This news came out a few days ago, but I have been super busy with work and am actually now in London working on some exciting new projects. It looks like Matias Duarte, of Helio and Danger fame, has now joined Palm to design the user interface for Palm's next-generation Linux-based operating system. While I have overall been rather pessimistic of mobile Linux, that's more in the context of open source initiatives. However, there's nothing wrong in my mind for an organization such as Palm to create a "proprietary" operating system based upon the open source kernel.
That said, I've written numerous posts on Palm and what I feel they need to do going forward. Given their size and legacy, I don't necessarilly feel as if there's anything wrong with a dual-OS strategy (where Palm leverages its own OS for consumer devices and Windows Mobile for its enterprise/corporate devices)....at least in the medium term. That said, other vendors such as HTC, and Nokia are leveraging only ONE platform for their smartphones (Windows Mobile and Symbian respectively) for the enterprise and consumers. Oh, and let's not forget about that little Canadian company based in Waterloo. Why? Because business customers are also consumers. Yes, they will have different needs at home versus the office, but people are people.
OK, enough tangents. The point of this post is simply to say that I'm excited to see that Palm continues to make the right kinds of investments it needs to make so that it can deliver the best operating system it can deliver. The management team is well experienced, with the likes of Apple alums including Jon Rubinstein, Mike Bell and Brodie Keast (hopefully) adding that Apple-style halo to the new Palm hardware and software strategy.
The glass half empty perspective says, wait a second - haven't they already been working on a UI? Isn't there a team already in place to develop the eye candy? Perhaps...actually, probably. Having Matias and his team join means obviously that Palm wasn't satisfied with where things were headed. Definitely NOT a good thing.
The glass half full perspective says, ya, they weren't happy and they decided to get fresh (experienced) blood into the mix. Palm knows full well that to remain relevant in the mobile space (at least in terms of having its own OS), it HAS to ensure that its new OS is a winner. No ifs, ands or buts about it. This is betting the farm kind of issues for Palm. They weren't happy with the direction, knew (or at least hoped) they could do better and have taken steps to address that issue. Again, kudos to Palm for calling BS on itself (just like when it pulled the Foleo) and not being satisfied and complacent like it had been for so long. So with that said, would you please hurry up and get the damn thing out in the market? ;-)
