Been wondering what Palm's up to?

The rumor mill about Palm has been whirling wildly the last couple months. I haven’t posted on this, because most of it hasn’t seemed either relevant or likely to materialize.

Yesterday, CEO Ed Colligan announced a new Linux-based OS with product due out by the end of the year. It’s been widely known that this was in the works for the last couple years, so I’m not exactly sure this is “news.” However, Palm’s licensing of Windows Mobile (primarily to pacify enterprise users and cell phone carriers) and then licensing back the Palm OS from Access have muddied the picture.

I listened to Palm’s Analyst and Investor broadcast from April 10. Mostly it was a lot of (long, boring) smartphone market info targeted at investment analysts. I expected it to raise more questions than it answered, but there really wasn’t enough (any?) new info to even raise questions. You’d think from reading the press reports that there was more there. The entire discussion of the Linux-based OS was about 2 minutes (most of which was quoted in the press articles) of the entire 3+ hour presentation.

Not commented on in the above presentation were rumors about the forth-coming clamshell-type handheld/UMPC-type device (which Jeff Hawkins has already leaked). Stay tuned for more info on that.

For the education community, the best things Palm could do is keep producing great handhelds like the Tungsten E2 (schools don’t need an “innovation” every 6 months…we’ve appreciated the stability of the product line over the last year), continue supporting current apps on any new devices (there are hundreds of great educational programs for the Palm OS), and don’t forget the loyal base of educators who have bought and embraced their product over the years.