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With the news that Palm Computing is teaming up with Psion/Nokia et al. in the form of Symbian, what will be the future of the Palm OS?

Somewhat buried in the press releases was the fact that the Symbian will be making apps that LOOK like Palm apps, but will run on Psion's EPOC OS. EPOC is a Java-enabled OS; this means that the entire Java bandwagon will be able to develop for these new devices. Seems like Symbian has planned this for a while; they already have a partnership with Sun.

So, if you were Palm Computing, would you continue to develop a seperate OS, or would you migrate to EPOC?

Here's one scenario: Palm OS 3.3 is the last version. Palm's next generation of handhelds will have their proven interface, but will run on EPOC. This means no more new development of the Palm OS platform...

...and no Flash ROM means no new OS for the Visor. Maybe Palm is even smarter than we're giving them credit for...

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"A man is not the sum of his past, but the sum of his potential."

Here is my take after reading the PCWeek Article.

The article states the phones will run the EPOC kernel and Palm OS would run on top of the EPOC kernel. Therefore, the phone would still be running the Palm OS and (in theory) any Palm OS application should run on it. As a side note, it also stated that the Palm OS is kernel independent and would likely be tweaked in the future to run on top of other kernels. So I wouldn't say the Palm OS is going to dissappear anytime soon. However it does sound like Palm knows what they are doing.


[This message has been edited by mpenza (edited 10-14-1999).]

I always suspected that the next big improvement in the platform would involve a new processor and that the old PalmOS would be emulated on the new platform. (Just like was done by Apple when they went to the PowerPC platform.)

This will not be a simple Flash upgrade, it will require a new PDA, because a new faster processor would be involved. Palm, Handspring, etc need to support color eventually to make sure that their market isn't erroded by color WinCE PDAs. (Before someone jumps in ... I too would rather have a long battery life and grayscale, than a pitifully short battery life and beautiful color.)

I think this announcement is just the beginning of this migration process.

I also think that the relatively stable PDA market is going to start looking more like the wild and chaotic desktop market. If you want the latest and greatest, you will have upgrade frequently.

Since I make my living writing software, I get a new PC every 2-3 years and I have been doing that since I bought my first TRS-80 Model-i in 1978. Now I'll probably have to do the same with my PDAs. (At least I won't be spending $2-3K each time. )

New hardware ... new features ... bring em on!

-Eric

Symbian is trying to throw themselves into the limelight with Nokia and Palm. Read the whole story and get answers to most of your questions concerning what this means for the OS, the future of apps that were coded for the OS, and where Symbian really fits in.

Wired has the full story from Mark Bercow (Palm VP of Strategic Alliances and Platform Development) here.

[This message has been edited by Jackal (edited 10-14-1999).]