Palm WiFi Technical Team “Decimated”

31 Responses to “Palm WiFi Technical Team “Decimated””

kaptainchump, on June 28th, 2007 at 6:55 pm Said:

Wow! They had a whole team dedicated to the wi-fi area? I’m glad they stopped wasting investor dollars on these worthless employees. Sorry to be harsh, but they’ve had enough time to implement and repair any issues with the wi-fi card in my opinion. 2+ years is PLENTY of time.
2000 Man, on June 28th, 2007 at 8:24 pm Said:

All two interns were let go? Who cares? Try hiring someone with half a brain next time, Palm.
JRBall, on June 28th, 2007 at 11:07 pm Said:

Palm can continue to come up with pathetic excuses about the lack of WiFi… I will no longer care once I’m zipping on the ‘net with my new iPhone. Sorry, Palm, I’m out of patience.
ralvy, on June 28th, 2007 at 11:11 pm Said:

If it’s a trade-off with battery life, I’d take battery life any day. With high speed cellular networks the way they are, I see no need to develop WiFi for the Treo.
Alli, on June 29th, 2007 at 12:01 am Said:

LOL at zipping along the net on an iPhone. Will Cingular be accessing Sprint or Verizon’s EVDO data networks?
deadphotomac, on June 29th, 2007 at 12:09 am Said:

What battery life.
MerryOtter, on June 29th, 2007 at 1:39 am Said:

@Alli - JRBall clearly is referencing the integrated WiFi radio on the iPhone, which doesn’t seem to kill the battery life much and indeed is very useful given the pokey performance of EDGE.

Palm has had ample opportunity to remedy the lack of WiFi on the Palm OS models. Yes, I enjoy nice performance on Sprint’s EVDO with my 700p. But given that I have WiFi at both home and work, it’s a pity I haven’t been able to take advantage of it for bandwidth-intensive operations.

If the Palm WiFi team has been “decimated” let’s hope it was because they failed to bring WiFi to the Palm operating system, not because Palm is giving up on the feature altogether.

As for the iPhone, it has some drawbacks relative to Palm-based smartphones. But Palm OS has significant problems as well. Shame on Palm for allowing the OS to languish for years without significant advancements.

I don’t plan to move to the iPhone right now. I’m happy with my carrier and the capabilities I have. But as the iPhone goes through its life cycle and receives upgrades to remedy its limitations — and especially in 5 years when the exclusive deal with NSAT&T expires — I’ll be very keen to consider it.

Even before then, I hope the iPhone lights a fire under makers of PDAs, smartphones, and especially Palm Inc….. we need smarter phones that operate more fluidly and deliver higher-quality user experiences.
bmoshier, on June 29th, 2007 at 3:15 am Said:

The Treo phone lines need WiFi. While these two communications methods access the same Internet, WiFi is cheaper and can be faster. I find I use my Palm Tungsten C and Treo 700p together when at home or at a hotel with WiFi access.

Why pay for byte access or accept slower than necessary speed, when a great alternative exists?
jatreop, on June 29th, 2007 at 3:43 am Said:

WiFi sucks power - I’d say that excuse sucks. I for one want WiFi. I find it hard to believe that it sucks more power than having the cell going. It is cheap (ie $0) and has decent speed. I switched from a LifeDrive to a Treo 700p. Personally I like having the phone but I was surprised with the features that were dropped - WiFi being one of them. Get with it Palm. Happy clients mean happy bottom lines.
GSMacLean, on June 29th, 2007 at 4:18 am Said:

They’ve had difficulty overcoming “Palm OS WiFi driver compatibility issues”???

My Sony Clie TH-55 ran on Palm OS 5.2.1 back in 2003, and it had integrated WiFi that worked just fine!!

Come up with another excuse, Palm.
dchang0, on June 29th, 2007 at 4:33 am Said:

To those who poo-pooed the need for WiFi, remember that built-in WiFi is the first step towards FREE Internet-based phone calls from your Treo. If today’s Treo install base had WiFi built-in, someone would have already port ed Skype or some equivalent to the Palm platform.
hackvan, on June 29th, 2007 at 4:59 am Said:

Palm and the treo 680 have disappointed me immensely. WiFi is something that would make my user experience significantly better, but IF THEY WOULD JUST SUPPORT BLINKING BLUETOOTH AUDIO BETTER, I’D BE HAPPY…

I had great hopes of using my phone as an mp3 player but between buggy bluetooth (palm stack and SAG), flaky 2.5mm audio jack, and the highly unsatisfactory bookmarking behavior of pocket tunes when there’s a crash, I’ve given up.

