At this moment in time, we do not yet have any plans to launch the Palm Pre or any of our new WebOS products in Asia Pacific. Our focus right now is to establish a strong presence in North America and Europe. However, we do not discount the possibility of offering this new range of products at a later date.

It is therefore not a rumor that Palm has significantly reduced its presence in the region to one of operational support to our existing customers requiring our in-warranty services and technical support for our sold products.

This is a pretty sad news to all the Palm Fans out there. We thought that the recent launch of the 3G version Palm Pre in Germany means that Palm Pre might be coming to Singapore soonish? But I guess we are wrong. Palm is going to focus on North America and Europe for the time being. It might be a good strategy for the Palm in the short term but they will definitely need to make their product available in more countries in order to get a bigger market share. iPhone is doing very well and Android is slowly picking up pace. Palm need to get more users and developers onboard the WebOS platform. They already lost PalmOS. I hope they don’t make any big mistakes and lose WebOS too.

I wonder if anyone in Singapore is going to buy a Palm Pre from Germany.

Indeed, Palm is going down the drain. I still remember Palm as the leading handheld computing company in the world. But it has lost the market share to Window Mobile device. The specification of the latest Treo680 and Palm TX isn’t quite impressive as compared to the Window Mobile counterparts. Although I do feel that PDA and smartphones should be kept simple, there is also a need to be cutting edge. Give us some impressive features that will make us all say “Wow”.

The folks at Engadget really nailed the problem. They make a detail analysis of things that need be done for palm to be back on track. While I do not agree with all the points made, I do feel that most of them are quite useful.

I agree with all the points made about the hardware. Seriously, Treo is lagging behind. Most smartphones come with WIFI and are thin and stylish looking.

Software wise, I don’t think multitasking is important. Yes, it is good to have, but not a killer feature. The existing UI is good, but perhaps need some updating to keep up to date. Instead of a complete overhaul of the OS, I think updating is good enough. Even the iPhone interface is somewhat similar to PalmOS. This shows that the UI is on the right track. Never, I say again, Never go the same way that Windows Mobile is going. The UI is horrible.

On top of that, Palm also need to include more bundled software. A better web-browser, a better email reader and media player. The Doc-To-Go office applications is good so keep bundling them with new Palm devices.

Other stuff like being being open to customers about the development and more support for developers are good suggestions. I truly believe that it is important to win back developers to write applications for Palm. Give them more support and access to source code to help them write more application for Palm platform.

But one thing I disagree has got to be on Foleo. I do feel that Foleo can be a successful product. But the first version will be problematic. Allow this product line to grow. I feel that there is a market for it.

I think everyone is surprised when Ed Colligan replied to the open letter published in Engadget. That is the first step to making a comeback. I’m glad that Palm is listening. Ed said that he forwarded the entire executive staff. Lets us all hope that the list of suggestions is in good hands. We are looking forward to the day when Palm make a come back. To the good old days when Palm release cutting edge products like Palm Pilot, Palm III, Palm IIIc, Palm V, Palm m505, Treo 600, Palm TT, Palm T3 and Palm TX.

In case you didn’t already know, I’m a fan of Palm. I started using Palm III in year 2000. It was a second hand set that I bought from my sister’s friend. Ever since then, I feel in love with Palm. I bought a Palm T3 when I started working and I upgraded to TX as soon as it hit the market. I’m still using TX now, although abit under-utilized.

Anyway, back to Foleo. Its a whole new product direction by Palm. They feel that the future of mobile computing will be small devices in the pocket which stores all the datas and a large screen device to managed it.

I guess the best thing about Foleo is its instant on/off. When you are on the go, there is no time for you to wait for the laptop to bootup. You want to type an email fast and move off quickly once you are done.

The battery life is great. 5 hours! It runs on Linux. Light weight with a 10 inch screen. I hope there will be lots of applications for it.

Still not exactly sure about the full specs. This is what I manage to get from the web.

