Have you heard about the PalmPilot or Treo smartphones from the 1990s and 2000s? Did you ever own one of those iconic handheld devices? If so, you‘ve used hardware produced by the pioneering company Palm.
During its 18 year run, Palm played a key role in developing the first mainstream personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smartphones. They made mobile computing both useful and accessible for everyday people.
In this guide, I‘ll give you a comprehensive overview of Palm‘s history and accomplishments. You‘ll learn things like:
- How Palm began by creating PIM software for early PDAs
- The development and impact of revolutionary devices like the PalmPilot
- The capabilities of Palm‘s operating systems, and licensing issues that impacted their strategy
- Palm‘s efforts to compete with Blackberry and shift towards smartphones like the Treo
- What eventually led to Palm‘s $1.2 billion acquisition by HP
- Palm‘s legacy – what they did right and where they fell short
So if you ever owned a Palm device or are just curious about this pioneer of mobility, read on! I‘ll cover Palm‘s origins in the early 90s all the way through to their assets being sold off in the late 2010s after the company ceased operations.
Palm Started by Creating PIM Software for Clunky PDAs Like the Zoomer
Let‘s rewind to 1992 when personal digital assistants (PDAs) were still new and fairly primitive devices. That year Jeff Hawkins founded Palm Computing with a plan to build software for the Zoomer – an early PDA by Casio and Tandy.
The Zoomer itself was bulky, slow, and failed to catch on with consumers. But the PIM (Personal Information Management) software Palm created showed promise. It gave users basic productivity functions like managing contacts, keeping a calendar, writing notes, and recording tasks.
So while the Zoomer tanked, Palm refined their PIM software. They licensed syncing tools to companies like HP and created the Graffiti handwriting recognition system used on many devices. This allowed Palm to stay solvent as a software developer until U.S. Robotics acquired them in 1995.
Palm anticipated that PDAs would only become more important down the road. And that there was still an opportunity to create the definitive PDA that would resonate with consumers if done right…
The PalmPilot Took the World by Storm and Established Key PDA Functions
Drawing upon lessons learned from the Zoomer, Hawkins and his Palm co-founders went to work building their vision of the perfect digital assistant.
The result was the PalmPilot which launched in 1996 as the fastest selling tech product of its time! This influential PDA became the blueprint for all handheld organizers going forward.
So what made the PalmPilot so game-changing? Well for starters it used a touchscreen and stylus for easy input. It focused on core functions like contacts, notes, and calendars rather than trying to mimic paper organizers. The software was efficient to maximize battery life. And the hardware provided enough memory to be useful without costing a fortune.
Most importantly, this humble gadget made mobility productive and practical for students, parents, business people and more. For only $300 you could now carry digital contacts and schedules in your pocket!
The PalmPilot flew off shelves to the tune of over 500,000 units sold in the first 18 months according to Palm‘s records. This created a frenzy as consumers embraced PDAs for personal organization. By some accounts 1 in 10 Americans owned an original PalmPilot – it became ubiquitous!
Spinoff of PalmSource to License Palm‘s OS – A Short Term Win But Long Term Danger
Powering a device as revolutionary as the PalmPilot was equally advanced software known as the Palm OS. This proprietary mobile operating system was designed to efficiently handle functions like contacts and note-taking while maximizing battery life.
When Palm was acquired by 3Com in 1997, their future looked bright – the tech bubble was still growing and stakeholders sought to maximize profits from Palm‘s leadership in the booming PDA market.
In 2000 3Com made a fateful choice – they spun off Palm‘s OS engineering division into an independent company named PalmSource. This provided flexibility to license the Palm OS platform while still owning the Palm hardware and device ecosystem.
- At the time this move did bolster 3Com‘s share price and profits. But it also planted the seeds that ultimately constrained Palm‘s control of its own platform. This impact became apparent with developments a few years later around supplying OS software for Palm‘s smartphones…
But before we get into that, what fueled demand for Palm devices beyond the initial PalmPilot mania?
Iterations Like Palm m500 Series Maintained Dominance Despite Competition
Capitalizing on the runaway success of the PalmPilot, Palm strengthened their product portfolio by introducing new models that met customer needs and kept competition at bay.
Their Palm m500 series debuted in 2000 and became the new standard for premium PDAs, outselling rivals like the Handspring Visor and various Windows CE palmtops.
How did the Palm m500s stay ahead of challengers? A few key reasons:
- Vibrant color screens with higher resolution displays
- More powerful ARM-based CPUs that ran Palm OS smoothly
- Bundled software like Palm Photos picture manager
- Smart expansion with SD card slots and USB connectivity
With roughly 1 million units sold, the m500 remained a top seller through 2002 – 3 years after its launch. This was an eternity in the fast-paced tech landscape of the 90s/early 2000s!
By this point Palm had clearly conquered the PDA market. But a rival phone maker named Blackberry was gaining steam with its messaging devices. Palm took notice and set its sights on the smartphone market next…
Palm Pivots Towards Smartphones and a Merger With Handspring Yields the Treo
Research in Motion (RIM) had success in the business world with early Blackberry pagers and email phones in the late 90s/early 2000s. Savvy Palm execs realized they needed to transition their PDA business towards full-fledged mobile phones.
Their first smartphone gambit involved licensing their Palm OS to Handspring, founded by ex-Palm leaders, to create a smartphone-PDA hybrid called the Handspring Treo in 2002.
