5. Experiment more with Form Factors

Remember the Visor Edge? I do. The quality control on it was pretty terrible, I went through several of them -- because I refused to stop using them. The Visor Edge was a revelation of thinness and superior design at the time. Handspring was free to toy around with form factors like that a bit -- because they knew they could leave the radio to somebody else.

Imagine a flip-lid Treo. Or a Treo that doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard but instead a larger touchscreen (People are still clamoring for a Palm TX Phone, guys), or something else that I haven't even thought of yet. If the radio is separate, you're a lot freer to play around.

4. Speed up your hardware cycle

Reason 6 was freeing yourself from carriers. That's only half the story, though. If you're freed up from carrier approval (and hijacking customer money and leaking your products), you can push out devices faster. A new chip comes along? Bang out another Visor. Your developers have come up with a way to have your OS support some new internet standard? Push out another Visor. Direct to your customers.

3. Speed up OS Development

Those of us familiar with Palm's history know that the main reason that the development of the PalmOS stalled, sputtered, and then died completely was the failed gambit of spinning off the OS side of the company. PalmSource flailed about for a bit, then was purchased by Japanese Firm Access, who have since let it wither. It's a sad tale.

I'd like to submit another reason, however: lack of new devices. Without a new platform to develop for, what's the motivation to push OS developers to create new features. If you're pushing out hardware faster, you're going to need the software that runs it to keep pace. Necessity is the mother of invention.

You'll be releasing Nova next year and that will be great, but what's your roadmap after that? If you can speed up your hardware development cycle, it will light a fire under all those great new developers.

Android and LiMo and others might talk about "Open," but a platform like this that's so explicitly independent of carriers would perhaps be a lot more attractive to indie developers as well.

2. Sell More Devices

I bought a Visor because I wanted to get organized. I bought a Visor Deluxe because it had more memory. I bought a Visor Platinum because it was faster. I bought a Visor Neo because it came in cool translucent colors. I bought a Visor Pro because it was faster and had yet even more memory. I bought a Visor Prism because it came with a color screen. I bought a Visor Edge because it was thin as all get-out. I did all this on a college student budget.

I am not kidding: Every. Visor.

Here's the thing: I was nowhere near alone in this. Back in the day the Palm ecosystem was all about waiting for the next spec-bump and people would snap it up as soon as it was available. It was practically a subscription plan for power users like myself. These days that doesn't happen -- 2 year contracts and a serious lack of upgrade options prevent it.

Instead, you could sell a new Visor, I'd buy it, then just pop my VisorPhone out of the old one and into the new one. Badda Bing. Just as good, when Sprint releases a WiMAX VisorPhone or I want to switch to AT&T or what-have-you, I keep my Visor and just go buy a new Phone Module. Badda Bing again.

You know what, if Nova develops at the same pace that the Visor did back then and you can find a way to get around these carrier hassles like this VisorPhone idea, you could sell devices at that pace to folks just like me again. No foolin'.

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