Live from Switzerland: Samsung SGH-i505 and other highlights from our interview with PalmSource
October 13, 2003 [General] | By anonymous 1.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: yet more detailed information from PalmSource about upcoming PalmOS phones, including specifications and photos, is here. Go and check it too!!!
We are reporting live from Geneva, Switzerland, directly from
Media Centre of ITU World Telecom 2003 conference - a global
conference, that takes places once in 4 years.
Being interested what Microsoft´s competition has to offer (it allows us to better put into
context this what Microsoft claims), we have accepted an invitation from PalmSource (the maker of
Palm OS operating system) and we have just carried out an interview with PalmSource people about
their smartphone developments and plans. Here we present just some highlights (more on this
interview will be published by us later on, together with other reports from this year´s ITU
conference).
Look at this photo of Samsung SGH-i505, compared to Microsoft smartphone ("Tanager" model
made by HTC):
... and if you take a closer look at it:
... then you can notice, that this phone runs Palm OS operating system (exactly speaking it is
Palm OS 5.2.1)! This is a new Palm OS smartphone, that will be released in Europe at the
beginning of year 2004. This phone has a fully rotable display:
... so that it can be carried in a pocket in a closed form (clamshell design):
... or can be opened for phone calls:
... and on its back it has even built-in camera:
... of VGA (640x480) resolution. Although it has no support for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi at this moment
(hey! it is not on the market yet), PalmSource however promises that support for both of them
will be available on time.
* * *
Some highlights from this interview (remember: watch msmobiles.com later for more on this interview):
- on the side of PalmSource the following persons participated in this review and were
answering our questions:
- Gabi Schindler, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Palmsource
- Albert B. Chu, Vice President, Business Development, PalmSource
- Chris Dunphy, Director - Competitive Analysis, PalmSource
- the interview took place at Samsung´s stand at Telecom Village place at the ITU World Telecom
2003 conference
- as mentioned above: the new GSM smartphone for Europe - the Samsung SGH-i505 is coming
in the beginning of next year (see one of the first photos of it above)
- PalmSource says that Palm Smartphones are (at least) equally well suited for being consumers
of web services as Microsoft powered cell phones - as examples they provided such development
tools available for PalmOS as AppForge (with Visual Basic support and runtime for Palm OS) and
WebSphere tools and runtime from IBM
- PalmSource provides several Java Virtual Machines from partners, but if somebody would offer
.NET runtime for Palm OS, they would be happy to support and distribute it as well
- according to PalmSource the Palm OS smartphones are best suited for enterprise applications,
not just for consumer software - anyway they say that now over 17000 software titles are
available and they are a market leader (both in regular non-cellphone PDA and in software for it)
- at least number-wise (the most number of units sold and the biggest number of software titles
available)
- PalmSource offers one platform for touch-screen only and for keypad equipped (but also
working with touchscreen) smartphones - it simplifies life for developers - compared to situation
of Microsoft that offers 3 platforms: Pocket PC phone, Microsoft Smartphone and pure Windows CE
.Net phones
- Orange (Europe) and Sprint (USA) are partners of PalmSource that are introducing Treo600
smartphone to the market as their own branded unit, but Palm is offering also generic Treo600
that will be available for all operators
- apart from huge number of applications (17000 native plus many thousands for AppForge and
Java) the PalmSource underlines "ease of use" as one of the main features of their operating
system; "ease of use reduces total cost of ownership" [due to less time needed for training, etc
.] said Gabi Schindler
- PalmSource people said that it is a bit quiet about them lately not because they are not
doing anything but because they are in the process of spinning out - PalmSource becomes a separate,
independent from Palm, company. Much more from PalmSource is however yet to come, particularly
after this spin-off operation will be completed.
Watch msmobiles.com later for more information from this interview.
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