I’m unlikely to remain loyal to palm with my next phone upgrade.
srdiamond, on June 29th, 2007 at 5:21 am Said:

I dont understand how this Elevation firm is possibly justifying investing in Palm - I love my 700p but I am almost embarassed now to show it compared to my friends new blackberrys, not to mention the Q and Upstage phones and soon to be real embarassing iPhone comparison. Even Mossberg who has been a diehard Treo guy and supporter said the iPhone is in a different league than the old feeling treo. Its is like they stopped all R&D on it - it should be so much thinner and lighter by now and surely they could have updated the OS to multi-task and do WiFi. Its just so sad to see such a great device be ignored until all of us loyal Palm devotees finally give up on using old hardware / software.
Joad, on June 29th, 2007 at 5:29 am Said:

Yeah, the “battery life” excuse is a load of horse****, plain and simple. If Palm gave a darn hoot about battery life they wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy shrinking down the friggin’ battery!!! Maybe they should have decimated the goofball team that spends all their time moving aroun button arrangements and deleting reset holes.

Hearing they actually had enough teammembers to “decimate” (literally make 1/10th) working on wifi for years is a shocker. A third party made sleds for the 600 and 650 years ago. Would make too much sense to pay them to help I guess…
Joad, on June 29th, 2007 at 5:30 am Said:

Yeah, the “battery life” excuse is a load of horse****, plain and simple. If Palm gave a darn hoot about battery life they wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy shrinking down the friggin’ battery!!! Maybe they should have decimated the goofball team that spends all their time moving aroun button arrangements and deleting reset holes.

Hearing they actually had enough teammembers to “decimate” (literally make 1/10th) working on wifi for years is a shocker. A third party made sleds for the 600 and 650 years ago. Would make too much sense to pay them to help I guess…
Joad, on June 29th, 2007 at 5:31 am Said:

Yeah, the “battery life” excuse is a load of horse****, plain and simple. If Palm gave a darn hoot about battery life they wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy shrinking down the friggin’ battery!!! Maybe they should have decimated the goofball team that spends all their time moving aroun button arrangements and deleting reset holes.

Hearing they actually had enough teammembers to “decimate” (literally make 1/10th) working on wifi for years is a shocker. A third party made sleds for the 600 and 650 years ago. Would make too much sense to pay them to help I guess…
Joad, on June 29th, 2007 at 5:33 am Said:

Yeah, the “battery life” excuse is a load of horse****, plain and simple. If Palm gave a darn hoot about battery life they wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy shrinking down the friggin’ battery!!! Maybe they should have decimated the goofball team that spends all their time moving aroun button arrangements and deleting reset holes.

Hearing they actually had enough teammembers to “decimate” (literally make 1/10th) working on wifi for years is a shocker. A third party made sleds for the 600 and 650 years ago. Would make too much sense to pay them to help I guess…
yarkandi, on June 29th, 2007 at 6:05 am Said:

I gave up on my Treo 600 six months ago for an Eten X500. the upgrades to 650 and 680 were useless to me.
Now I enjoy GPS, WiFi, and bluetooth 2.0 all in one phone.
I miss how fast was my treo. but I don’t think I’ll be able to give up the nice features I have. Windows mobile has come along way. And I have a free upgrade to WM6 too.
Sorry Palm, you were too slow. I would have paid 1000 dollars for a treo 680 with wifi!!!!!
tdj, on June 29th, 2007 at 6:29 am Said:

Yeah “there is high-speed data otherwise”.. well, welcome to Europe. GPRS in my home country costs me 60 cent USD per Mb, and abroad with roaming this charge may rise to anywhere from 2 USD to 20 USD per Mb. Given that web pages these days easily are 100-200 Kb for the front page, since everyone wants a “portal”, phone data is realistically unuseable.

This is where Wi-Fi would be great, since many places (hotels) have free access.

Palm probably drops Wi-Fi because they realize that they will never be allowed by Verizon etc to install it.

This really sucks. Palm again shows they have no clue that there is a world outside the US, where conditions may be different.

Battery life is cetainly a lame excuse.
meluvtreo, on June 29th, 2007 at 7:35 am Said:

I think it is not just the WiFi team that’s gone, the time of Palm is over too…

I have been desparately waiting for the next generation of Treo hoping that it would come up with a GSM model that has the WiFi feature.

But first they released this thing called Foleo, now it’s the WiFi team announcement.