Primary Capabilities and Attributes of the Foleo Mobile Companion
– One-button access to full-screen email
– Instant on, instant off
– Rapid access to various applications
– 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard
– Web search and browsing via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
– Editors for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus a PDF viewer
– Compact, stylish design that fits on an airline tray table
– Lightweight at 2.5 pounds
– Fast, simple and intuitive navigation
– 5-hour battery life
– Linux OS for easy application development

What is the processor speed? How much disk space does it has? Is it using Non-Volatile File System (NVFS) like other palm devices? There are so many questions unanswered.

It should be out in the market soon. Going to cost USD$499.

I’m not sure if this is going to pull Palm out of the danger zone. I like the idea behind it. In fact, I’ve been thinking of something similar to this. But I don’t think I’ll buy it. It has to go together with a Treo to make full use of its capabilities . I love my K800i’s camera so much that I won’t give it up for any phone with less than 3.2megapix camera. But I believe that this is the way mobile computing should go. Its sad that the folks at SPUG aren’t supportive towards it.

Will Foleo be the next PalmPilot or Treo? I hope it will.

But not free to test it lately. Hopefully can find some time next weekend.

Well, as usual, we are suppose to surrender any laptop, PDA, thumbdrive or camera (inclusive of handphone with camera) at the guard room before entering the army camp. The most commonly surrendered item is the camera phone. Nowadays almost everyone got a phone with a camera.

I had my hand phone and PDA with me. So I went over the guard room, fill in a small piece of paper and pass the restricted items to the guard commander.

The guard commander looked at my PDA and pause for awhile. Then he looked at me and ask “What is this huh?”

*Slap forehead* It’s a bomb detonator lah.

Coming in 2007.

Was dragged to attend a last minute meeting at another office. The meeting is expected to end at 6pm. As I will not be returning to my office after the meeting, I was abit lazy to bring my writting material along. Instead, I just use my Palm TX to take down all the notes.

I bet I look very funny at the meeting today. Imagine everyone with either a writting materials or a laptop and I’m having a tiny PDA. But hey, my TX can do just about everything.

I jot down notes using note pad.
I check schedule on my calendar.
I note down action item on my to do task.

Sometimes I wonder why did I still bother to bring writting materials to meeting.

This is going to change the way palmOS owner surf the net.

New of an Open Source PalmOS web browser call Universe 3 is currently under going developement.

Features includes:
A Tabbed interface (supporting up to 3 tabs)
An address bar featuring a url box and navigation buttons
An Integrated RSS reader
Private browsing (mask the history, cache and cookies)
Support for JPEG, GIF, BMP and PNG (with alpha channels) images
Support for HTML/XHTML/WML/RSS 1.0/2.0
Support for WAP 1.0/2.0
Support for Hires and Hires+ screen sizes

Future Features includes:
Advanced 5-Way scrolling (based off of the Nokia S60 Browser)
Removing the 3 tab limit JavaScript support (using Apple’s JavaScriptCore)
gzip Compression for a faster browsing experience
Opening and saving files to the local file system

Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

I connect my palm TX to the internet and use Quick News to download the latest RSS feed. Weekday morning is always a rush for me. While Quick News is downloading the latest updates from my RSS feed, I was rushing to get ready for work. I didn’t had time to read until I reach the train.

Went to palm addict news feed first. And indeed there is news of a new device by palm. Treo 680. Almost similar to Treo 650, except they come in 4 sporty colours and no antenna. FINALLY…. a smart phone without antenna.

I’m actually not very interested in a smartphone. I still like my Sony Ericsson K800i alot. But its nice to know that Palm finally released a new PalmOS Treo. At least its not a WM.

Actually, I’m looking to see if Palm had released any new PDA. I scroll thru the entire palm addict RSS feeds. Nothing. I guess the PDA market is still not big enough. Which is really sad. After all, Palm made its name by selling PDA. And palm has always been makers of great PDA like Palm III, Palm Vx, Tungsten T3 and Palm TX.

There are still a lot that Palm can improve on the TX. For example faster processor and higher capacity battery. And perhaps a VGA screen and a delicated chip for music playback. I know I would buy the new PDA from Palm if they release 1. But sad to say, there isn’t any.

Thanks a lot Ed. For helping me save money.