

Does RIM Want Palm? - raganwald
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/streetwise/does-rim-want-palm/article1547913/

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mdasen
This seems to be the best buyer for Palm from my perspective. HTC and others
are currently selling popular Android devices and there's little sense for HTC
to sell Android, Windows Mobile, and an HTC owned webOS to consumers. RIM, on
the other hand, could use Palm much like Apple used NeXT. webOS could become
the foundation of the next generation of BlackBerry devices. It provides the
same all-in-one experience that RIM does on a more modern platform. They would
just need to integrate it with the tools that business people buy BlackBerries
for. Combined with the BlackBerry name, it could go far.

Other manufacturers have already cast their lot with Android and it wouldn't
make sense for them to offer both Android and webOS since they would have to
keep pouring money into webOS development rather than getting mostly free
Android development. And, to be frank, consumers have shown that they prefer
Android. RIM is really the company whose weight could change that. A
"BlackBerry" webOS running with one of RIM's keyboards and integrating with
their Enterprise Server could do well in terms of market-share.

~~~
mrtron
Sure the best bet for palm, but not for RIM.

I think people are missing the point with RIM. Their existing operating system
has a very solid foundation. Everything low level is very optimized for two
things important on mobile: battery life and efficient use of networks. The
devices work very well. Most importantly: they work very well in big business.

Their GUI isn't flashy. Their venture into touchscreen went poorly. But
neither of those seem like a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

------
elblanco
Please, RIM is in severe need of a major OS update. Blackberry OS was kinda
okay 7 years ago, but the devices I see now are more or less the same ones I
was using in 2003.

~~~
mrtron
The new OS version is coming out shortly I believe.

But what exactly is it in need of? My only complaint is their menuing system
is not very pretty.

~~~
elblanco
It reeks of "don't care". It's clunky in places, everybody has to roll their
own gui toolkit to make anything that looks halfway decent, performance isn't
that great (maybe the devices are slow), crap is buried in long lists of
settings, I can use a microSD card with it but it's pointless because I can't
install anything to that card, restarting the device is a pain since I have to
approve a dozen security policy dialogs that don't fit on the screen,
typography is a disaster. I once accidentally his the wrong security setting
when installing Opera on mine and I have no idea how to change it, after a
year of poking around and a full system wipe. So now, every time I go to surf
the web, I have to spend 5 minutes fighting past security authorizations.

All this was okay in 2000, but the devices haven't evolved one bit since then.
I got mine new, just on the market, in '08 from my company. Really, even with
a new OS, the devices need to get with the times. Buying WebOS would give them
a halfway decent, well thought out OS, and force their hand with the crappy
hardware.

~~~
mrtron
Really? This sounds pretty weak reasoning to buy a company for a half-decent
OS.

a) Performance is never bad on blackberries - what are you talking about?
Always far better performance than my iphone.

b) You are complaining about a 3rd party app's security settings?

c) You can't install to a microSD card but is that a problem? There is good
reason to not allow app installations on a hotswappable card obviously. They
provide plenty of room for app installs on the internal memory.

d) Use a 2000 era device and then use a new bold 9700. You cannot be serious
claiming the devices themselves haven't evolved.

Blackberries are amazing devices, it just seems like a small group of people
love to hate on them for unknown reasons. Just like a different group loves to
hate on iPhones.

What you are saying here is like saying Apple should buy Palm because their OS
is garbage because it doesn't support multiple applications and you can only
sync through itunes.

~~~
pedalpete
'performance' is relative mrton. elblanco could be talking about web
performance which really is way behind the times on Blackberry. But they are
releasing a new webkit browser in the fall.

The reason they should by Palm is that the Palm webOS is a very modern and
well built OS. It could really do great things for RIM in the consumer (non-
business user) space. I always attributed Blackberry's OS issues (performance,
capabilities, etc) to the fact that the entire OS is written in Java, but a
friend tells me that that isn't really the issue.

I don't know. If you were to write an OS for a mobile device, would Java be
your development language of choice?

~~~
mrtron
The OS isn't written in Java. Apps and layers on top of the OS are in Java.

------
raganwald
As Fake Steve Jobs quipped, this would be like the the number two and number
three sprinters trying to beat number one by strapping their legs together and
running three-legged.

~~~
ableal
Analogies are a dime a dozen. If the #3 sprinter has the running shoes and
water bottle that #2 is lacking ...

Interesting bit (news to me) in the original piece:

 _the Canadian purchased a perfectly decent operating system for future
devices in early April for an estimated $200-million, when it bought a small
player named QNX Software._

~~~
raganwald
> Analogies are a dime a dozen

Oh yes, absolutely. A witty analogy is often just that, a quip. I do think
that many mergers motivated by the desire to dethrone the leader do wind up
with an entity that is weaker than its constituent parts. IIRC, FSJ was
talking about MSFT and YHOO merging to take on GOOG.

In this case I think the analogy supports the article's conclusion, which is
that RIM is in no hurry to buy Palm. If I can strain the metaphor, buying Palm
would be like teaming up to run a race three-legged because you're thirsty and
the other runner has a water bottle. Buying QNX was like buying a water
bottle.

~~~
ableal
Yeah, I knew it was a quip, and with this half-truth biz (cf. Karl Kraus),
there's a lot to it.

Even with perfect fits, companies manage to screw up. They are hopping around
one-legged, figure that a left leg would go nicely with their right one. Buy
left leg, insist on it wearing right-handed shoes (lots in stock). Shoot left
foot off to make it fit.

(snapping sound, strained analogy's back breaking ;-)

~~~
raganwald
Hahaha!

Getting serious for a moment, I don't envy RIM if they buy Palm. Having bought
QNX, a bunch of their engineers might have been disgruntled over the obvious
message that their own stuff is junk and that the company doesn't trust them
to fix it.

Some will have bought into QNX, some will be resisting it. Then they buy Palm
and all the engineers who bought into QNX suddenly have the rug pulled out
from under them.

While upper management are blinking in the flash bulbs, shaking hands at press
conferences, and boasting about RIM's road map for taking over the world,
middle management will be desperately trying to keep the talented people from
quitting in disgust.

~~~
jlin
No, QNX and RIM actually came from the same birthplace - the University of
Waterloo. I bet you the principles of each company even had beers with each
other when they were in their salad days, debating technical decisions, or
hashing over names for their respective products - So for RIM engineers,
buying QNX is pretty much the equivalent of reuniting with your long lost twin
brother. While they are in radically different industries, and have radically
different products, the laser sharp focus on engineering is the same.

And I bet you any RIM engineer you ask will definitively state that QNX is a
much better real time OS [focus being on real time] than anything RIM has ever
put out - it's akin to asking whether your kid brother who competes in the
Olympics is good at their sport or not.

