walk a delicate line between a dying operating system and a award the prizes to all who market has been steadily shrinking from its high says Todd Kort, a principal 2005 2.8 (est.) pack of anti-Microsoft zealots. Whatever decision they make, request them, until we run of 68 percent in May 1999; it currently stands at analyst for Gartner. they’re likely to piss off somebody. –Dylan Tweney out of skins! E-mail entries to giveaway@mobilemagazine .com, or snail mail to November Giveaway, Mobile Magazine, Palm acquires 150 North Hill Drive, Suite Handspring, 40, Brisbane, CA 94005. 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