Palm Treo Pro #9645 Set To Be Released Soon

Treo Pro 9645 features a QWERTY style keyboard - Image Credit: Palm Infocenter

Palm Treo Pro #9645 Set To Be Released Soon

Palm has pre-unveiled a new mobile device, the Treo Pro smartphone (working model number is expected to be the 9645). The new phone features a one-touch Wi-Fi button, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1 and a high-resolution flush color touch screen.

Specs are still up in the air -- we're hearing there's a 400MHz processor and 128MB of RAM behind that 320 x 320 screen and original Xbox-looking exterior.

Available video includes the Treo Pro smartphone being put through some of its paces.

Mobility tools have become pedestrian and the Treo Pro is definitely in the mix.

Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't this the first Palm without either the Palm or Linux OS? If so, this represents a change at Palm in OS philosophy and direction.

Another case of - "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em"!

UPDATE, August 21, 2008:

Unlocked Freedom For Enterprise-Wide Applications

In North America, the cellphone/smartphone marketplace had been controlled by the businesses that provided the airwave radio links directly to the manufactured device that the customer carried. In short, all functionality of the phone was tightly controlled by the radio link provider as opposed to the manufacturer and/or the inventive software developer that could make the smartphone do more.

Palm, in a break from tradition and to gain an advantage in the marketing of their new Treo Pro plans to sell the device directly to the customers who want this freedom to have an unlocked (functions dictated by the radiolink operators – companies like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and etc.).

This strategy just might be a case of – “if you can’t join ‘em, lick ‘em”!

This excerpted and edited from Computerworld -

Palm plans to sell Treo Pro without U.S. operator partner
Treo Pro smart phone aimed squarely at enterprise customers
August 20, 2008 - IDG News Service via Computerworld

Palm Inc.'s decision to sell an unlocked Treo Pro, its newest smart phone aimed squarely at enterprise customers, could either be the start of a new trend or a sign that the struggling company may face even harder times to come, one analyst said.
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"It may be the beginning of a trend, but it may also be a bad sign," said Bill Hughes, an analyst at In-Stat. While he said he had no reason to think this is the case, Hughes noted that there is a chance that Palm couldn't find an operator interested in picking it up.
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The Treo Pro, which runs Windows Mobile and includes Wi-Fi and GPS (Global Positioning System) capability, will become available later this year on Palm's online store as well as from other Internet sites, retailers and enterprise resellers.

While some companies might be interested in buying unlocked devices, Palm might struggle to sell the new Treo to individuals without the help of operators.
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But buying unlocked phones can allow an enterprise buyer to better negotiate with mobile operators, Hughes noted. That's because operators typically factor in the cost of handset subsidies when selling airtime to enterprises.

In theory, having unlocked phones could also allow an enterprise to negotiate a better deal from a competitive mobile operator and easily switch to that operator by simply providing users with new SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards to insert into their phones. However, in the U.S. that's not a major benefit because operators use multiple incompatible technologies. The Treo Pro runs on 3G technology used by T-Mobile, an operator not typically favored by enterprise users, and by AT&T Inc.
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The Treo Pro doesn't come cheap: It will cost $549. It's difficult to compare that price with those other popular phones because most, like the iPhone, require a multiyear service contract with an operator in the U.S. In Europe, Vodafone Italia sells the 8GB iPhone 3G without a contract for $734).

The Treo Pro is an attractive device that in some ways resembles the iPhone. It's one of the first phones to come out of Palm since Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple Inc. engineer who contributed to the creation of the iPod, joined the company.
Reference Here>>

The Trouble With Palm OS

Treo 755p Palm OS Smartphone - Image Credit: Brighthand (A.Wright)

The Trouble With Palm OS

The trouble isn’t that the operating system doesn’t work, or is reliable, or even that it isn’t even owned by the company that had originally developed it. The trouble with the Palm OS is that everyone knows that it is time to move on to an operating system that will take advantage of all that this new mobility world has to promise.

Phone, Camera/Imager, WiFi, Bluetooth, Digital Video, Physical World Connection & Hyperlink Applications, and More are functions better left to the next generation of operating system that ACCESS is busy developing with Linux. Microsoft has led the agenda in the mobility arena and it is now time for the Palm OS to become the Windows 95 of its world.

Excerpts from Computerworld Mobile & Wireless -

Treo 755p: The Palm OS goes out with a whimper, not a bang
The end of the Palm OS?
By James Turner – Freelance Writer For Computerworld - May 17, 2007

The Palm Pilot was the first wildly successful product that enabled us to walk around with a small computer in our pockets. Palm -- and the Palm OS -- has long since branched out into smart phones, and many reports claim the new Treo 755p, just released by Sprint Nextel Corp., will be the last hurrah for the aging Palm OS as Palm replaces it with Linux.

There are many advantages to Palm in making this move. Perhaps the biggest is the fact that Palm can leverage that technology for the Treo and make available to users the many third-party applications written for Linux-based phones.

So the Treo 755p may well be the end of an era for a platform that once held near-monopolistic market share for mobile devices. Is the 755p a grand final moment for Palm OS?

Side-By-Side Older Treo 680, Treo 755p, and Nokia N95 - Image Credit: Brighthand (A.Wright)

Not really. We just spent some time with the 755p and found some solid incremental improvements, but the device is mostly familiar, with nothing that will make you sit back and say "wow." The most noticeable change is the same "antenna-ectomy" that other recent Treo releases received. The resulting form factor fits a bit better in a pocket, but the Treo antenna was never that big to begin with. Palm touts the 755p as being slimmer, but if you measure the device, it's only 1.2mm thinner.

From a corporate perspective, the Treo 755p supports the new Microsoft Exchange "Direct Push" technology. Assuming that your IT department sets up your Exchange server to support it, this allows you to receive e-mail as soon as it arrives rather than having to wait until the device polls for it.
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Beyond that, though, the Treo 755p is very similar to the older Treos. For example, like the Treo 750, the 755p is now covered by one of those annoying, flimsy plastic snap-on covers that could easily come off the first time it catches on something. The memory capacity is the same as the 700p -- 128MB with 60MB available to the user -- as is the 312-MHz XScale processor. Both devices run the same release of Palm OS and have the same display and camera.

Oddly, the Treo 755p is rather pricey for a device sporting an aging operating system. Sprint is offering it for as low as $280, depending on the service plan, which is significantly more expensive than more up-to-date smart phones. Sprint offers both the Motorola Q and at least one BlackBerry for less than $100, depending on your plan, and a host of other smart phones for under $200.

So, if this is, indeed, the last significant product based on the Palm OS, it goes out with a whimper, not a bang. Palm hasn't released much that has been new or interesting since the Treo 700w, its first Windows Mobile phone, which started shipping more than a year ago. Of course, that will change dramatically when it releases its first Linux devices, which could see the light of day before the end of the year, according to some reports.
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Sounds like the Linux OS can not arrive soon enough.

Rumor has it that Motorola may scoop up Palm and kill two birds with one stone … own and eliminate a major cellphone competitor and have access to ACCESS support of the Palm OS through Palm’s perpetual license agreement in order to prop up the Symbol Technologies products that were sold with the Palm OS. If the rumor becomes true, this would be a significant play.

If this were to happen, Motorola would become very strong in its core business and it would hurt the fortunes of any company that had been put together in order to capitalize on the vacuum created through the recent non-renewal of the Palm OS license to Symbol Technologies before Motorola had purchased the company.