I've just spent a few minutes working with my Palm PDA again. The Palm is simultaneously a great invention and a terribly frustrating piece of equipment. On the one hand, it really does store all my information and keep track of my schedule; on the other hand, the Palm software on my computer desktop can be intensely frustrating. Not to mention, of course, that the hardware always seems to give out after only a couple of years.
Take my address book, for example. A recent hardware fault with my Palm forced me to restore the system from scratch. Unfortunately in its latest incarnation the backup and restore software running on my desktop computer (a MacBook) decided to erase more or less all of my personalized categories. Instead of names and addresses sorted neatly into "Business," "Travel," "Restaurants," and the like, the addresses were dumped into one huge jumble that I'm still trying to sort out two months later.
What I find puzzling is how Palm descended from brilliance to incompetence. On the surface, Palm continues to make the right decisions; witness their recent decision to disaggregate themselves into a hardware company and a software company. But in practice Palm seems to be on a downward spiral: the iPhone is the choice for the hip and cool, Microsoft's horrid software ensnared most business users, and Google will shortly release Android to capture a wealth of innovation. There's a lesson in here somewhere and I intend to find out what it is.
Topics: · business
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