Palm CEO Ed Colligan is trying hard to smile, but it's clear he knows he just sold his soul, if not his company, to the devil. Oh, I understand why he's abandoned his own operating system and run to the open, protective arms of Microsoft. He's scared silly of RIM and that ubiquitous brick-sized device you see attached to business travelers in airports, the Blackberry.
And the funny part? Blackkberries suck. They're huge, unwieldy, very difficult to use, and, well, ugly. So Palm has responded by making the Treo, bigger, uglier, and in an effort to make it really difficult to use, adopted the PocketPC OS. Great move.
I used to be a Palm fanatic. I carried one with me everywhere for quiet some time. And I'm in the "productivity" industry, so I know lots of Palm, Blackberry, and PocketPC users (and more than a few Newton holdouts). And you know the most common trend is? Many of us have simply stopped using them.
Why? Well, there are multiple reasons. Number one is that most of us carry our contacts in our cell phones. Frankly, that's most of what we need. And many, like myself, prefer our phones to be small and easy to use. I no longer need to feel like I'm strapping a calculator to my body. And most of us now have small, light laptops that we have with us most of the time. So why do I need a PDA? If I'm at home, the office, or traveling for business I have a laptop, which is better than a PDA. All other times I have a small, easy-to-use phone with all my contacts and my schedule.
Yes, some business users are enamored with their Blackberries, but if you look at the numbers, it's actually very few people - right around a million users in the US.
And my old Palm sits in it's cradle on my desk. Every once and a while I sync it up to my computer. But I don't take it out of it's cradle. Soon, it will move to the desk drawer of abandon gadgets.
What should have Palm CEO Ed Colligan done? Innovate. Do something bold, exciting, really terrific. Break out of the pack. But that's not going to happen now that he's joined the Borg.
So long, Palm.
Computers and Internet
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