Every handheld in the future will be unified (in specs and feature) and
take the form of the Redmond beast; it shall all bear the sign of the
Windows CE. The future as being witnessed now have been foretold by
naysayers of Palm long time ago. The Redmond takeover are yet to be seen,
but the unification of specs and function otherwise is already becoming a
reality. I saw this vision upon the introduction of palmOne's T5.
Although the T5 became the first to market the 256MB NVFS (non-volatile
file system), this only reinforced the foresight of Microsoft - that
someday every handheld will do what a regular desktop has and is capable of
doing (the blueprint of the original Win CE system). I've opened this
thought about a year ago (on what's going to be the role of handhelds in
the future). But, that doesn't end there.
Mobile Phone or Nothing
Its hard to believe, but its like The Book of Revelations came too
soon (and you are in complete denial of what's happening). Talking about
PalmSource (the OS developer of the Palm platform) and palmOne (the
hardware manufacturer) are already changing their focus (from handheld to
smart and dumb phones). This was also evident in the total withdrawal of
Sony from the world of Palm. Without a suprise, this scenario have already
been envisioned by then Handsping execs (Hawkins, Colligan, Dubinsky - that
the future of Palm no longer rest on handhelds but on mobile phones). With
this, there would come a time that Palm will no longer be the appropriate
platform when handhelds are concerned.
When, you say?
Couple of months down the line, (who knows) we'll all be bearing witness to
the unveiling of a new handheld that is more powerful and have the
necessary whizbang of what only a desktop could do a few years back. I
admit that we couldn't stop change and development, but it used to be that
Palm is the Macintosh of handhelds. The simplicity and features that
"makes sense" are slowly drifting away. Gone are the days when Palm
dictates where the path of the next handheld evolution would take its
route. I felt deeply disappointed on what's really happening to Palm, for
I am a hardcore handheld user (and not much a fan of smartphones). I dread
to see that day, but believe it or not its coming very soon (and there's
nothing that you and I could do about it)!
W
**Written and sent wirelessly using a palmOne Tungsten|C**
