Disqus - Latest Comments for remon

Re: R.I.P. Palm

remon — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:32:45 -0000

OK, I'll give it a shot:

While Palm is clearly on the rocks, reports of its death are highly exaggerated.

I would first argue that the present incarnation of Palm has little to do with the Palm of the past, so drawing conclusions based upon your likes or dislikes of the Treo are not going to be of much predictive value for the present situation. I say that because Palm basically made a really bold move with the Pre. It recognized what many people had been saying about Palm's legacy weighing it down. So it broke with the past and produced a device that with two important characteristics: 1) It jumped to the forefront of present technology, and in doing so, 2) make the device incompatible with its previous offerings.

I can't tell you if Palm will survive or not. Superior technology is often not the determining factor in the success of a company. One look at Microsoft should make that clear. That said, however, the Pre is a remarkable device. In many people's opinions, mine included, WebOS bests the iPhone at its own game. And my personal opinion is that had Palm NOT come out with the Pre, it would be far worse off than it is today. So in that sense, the Pre gamble has already paid off: Palm is still alive.

I believe what Roger McNamee said is true: there is room for Palm in the world. It doesn't have to sell better than an iPhone in order for Palm to do well. A lot depends upon Palm's ability to manage its image. The Pre hardware is not spectacular, but it is good. WebOS IS spectacular. I've given up using my iPhone because I find Palm's software far more comfortable to work with in a business setting (I don't care much about games). I really need to have mail, web, calendar, and contacts all running at the same time, just as I do on my desktop system (imagine trying to get business done on your desktop/laptop computer and only being able to run one program at a time... it would be unusable, and that's the way it is with a handheld device, too).

So my conclusion is that Palm has avoided one bullet, and now has some promising material to work with.

Lets see what Palm does. Palm is down, but not out.

Re: How 30 Apps Could Have Been A Pre-Cursor To Success, Rather Than A Curse

remon — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:34:20 -0000

Jeff, I now understand where you are coming from. So the idea of your article is to suggest that Palm should have spread the delivery of the apps over time for a more even flow.

That idea is pretty interesting. It reminds me of an approach we took on a software project a number of years ago. We noticed that when our server was lightly loaded response time to queries was fast. But at times the load was high, leading to user frustration. The project manager had us inject a variable delay in the response. When the server was lightly loaded, the delay was longer, and when the server was heavily loaded the delay was cut down to zero. That evened things out so users would experience a predictable response time regardless of how busy the server was.

His prediction was correct: once the users got predictable response times, user satisfaction increased.

Your suggestion presumably would show the same results.

Very interesting observation. But what developer would volunteer to delay their project in order to carry out this strategy?

Anyway, I hope it will not be necessary to worry about this. I, too, am hoping for a flood of apps!

Re: How 30 Apps Could Have Been A Pre-Cursor To Success, Rather Than A Curse

remon — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:24:11 -0000

Palm, unfortunately, had more to contend with than the number of apps on the Pre. In a different world where Palm wasn't on the brink of collapse and were not pressured by Apple's impending release of a new iPhone, perhaps they could have waited until the SDK were more mature.

However, things were not that simple, and I truly empathize with their situation. Rather than asking about missing apps, consider for a moment that their SDK was released for GA three days ago.

So I would give Palm some slack. Let developers use the SDK, and give them a month. If the number of apps after that period is still flatlining, then I would agree with your comments.

Re: Sprint Navigator

remon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:38:43 -0000

I haven't had that problem. When in navigation mode I tap the screen (pretty much anywhere) and I get a menu of options. The top one is "Stop Trip". That does it for me.

Re: Has the Palm Pre already beaten the iPhone?

remon — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:09:14 -0000

The Pre is just as much a me-too copy of the iPhone as the iPhone is a me-too copy of Windows Mobile.

Think they really are the same? Try running Pandora while navigating on the iPhone.

Or try going back to the contact you last worked with after you looked something up on the web.

These aren't exotic examples of what you might expect to do on a PDA.

I'm not trying to knock the iPhone. I think it is a great phone. But Apple has some catching up to do with WebOS. The notification feature of the iPhone is not a very good substitute for running multiple apps concurrently.

All of which is to say: The pre is no me-too phone.

Re: Has the Palm Pre already beaten the iPhone?

remon — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:46:43 -0000

Absolutely right! It is a logical fallacy that an initial lack of apps relative to the competition means the phone won't succeed, and the iPhone is the best proof of that.

But it is very important that lots of apps get written for the new machine. And one of the factors that determines how many apps are written for it is how easy it is to develop for it. I think that javascript/html/css is a pretty smart choice. Objective C has a steep learning curve, and the number of apps that crash on startup is a testament to that fact.