Read the sad saga of JWZ trying to add his free, open source
application's to Palm's App store:

http://tinyurl.com/yb662as

When they announced the Pre, I feared that Palm was going to copy
everything that was bad about the iPhone.  It looks like my fears may be
reality.
--
John L. Cunningham

Yet another thing pushing me more towards that new Android phone that's
coming to Sprint over actually going for a Pre or a Pixi...

From what I have heard generally the Android seems to be the real deal in
terms of openness and strong technology. The iPhone seems to have good
underlying technology also, but Apple is ruthless about controlling what
applications can be provided for it, which means that third party app
developers take a big risk developing for it -- they could invest a lot of
time and effort and then find themselves denied access to the market. I know
that really bothers CESD in his plans to port Pimlical to different
platforms, because he has commended about that several times. The Pre seems
to be a disappointment from a technical standpoint, and it apparently is not
selling that well in the market, either. A few days ago Palm said their
revenues will not improve significantly, which certainly didn't help their
stock price. I think Palm is pretty much used up. All those years of playing
internal politics and looking for an easy market instead of bringing out a
real next generation technology have caught up with them.

I think the big question in the market is the RIM Blackberry. Right now it
has a stranglehold on the corporate marketplace. But I keep hearing hints
from the technical cogniscanti that its present platform may be running out
of steam. The Blackberry has done very well because most smart phone users
are only interested in voice, email, chat and access to their Facebook
pages. But the companies that are handing most of these things out really
want to use them for mobile, out-of-office connection to enterprise
applications such as ERP and CRM. And with the growing trend toward SaaS
rather than in-house installations of enterprise software, in part to
facilitate mobile, connect-anywhere strategies, this pressure will grow
fast. My question is can the Blackberry support front ends to those
applications and the front-end data handling that they inevitably will
require. And is browser-only connectivity enough. In North America no
carrier can provide 100% connectivity across the entire geography.
Particularly in the center of the continent, there are huge gaps in coverage
still, and what is there is usually fairly slow-speed stuff.

If the Blackberry does run out of steam, then does RIM have a next
generation close to introduction? If so, they have been very successful at
keeping that quiet. Certainly their initial foray into touch screen systems,
which are basic to most other handhelds, was less than impressive. If they
do not, then they may open the door to Android, which certainly does have
the guts to handle complex handheld environments. And Google seems committed
to the long haul with Android. I am sure they went into this realizing they
weren't going to get an instant huge market. And Google has the deep pockets
to support staying power. From that standpoint, I think Android may be in a
position to start picking up steam in the next two years.

Just my guess, of course. And I am not qualified to judge the internal
technology base of these machines, so for that I depend on others.

All the best,

Bert

--
Bert Latamore
IT Journalist, Report Writer and Book Doctor
From tweets and blogs to white papers and books --
You provide the information; I craft the words.