This early "communicator" phone merged wireless service and features like calendar/contacts/email into a compact design with a QWERTY keyboard. While limited compared to modern smartphones, the original Treo filled a niche for productivity-focused mobile users at the time.
The Treo‘s initial success prompted Handspring and Palm to merge into palmOne in 2003/2004. This gave them tighter control of hardware and software with the goal of pursuing smartphones powered by the Palm OS platform.
The Treo 650 they released became palmOne‘s flagship device as Blackberry cemented itself as the mobile email leader. While the Treo couldn‘t keep pace with Blackberry in enterprise adoption, it did find a loyal following of users focused on personal organization.
However, maintaining their OS advantage would prove difficult. Issues surrounding full control/ownership of the core Palm OS platform were about to impact palmOne‘s fortunes…
Licensing Complexities Lead to Split Between palmOne and Palm OS Owner PalmSource
Earlier in this piece I explained how 3Com spun Palm‘s software engineering into PalmSource around year 2000. This gave 3Com flexibility on the IP side of things, but planted the seeds of fragmentation.
You see, Palm and eventual offshoot palmOne did not fully own the core intellectual property – the essence of the Palm OS platform itself resided within PalmSource. And in the fast moving mobile software space this separation led to conflict.
After palmOne merged with Handspring, it needed full control of the Palm OS platform in order to innovate quickly on smartphones. But negotiations stalled with PalmSource‘s new owner ACCESS. So in 2004 palmOne CEO Ed Colligan took drastic action:
- He shifted palmOne‘s smartphones towards a Windows Mobile software base temporarily through a deal with Microsoft
- While also working to bring Palm OS back into the fold by building a team to engineer a next-gen successor dubbed Palm OS Cobalt
This move bought Colligan leverage, as without support for Palm hardware PalmSource would become irrelevant. Eventually palmOne and PalmSource reached a settlement allowing tighter integration and palmOne‘s rights to brand their devices Palm once again.
But the time lost and confusion around all this back-and-forth impacted Palm down the road. Because around 2007 an even greater disruption loomed from Apple‘s imminent iPhone launch and Google‘s Android OS…
The Rise of iOS and Android Caught Palm Flat-Footed – Lead to Eventual HP Acquisition
After the separation between Palm/palmOne hardware and Palm OS finally reconciled around 2005-2006, Palm focused on updating smartphones like the Treo to get on more even footing with BlackBerry.
- The Treo 680 on Palm OS Garnet improved the keyboard and screen.
- The Windows Mobile-based 700w boosted connections and mail.
But despite many attempts across various Treo models, Palm struggled to meaningfully grow share versus Blackberry. Treo sales peaked in 2005 at roughly 4 million and tapered off going forward according to SEC filings.
By 2007, Palm found itself stuck between Blackberry‘s enterprise dominance, Nokia/Symbian internationally, and a lack of modern app ecosystems or touch UIs.
Then the mobile world got shook up by:
- Apple announcing the revolutionary iPhone in January 2007
- Google revealing their new Android OS competing with iOS in November 2007
It soon became clear Palm could not compete with iOS and Android without its own modern platform. So Palm‘s developers created an innovative new operating system called webOS. This rebuild even attracted Apple‘s engineers and showed great promise.
Based on webOS, Palm launched fresh smartphones like the Pre and Pixi along with a new TouchPad tablet in 2009 and 2010. But stellar hardware couldn‘t make up for Palm‘s late start behind iOS and Android. The writing was on the wall…
After their mobile operating system rebuild and new devices failed to turn the tide, HP acquired the beleaguered Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010. This brought Palm‘s history as an independent company to an end after struggling to keep up with the pace of change.
Palm‘s Legacy – What They Did Right and Where They Fell Short
Given this comprehensive overview from Palm‘s founding in 1992 through to their assets getting divvied up after HP‘s acquisition, how should we assess Palm‘s legacy? What did they pioneer vs where did they fall short?
On the positive side, Palm had tremendous early success popularizing personal digital assistants and mobile productivity. They made handheld technology accessible and useful through affordable simplicity focused purely on contacts, scheduling, and notes rather than convoluted paper organizing attempts. For this they deserve great credit.
But Palm likely clung too long to their PDA lineage, instead of disrupting mobile phones sooner. Paired with split attention between hardware vs software, PalmOS licensing issues, and Blackberry‘s aggressive enterprise moves, Palm lost momentum through the mid-2000s.
By the time iOS and Android hit, Palm struggled playing catch up – despite valiant attempts at reinvention like the webOS-based Pre phone and Palm brand revival. They couldn‘t shake a "simplistic PDA" image and match Apple/Google‘s hyper innovation on UIs, ecosystems, digital media integration and more.
In the end, Palm planted early seeds of ubiquitous handheld computing. But the company faltered adjusting business models to keep pace with rapid platform advancements. The mobile landscape outgrew Palm quickly once paradigm shifts like the iPhone took hold.
So while Palm played a pivotal role birthing modern mobile productivity – and birthed the concept of PDAs, smartphones, and connectedness we now take granted, the company itself struggled adjusting and translating early successes into sustained market leadership.
Hopefully this guide has given you a new appreciation for Palm and clarity on their journey. I encourage you to dig deeper into any aspects that interest you. But for now appreciate how far mobile has come in 25+ years – from Zoomer clunkers to iOS elegance and everything in between!
Let me know if you have any other questions about Palm or early mobile devices in general. This is an area I really enjoy analyzing as someone who has worked in the tech industry and remembers the rapid evolution of the 1990s and 2000s well!
