Sony goes Symbian: whence Palm?

2000-04-28

Sony shocked observers at the end of last week with the announcement of a collaboration with Texas Instruments and Symbian in order to produce a next generation mobile device. The announcement moved Sony squarely into the mobile mainstream, at the same time as raising the question – what happened to Palm?

In November of last year Sony and Palm announced that they would be collaborating on future versions of “the Palm Computing platform,” a.k.a. PalmOS. Palm would integrate Sony’s Memory Stick technology, whilst Sony committed to use the Palm architecture as a basis of “handheld consumer electronics products,” according to the press release. Last week’s announcement by Sony, TI and Symbian raises the obvious question about where next-generation wireless phones sit alongside handheld consumer electronics products, and what happens to Palm as a result.

It may well be argued that handheld computers and PDAs are different. This has certainly been Palm’s stance in the past, as we have already discussed in a previous article. However, as we argued, this position does not align with mainstream opinion as WAP phones and devices such as the Nokia communicator demonstrate that the merger of the two technologies is already with us. If Sony thinks the former, that never the twain shall meet, then Palm may already have a fight on its hands to keep its relationship. If PDA and phone are two sides of the same technology then the battle may already be lost for Palm.

Palm may not be too bothered, with a reported 75% of the world’s handheld computer market, but this figure is misleading. Again, if phone and PDA are kept separate then Palm is on relatively solid ground but if not, then the statistic should be put relative to the number of mobile phone users there are in the world – this would put Palm well into the minority. Ultimately, if sources inside Palm are to be believed, the company is more interested in growing its applications portfolio and becoming a platform company than it is in hanging onto its hardware base. This agrees with the alliance formed between Palm and Symbian, in which Symbian provide the underlying kernel and Palm provide the “user layer”.

Overall, then, all may not be lost for Palm. This is just one alliance amongst many and on the ground there is little to suggest that Palm’s success is waning. Sony’s collaboration with Symbian may be a disappointment to Palm, whatever they say, but rest assured there is life in the old dog yet.

(First published 28 April 2000)