Palm’s New Device

Will Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, Inc. steal the show at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference that is underway right now in Carlsbad, CA? Palm is set to launch a “new category” of mobile devices tomorrow (11:30am PT/2:30pm ET). There’s been a lot of speculation as to what the device could be. Perhaps an iPhone competitor? Possibly a sidekick killer? Potentially a new converged device running Linux?

Many have written Palm off due to dropping the ball with the Palm OS over the past few years and not moving quickly enough to an updated platform. In the mean time Blackberry and Windows Mobile now dominate the smart phone market, however Treos are holding their own somewhat. Personally, I still use my trusty Palm TX, now two years old, as it has built-in wifi and meets most of my needs. I’m still a smart phone hold out for the as it really frustrates me that device manufacturers (Palm, RIM, etc.) do not include wifi connectivity alongside the cellular radio. This is due in part to the service providers (Verizon, Cingular/ ATT Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint/Nextel, and Alltel) strong arming the hardware makes so that they can gouge the customer for the additional data service and not allow the consumer to use the device at home or work over a wifi network. One stand out however is HTC, a Chinese company that makes a wide variety of devices, offers several models including the 8125 sold by Cingular that include wifi connectivity. So for the mean time, I’ll continue to use my outdated Palm TX as I have both wifi access at home and work which I can use to check email, etc. as needed.

May 29, 2007 | Filed Under Internet, Mobile Tech 

Comments

Leave a Reply