From 1996 to 1997, the first year of Palm Pilot came, Palm Pilot sold $ 1 million, and became the fastest computing device in history, exceeding Apple PC and IBM PC initial glory.
There are a lot of factors in Palm, but most people are willing to believe these reasons are the most important: 1. Form Factor, is small enough. 2. Graffiti's quick input and close up to 100% identification, and its efficient operation. 3. INTUTIVE INTERFACE. For users of English native language, using Palm is very intuitive, there is no technical obstacle, and there is no need to understand computer knowledge. 4. Palm uses Handheld as an extension of PC, not a replacement; in the market, Palm is a friend of PC rather than an enemy. This created "synchronization" concept has rewritten the design of the entire Handheld industry.
Palm III is a product of Palm toward a wide range of industrial applications, while Palm V, IDEO's industrial artist cooperates with Palm for 30 months. You are also hard to imagine that there is no product now to surpass this 4 years. The volume and shape design of the product you have introduced before.
In 1998, Jeff Hawkins was running, and Handspring was established. In the following year, the revolutionary Visor series products, including the price of $ 200, USB interface, industrial-grade expansion method; although Handspring finally embarked on the acquisition of the road, But today you can still see in many industry applications, Visor is still the best solution; while consumed this end, there are countless Visor worship teachers.
Another company had to mention is Handera, which was originally called TrgPro. This is a company that customs hardware and software for medical applications, but their engineers are so powerful, bringing very important things for the Palmos platform, including breaking 4M memory restrictions, solving memory vulnerabilities, dual card equipment support, qvga High resolution, and soft handwriting area.
In 2000, the giant Sony, consumer electronics joined the Palmos camp, and the PDA product of the CLIE brand. From then on, Palmos and multimedia fingertips, high resolution color screens, MP3 capabilities, camera capabilities, pictures and movies. . . Among the strengths with the PPC, the hardware Spec slightly fiscal Palmos devices are not lost to the PPC product, and this Sony Clie is not available. SONY's product update is very fast, but there are still some classic products, including the initial S300, N series, the T series, the power of the NX series, and the amazing UX just launched.
The mobile wireless PDA is the dream of Palm inventor Jeff, which has been in the Palm V era. There is a try-out product Palm Vii; after Handspring, there are many wireless data expansion modules, including that red pole. Visor Phone. After seeing the future trend of the handheld device, Jeff resolutely gave up the pure Organizer products and embarked on his COMMUNICATOR road. The TREO series released by the end of 2001 won the American Idea Industrial Design Award, but it is a pity that there is no great achievement in the market. However, Jeff took a new design Treo 600, this unusual product will unveil the last veil within one month, and many people believe that it will rewrite the history of Palm again.
In addition to these important Palmos equipment manufacturers, there are many new soldiers in the Palmos camp. This includes the production of educational equipment DANA AlphaSmart, production industrial equipment Symbol and Aceeca, producing Garmin, Kyocera, GSL (authority), Huntec, manufacturing watch equipment, produces mobile phones or wireless devices, Kyocera, GSL (Quality), Huntec, Fossil, Production Watch Equipment, Highlight Game Functional design of Tapwave, and talking to unless. Thousands of Palm vs, a thousand Pocket PC, I think this is the vitality and charm of Palm. I can't imagine what the future uses bloated and can't flexibly customize on the handheld device; every manufacturer in the Palmos camp has its own vast world, and the Pocket PC battlefield is more like a sleepy beast, a ruthless competition. Field, only one Solo Surviver can survive.
Every year, every quarter, every month, I can hear some people say Palm Is Dead in different places. I believe that people who say this sentence are a Microsoft phobia patient, and he believes that there is no power to block the pace of Microsoft. Palm, and all Palmos licensee, and even palmers are all fearless brave in front of Microsoft. In fact, in the last three years, the Windowsce changed to the Pocket PC has never been lost in the market, and Palm has never lost its leading position, and the Pocket PC has never reached a 30% market share. In the past fiscal quarter, Palm still achieved sales and revenue growth, and in the past year, the Pocket PC market continued to shrink. (Gartner statistics, ~ 20% / yeard)
When I shipped 30 million units in this Palmos device, I can also tell you something. Microsoft began selling DOS products since 1980, it sold 30 million copies in 1988; the same results, Palmos used for 7 years; Wince, which was born in the early 1990s, in the long syner of more than ten years, Without the support of the industrial giants, after the constant change face (Wince-> Handheld PC-> Palmsize Pc-> Pocket PC-> Windows Mobile), I don't know where my own destination is when I eat last week. Ellison told me that Bill Gates also wants to know this problem. :)
