Palm and Motorola have agreed to develop a smartphone.
Datamonitor predicts that the future of handheld devices is based on combined voice and data functionality. This will be achieved through a combination of interactive PDAs and smartphones. 30 million Europeans will have an interactive PDA by 2005, a rise from less than one million now. Palm is currently the dominant player in PDAs, with 70% of the US market. The company needs to increase its voice-based product range both through adding PDA functionality and through moving into smartphones.
Motorola, on the other hand, is a major player in the global cellphone market. Mobile phones already incorporate some of PDA’s features; it makes sense to take the integration further. Smartphones will provide much more Internet functionality than the current generation of WAP phones. Using PalmOS’s Stylus input technology would save Motorola having to design its own smartphone interface. Sony licensed PalmOS last year, and Nokia has expressed its interest in creating PalmOS phones.
But while phone manufacturers clearly need a PDA-like operating system for smartphones, it is less clear that Palm will be the major supplier. Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia are already members of the Symbian alliance, which aims to promote Palm rival Psion’s Epoc smartphone operating system. The 32-bit Epoc system is more advanced than 16-bit PalmOS, and Epoc phones will be well established by the time Motorola and Palm produce anything. Ericsson have already launched their R380 Epoc-based model.
Dealing with Palm might still make sense for the phone manufacturers, though. PalmOS is a well-known brand name and user interface. Existing Palm owners will not want to have to learn a new system. And thousands of third-party applications and plug-ins run on Palms.
So what will the phone manufacturers do? Nokia and Motorola seem to want to base smartphones on both technologies. Their ideal solution might be to combine the two platforms, rather than selling products based on incompatible standards. But the mobile giants would face an uphill struggle to get fierce rivals Psion and Palm to collaborate in this area.
