The Treo cannot compete with Microsoft Windows Mobile Powered devices, many new cellphones, or even the simplest flash music player in regards to bundled multimedia capabilities. The introduction of wireless into the Palm OS world provides yet another feature for multimedia software makes to exploit. Can that step be achieved when the basics have not even been met? Somebody needs to foster the growth and development of these applications, and the company best positioned to do this is PalmOne, by aggressively bundling applications with their product lines.
In 2000, with the release of the Good Technology SoundsGood Springboard MP3 player for the Handspring Visor, I was convinced that the Palm OS had a rich future ahead of it in multimedia. At the time, Palm OS was the winner in mobile operating systems in productivity applications, with a rich assortment to fit any need that users desired. Palm OS’s weakness was that they were behind in the introduction of multimedia; the springboard module acted as a fast track to fix that.
Five years later, the Visor is dead, the Springboard is dead, Handspring is now PalmOne, Good Technology now provides a rich corporate email service, and the Palm OS is still drastically behind in multimedia. Dedicated music devices led by Apple Computer’s iPod have jumped far ahead of the PDA business, selling tens of millions units this year at prices as high as $500. Microsoft’s Pocket PC and Windows Mobile operating systems can still play audio and video content out of the box, but all PalmOne devices are only bundled with is a poor version of RealPlayer just capable of playing MP3s and Real Audio files.
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