With the announcement of no new Palm OS handhelds coming from Palm, and the prospect of no new Palm OS smartphones being developed, are we watching the final throes of Palm OS as a mobile operating system?

Yesterday I asked if Palm can win you back and a variety of answers came in-

“Nope, certainly not. Palm gave me a lot of fun during the first three years of my pda usage, with the M125, Tungsten T and TX. But the iphone is more my thing (and I love the Nokia E71 at the moment).”

“I think you can never say never. I'm chuffed to bits with my iPhone, but I'm still getting my Centro out of the drawer and fiddling with it - it'll still get used for sat nav because it's got Tom Tom on it, and there's a PAYG sim in in ....just in case...

Seriously though, Palm could win me back (after my 18 month contract for the iPhone is up, so they've got plenty of time to turn it round or die trying). But they're going to have to up the ante big time, because the other players aren't standing still.”

“All we need is a great web browser, multi tasking, HSDPA and wifi and Palm could win back 'old' customers. I am assuming that many of the great Palm apps like Docs to Go and Agendus would be available.”

“Absolutely. I've stuck with my 680 despite the lure of the iPhone and the Windows CE devices. I'll admit that I've not tried an iPhone but every time I try and Windows CE device, I still think that it's not as good as PalmOS for getting things done. Yes, it might have better eye candy.

Anyway, fingers crossed for January and let's hope that Palm can really pull one out of the bag.”

“I have both a Palm Lifedrive and an iPhone to find out that an iPhone can't do very much when it comes to PIM functionality. At this point the Lifedrive has much more functionality to make the PIM department work the way I (!) want it.

Palm needs to keep the ease of use of the current OS combined with the eyecandy and connectivity of an iPhone and I'm back.”

“Sure Palm could win me back. But all I've seen recently are disappointments, and a Palm 700p I'm using that is kind of a pain in the neck in several ways.

To get me back, I need to be able to run most of my existing programs easily and well, I need consistent and error-free synching, I need a device that works well and is a pleasure to use with some good specs and hi-res screen, and I need the expectation that developers will actually start writing lots of programs for the new platform.

If the new devices are compelling, I might compromise some of the above, but it still has to have a reason to draw me away from the competition. Maybe that will be in the form of netbook integration into the platform.”

...and so the list of comments continues here.

One question that will be asked more and more as we await the announcement is how similar the new operating system will be to the standard Palm OS we know now. Will it be easy for developers to port their current applications over to the new system? Will Palm have to radically change the system to compete with the likes of the iPhone, and thus relinquish the advantage they have of a huge third party software catalogue already in place?

We don’t have the answers yet, but I think Palm needs to move on from ‘Palm OS’ and that sadly this may mean leaving the old stuff behind. This will greatly annoy it’s loyal followers, but when you are running a company that is losing more money every quarter, the loyal followers are simply not large enough in number to keep you alive. It’s time for something new from Palm and to bury what was once a pioneering operating system in the smartphone graveyard. It will shortly be joined by Windows Mobile and Symbian, because I suspect Microsoft and Nokia will have to change their operating systems beyond recognition as well to keep up.