Windows Phone Thoughts: Engadget: "Dear Palm: It's time for an intervention"

"Man, what a crazy year, right? We know things haven't really been going your way lately, but we want you to know that we haven't given up on you, even though it might seem like the only smartphone anyone wants to talk about these days is the iPhone. It can be hard to remember right now, but you used to be a company we looked to for innovation. You guys got handhelds right when everyone else, including Apple, was struggling to figure it out. And it was the little things that made those early Palm Pilots great...The problem is that lately we haven't seen anything too impressive out of you guys. Sure, over the past few years the Treo has emerged as a cornerstone of the smartphone market, but you've let the platform stagnate...So we've thrown together a few ideas for how Palm can get back in the game and (hopefully) come out with a phone that people can care about. (And we're not talking about the Centro / Gandolf.) Read on."



That image (the full size version is in the linked article) really drives home the point the Engadget points are trying to make: every single recent Palm device looks the same, with little formfactor evolution, while folks like HTC have been trying newer mechanisms to make handhelds more usable for a greater variety of applications. (That, and Treos still don't have WiFi. :roll:) Engadget doesn't skimp on the software discussion, either, and I think they've made excellent points. The only bright spot is that Palm recognizes this, as they replied to Engadget on their blog -- but only time will tell if they will respond with actual products or if they will merely fade away as the company that basically built two important formfactors and then stopped.