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FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The continuing mystery that is Palm, Inc.
By David Gewirtz
I've been putting off writing this article for a number of days now, because I just didn't have the heart to dig once again into the Palm saga. But weird changes are happening at Palm, Inc. and part of my job is look impartially at the company and tell you what I think.
The best way to start is a quick recap of what's been happening. On September 9, PalmSource (the company that makes the Palm OS) was acquired by Japanese mobile phone software vendor Access. Then, on Monday, Palm announced that it'll be making a Windows Mobile version of the Treo smartphone.
"Does that mean the Palm OS is dead? Should you stop buying Palm PDAs? Should you stop developing software for the Palm OS?"
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This would be like Apple selling off the Mac OS to Bandai and then announcing that it's making Windows machines. It's not only big news effecting a whole lot of companies, it's also somewhat baffling because it appears Palm's just dumped the one thing that differentiates it from the competition, the thing that makes Palm uniquely Palm.
Palm's a very interesting business and will no-doubt wind up a fascinating B-school case study. While the company has always made devices that are instantly identifiable as Palm handhelds, the company's identity and product names have gone through more nips and tucks than Joan Rivers' face.
In 1998, Palm's founders left to start their own company, Handspring. Due to some interesting behind-the-scenes machinations, Handspring was able to license the Palm OS from Palm and, as a result, became a direct competitor, also offering Palm OS handhelds.
In 2003, as both Palm and Handspring were suffering in the PDA sales drop of the period, Palm acquired Handspring, reacquiring its original founders, and folding the now-successful Treo smartphone line back into the Palm, Inc. product line. What's always been very interesting about that acquisition is the double-play that took place at the same time.
In June 2003, Palm not only announced the acquisition of Handspring; in the very same press release, it announced the spin-off of PalmSource as a separate OS company. The two actions were linked together, as you can see in this press release title: "Palm Announces Acquisition of Handspring to Bolster Industry Leadership; Board Approves PalmSource Spin-off".
This is where things start to get funky to me. Although I've spoken to many Palm executives about it, I've never gotten a direct answer that makes sense. Here are the elements:
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