I’m losing my faith and patience…

Now, I would need to face with another dilema: should I change my handle?
maurmappel, on June 29th, 2007 at 9:56 am Said:

hooo what a surprise , they know it was existin!Wow! They had a whole team dedicated to the wi-fi area? I’m glad they stopped wasting investor dollars on these worthless employees. Sorry to be harsh, but they’ve had enough time to implement and repair any issues with the wi-fi card in my opinion. 2+ years is PLENTY of time.
jatreop, on June 29th, 2007 at 12:01 pm Said:

WiFi sucks power - I’d say that excuse sucks. I for one want WiFi. I find it hard to believe that it sucks more power than having the cell going. It is cheap (ie $0) and has decent speed. I switched from a LifeDrive to a Treo 700p. Personally I like having the phone but I was surprised with the features that were dropped - WiFi being one of them. Get with it Palm. Happy clients mean happy bottom lines.
kertiban, on June 29th, 2007 at 6:06 pm Said:

??? Having problems with WiFi? Is this the same Palm that made my T|X? Their WiFi technology seems quite polished, and operates seamlessly and quickly in any hotspot that I have visited yet. The Bluetooth support is functional, as well, although I call upon it less than the WiFi. I can open my Palm at my favorite chicken wingery hotspot and within 10 seconds be online. Why not use what they’ve already got?
Alli, on July 1st, 2007 at 11:18 pm Said:

I knew I needed to move. There is no WiFi outside of Barnes & Nobles (T-Mobile Hotspot), and now I know I need to find different airports and hotels. Where are y’all finding all this free WiFi? The last 3 hotels where I’ve stayed charged between $6-9.50 per DAY, and the airports where I’ve been stuck for layovers haven’t been any better, although it may be the airlines rather than the airports.
Derek Edison, on July 2nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm Said:

Bizarre. The problem wasn’t the technical team. It was the decision not to include the technology with the Treo line. Let the executives go IMO.

If palm wants to keep customers they would be smart to release drivers for the Treo line ASAP. I’m due for a new smart phone soon and as it stands now it won’t be a palm device. Getting wi-fi on my tired old 650 might keep me around a while longer while they have a chance to pull their head out of you know where. They have the code from the Tungsten line. Just tweak it for the Treos and release it. I’d buy the SD card tomorrow.
maurmappel, on July 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 pm Said:

palm prefer contract with mobile cie than to be free for the product friends , fals account figures; its cals in french “avoir les mains liées”
Yeah “there is high-speed data otherwise”.. well, welcome to Europe. GPRS in my home country costs me 60 cent USD per Mb, and abroad with roaming this charge may rise to anywhere from 2 USD to 20 USD per Mb. Given that web pages these days easily are 100-200 Kb for the front page, since everyone wants a “portal”, phone data is realistically unuseable.

This is where Wi-Fi would be great, since many places (hotels) have free access.

Palm probably drops Wi-Fi because they realize that they will never be allowed by Verizon etc to install it.

This really sucks. Palm again shows they have no clue that there is a world outside the US, where conditions may be different.

Battery life is cetainly a lame excuse
Meat45, on July 3rd, 2007 at 3:19 am Said:

I don’t understand the need for Wi-Fi.
If I’m home I have a computer monitor so why would I “surf” on my Palm? If I have a wireless plan why would I need Wi-Fi?
If I hung out at Starbucks or Borders all day that would be swell.
But without an Internet plan when I drive down the road with my Palm 755p all I have is a phone with a nice calendar.
Wi-Fi is totally useless for me and I don’t understand why anyone would need it!
I have read about Palm owners crying about the lack of Wi-Fi for years. To me it’s a moot point.
PCDIVA, on July 3rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm Said:

Lack of Wi-Fi on my Treo 650 (Verizon) will keep me from purchasing another Treo. I totally feel as though I was cheated and ripped off by Palm’s lack of concern for those of us, not interested in paying cell phone companies anymore money. I want to use my Wi-Fi card and I will purchase a product that lets me do that. Take care of your customers, Palm or they will take care of you.
chrisjscott, on July 5th, 2007 at 1:38 pm Said:

I agree with the opinions already stated - the Palm system has languished for SO long that there’s no way I’d consider another Palm device when it comes time to replace my 650.

This kills me because I’ve used the PalmOS since the original Pilot, but their utter lack of OS improvement over the years, combined w/ this WiFi issue, will make me look at other devices.

Bye, Palm!
adena, on July 9th, 2007 at 11:38 pm Said:

palm lies — again.

goodbye palm
Chuck Lawhorn, on July 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pm Said:

From the story:

“‘From our perspective,’ said the original source, ‘it would be fair to say their WiFi technical team was decimated.’”
“Decimate” means to reduce by 10%. So if they had 10 people working on Wi-Fi, they now have 9.

If the story means to convey that the Wi-Fi team has been nearly or completely disbanded, some word other than “decimate” should have been used. In that case, it would not be “fair” at all to use the word “decimate.”

Words have meanings that are very specific. When words with one meaning are used to try and communicate something the word was not meant to do, the language suffers.

We need better writers or better spokespeople. Perhaps both.