PalmAddicts has a very nice interview with Palm Founder, Jeff Hawkins. It is very timely for me–and prolly others–in that lately I’ve felt sort of abandoned by Palm and wondered if the TX was the end of the line. Was it time to move to a M$ pocket PC? I had very similar feelings prior to Palms introduction of the Tungsten line. I nearly jumped ship, but am glad I didn’t…I love my TX. Anyways, Jeff has calmed my nerves quite a bit. My highlights:
Something that will get Palm fans excited is going to be announced in May:
Were going to be announcing something
but I wont tell you what it
is
we will be launching this year, not in the distant future. Ill give
you a much bigger hint: Im going to be speaking at Walt Mossbergs D
Conference in May. Its a high-end industry conference. Anyway, Im
going to be giving a talk there, and that would be something for the
Palm fans to keep a close watch on.
Now note that he says “Palm fans” not “Treo fans.” I am hoping that means something more for the Palm PDA loyalists and not the Treo people.
Jeff downplays the current takeover rumors saying, “I wouldnt pay attention to that. 90% of the time, there isnt a shred of fact to those rumors.” (I hope we aren’t in the 10% of the time here…)
Jeff also feels that we are in the best shape ever:
We have our name back. We just bought the rights back to Palm OS from
ACCESS; so we now have control of the Operating System again. One of
the main reasons we did a Windows-based product is because we were
worried we wouldnt have access to the Palm OS. Palm is in complete
control of its destiny again.
Hmmm I didn’t realize the whole Access thing meant Palm re-acquired rights to the Palm OS, but there it is from the horses mouth. It’s also very interesting that the Windows Treo was a result of not knowing if they would have access to the Palm OS. Does this mean no more future Windows Treos?… I think not.
Now, it takes a little but of time to turn that into products. It takes
2 years to design new products, and so you dont see this control
reflected immediately in the product line. In my view, this is a good
time at Palm. In terms of viability, we have lots of cash, were
profitable, and were in control of our own destiny. We havent been in
this kind of shape in a long, long time.
It looks like it might be a few years before I have my hands on the follow up to the TX, but I don’t mind as long as its coming.