The Competition: Palm Abandons Windows Mobile
Palm is abandoning Windows Mobile to concentrate their resources on their new webOS platform as currently found on the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi.
As former Palm users (I had a Treo 600 at the time), we still remember Bill Gates and Ed Colligan taking the stage together at CES 2006 and showing off the first-ever Windows Mobile Treo 700. (Talk about cats and dogs living together!) Picture speed dialing on the today screen was an immediate sign that Palm was working their "secret sauce" (TM, TreoCast) magic to customize WinMo and give Palm users as much Zen as they could. It was equally evident when the razzle dazzle ended that Palm's own PalmOS was reaching the end of its useful life and with Cobalt vaporizing, Palm needed something to pin their immediate future on.
A couple years and one long walk in the desert (TM, TreoCast) later, and now webOS is a fresh new take on the smartphone space, and Windows Mobile is the OS in danger of being left behind. Add to that Palm's limited resources, and the focus makes sense. It's also gutsy, going all-in on webOS, and Palm needs to be gutsy at this point. No better way to make people believe in your future than believing in it yourself.
In the video embedded above, which we're offering now in tribute, we argued the Palm Treo Pro was neither a Palm, a Treo, nor particularly Pro (it was an HTC running WinMo with a tiny keyboard). Now maybe they're a Palm with some new Apple blood and still stuck in tiny keyboard land, but give them a year or so of distance and pure webOS differentiation, and we're excited to see where they go.
We sympathize with Windows Mobile Treo fans, but cheers Palm. Now bring the competition, Apple needs it, and Apple's customers will benefit from it in the long run.
Check out PreCentral.net and WMExperts.com for ongoing coverage.
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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this'll definitely make things much more interesting.
wow i want a webos device similiar to a htc touch pro2 and im sold.
Good riddance. WM is the worst mobile OS out there.
The word "iPhone" appears nowhere in this article. Wish I could get that one minute of my life back.
having owned a samsung blackjack 2 with winmo on it, i can only say that this is a positive move on palm's part. however, after my last experience with a palm product and their crappy customer service, i would never buy a pre or any other palm product again.
@fastlane iPhone.....: )
yeah the TIPB seems to work for other companies now... im getting tired of it. Just report that palm is tanking and move on.
We might see a few more casualties in the next year too!
@Rene Ritchie
"We're in the year 2008"
What time warp are you in!?! Rene, are you posting old videos?
maemo, webos, winmo, symbian are all RIP with the new version of Iphone 4.0 This new software will leave the competition way way behind and it will be no contest for it will take them years to catch up. Iphone 4hd will also be unbeatable with Iphone 4.0 Os.
Pirdh pirdh se lirohesh
I just surprised that they did not say this sooner. They had to drop WinMo. Why would keep boosting MS market share and paying them the money to boot?
It's the video from last year's (2008's) Smartphone Round Robin where I had to review the Palm Treo Pro.
God I couldn't watch this video any further than half way. Rene is understandably an iPhone fanboy, but looses all touch with the rest of the smartphone world. In the past 3 months I've owned a Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS, and Blackberry Tour on three different carriers. If I could write, I have enough time to put together a unbiased review of all of them. It surprises me how detached Rene is from all the rest of the smartphone world. Especially since my favorite phone is definitely not my current phone. I rock the iPhone 3GS but am waiting for the Palm Pre to go to Verizon.
Was that Zero Punctuation bit a joke or were you actually ripping off the style?
@Jason: Pause the video and read the "definition text", it credits Zero Punctuation (though the homage was so poor they might'ned of rather we didn't).
@Adam: people can have different opinions without being "fanbois" or having "lost touch". That disagreement can't be civil in our society is sad. I stand by my reviews of all the phones last year.
@Rene Ritchie: I understand your point, but on the other SPE sites, reviews are done with consideration to good and bad points, but here you only point out where the iPhone is better, or if there is something positive about the phone, you quickly make case of how the iPhone does something else better. I like SPE because I can get unbiased reviews about the competition from other phones because you are all a network, except for TiPB. Plus comments like, "I don't know what calendar and mail get favored buttons" make me feel like you forgot that this is the smartphone experts. Yes our phones can do so much more these days, but their primary objective over regular phones from day one was mail and calendaring. This disagreement is civil, but at the same time I would hope that you could see my side or at least provide some feedback as to why you don't see what I see.
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