Dear Customer, This was an extremely difficult decision for us, but certainly a critical one that we had to make. Our most recent development efforts, namely LineUp and Saguaro, relied primarily on the success of Palm. You’ve most likely heard about the struggling Palm OS economy. Unfortunately, it’s affecting us as well in ways we never could have predicted.

We’ve poured our hearts into making both LineUp and Saguaro and agonized over every last detail in both the code and design. During development, if a portion of our code wasn’t exactly right, we’d redo it to perfection. We’re that fanatical about our software. But when it comes right down to it - we’re a team of entrepreneurs, programmers and designers that have to eat, too.

Many thanks go to all of our fans and customers who have supported us throughout our development. We’re sorry to say that after 6 successful years, we have to go. We’re sure there are many more opportunities that will present themselves in the future. So don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. Chances are, someday you might find each of us out in unique industries doing what we love most – innovating.

Best Regards,
The Team @ PDA Performance

Following my article about the iPhone, Nokia N95 8GB, Palm Centro and TyTN II, and the reaction to the fact that the N95 and Centro both received 8/10 for price, here is today's question. What score out of 10 would you give your smartphone / PDA for value?

I stand by my figures of 8/10 for the Centro and N95 8GB because they are very different smartphones with different capabilities, and the pricing choices offered put them at the high end in value terms. Murray also wrote an article on Palm-Mac (which was wrong by the way:)) about my previous comparison.

The Palm Centro has burst onto the UK market with barely a whimper, and is not setting the global smartphone market alight with stories of massive sales and a whole new generation of smartphone users loving their first smartphone. This is to be expected in a world of multi-connected smartphones that include GPS chips and all sorts of other gimmicks that make so many of us trade up so often.

The Centro is not a Treo but it is still a smartphone, and it is one that is aimed at the growing number of people who are curious about the smarter phones they see in the mobile shops. It is aimed at people who want to manage their contacts, calendar and other information in a phone that will not look out of place in a trendy coffee shop or in a meeting room, and Palm has succeeded in that aspect. The Centro is a lovely piece of kit to hold and it is just as good to look at.

The silver edging seems to work within the overall form factor, despite the fact that it is a touch dominating, and even the glossy finish adds a certain something to the look. The Centro feels too small to be a smartphone and resembles a normal feature phone more than the Treo line, and this is a very good thing.

The Treo keyboard was a classic and one that is difficult to emulate in a small space, and so Palm has had to completely redesign the keyboard materials and size to make it fit on the smaller Centro real estate. The keys now feel like rubber and are much closer to each other with less travel than previously which should make for a slow data input experience. Strangely, it does not and I have had few issues with this keyboard design. After a few minutes I managed to respond to emails and add calendar appointments with few mistakes, and the Centro keyboard has a lot of ‘Treo’ about it.

The navigation and call buttons above the keyboard are very flat, but also quite big and I personally like this set up. Everything here works well and within minutes I knew where everything was and was able to keep up to my usual Treo speed. The actual navigation button is quite small and those with big thumbs will not be overly keen on it, but I’m alright Jack:)

The stylus is poor and is made of bendy black plastic. I understand the need to make a thinner stylus, but it could be a lot more rigid than the included one. Hopefully a third party will design a metal one.

The screen is smaller than previously which will be a disappointment to some, but there are other issues that are a little more annoying than the size- the edges around the screen are quite high and this hinders finger navigation most of the time, and in some applications it is noticeable that the text hits the ‘very’ edge of the screen which makes for uncomfortable viewing. It also stops you from copying a whole line of text with the stylus which is a poor show.

On the left side are volume up/down buttons and a voice record button. I did my usual and installed TreoKeyHack to make the volume buttons scroll up and down and have found it more than comfortable enough for eBook reading. On the right is a microSD slot which strangely requires the battery cover to be taken off to insert a card- not a huge deal because you do not need to remove the battery. Finally, the classic slider mute key still adorns the top of the unit which is one of the best parts of any Treo- so simple, yet so necessary.

So, that’s a quick look at the hardware and tomorrow I will look at my first uses to see how well it compares to the Treo 680. I have to say that my first impressions are extremely positive and that, from a design point of view, the Centro is a classy little smartphone that outshines most of its rivals.

Network Outages - Part Deux over at the official Palm blog has more than a hint of "oops, better back track a little" about it- Thank you all for the responses to my earlier blog post on network outages - I sincerely appreciate the comments and perspectives. Indeed, the purpose of my post was to generate discussion and highlight that there are alternatives to the use of third-party Network Operation Centers (NOCs).

Generally, there are two options for deploying a mobile platform:

Use a third party to provide a NOC
Leverage your existing infrastructure

As I originally wrote, we believe that the best solution is to eliminate third-party email servers, third-party NOCs (and their hassles and costs), while maximizing simplicity and control. As we've seen with RIM's recent service interruptions (it appears that another occurred again yesterday), there are challenges with having an additional point of failure. These challenges, coupled with overall lack of control, can cause tremendous productivity loss to IT departments and mobile workers.

Feedback that we've received from a number of IT departments of companies ranging from all sizes indicates that maintaining control of their platform and infrastructure is one of their most critical requirements. Can non-carrier related outages and other issues arise with in-house only deployments? Yes, but then the control for the solution/fix becomes the primary responsibility of the IT department - not a third party (e.g. in circumstances when using a NOC deployment).

NVBackup was recently updated to v1.21. It is almost too good to be free- "NV Backup is a free, thorough and easy-to-use backup / restore solution for newer Palms: Treo 650, T5, TX, LifeDrive and TE2. It will not work on older devices.

NVBackup is free and may only be used AT YOUR OWN RISK WITH NO WARRANTY AT ALL.

It uses a different (undocumented) method for accessing data that theoretically should make it be more reliable than commercial backup programs on crash-prone newer PDAs (e.g., ones unstable because of incompatible third party software or buggy operating system)."

Palm Discovery has reviewed the Jet Black Protective Silicon Skin Case- "Although not as important on the Treo 750 or 755p devices as it is for the Treo 680, having a silicon skin case can be very useful. Those who own the Treo 680 or any of the other older Treos can easily tell you that the device casing, although very nice looking, tends to be very slippery and may cause you to accidentally drop it. This is where having a silicon case can prove to be a worthwhile investment.

A silicon case, such as Prima Cases Dust Free Jet Black Protective Silicon Skin Case can offer a good balance between scratch and slight bump protection as well as providing you with a much better grip on the device, not to mention its sleek beautiful design that showcases and highlights the Treo without taking up much bulk or weight. Also to add to that, it's very flexible and be removed for cleaning, sterilization, etc and fitted back quickly and easily.

For those who want to skip over all the detailed review and just want a summary, you can jump to the review summary

Prima Cases Dust Free Jet Black Protective Silicon Skin Case is as the name states, a jet black protective silicon skin case. Like many other silicon skin cases, it fits right over the Treo device like an extra layer of skin. Just like an extra layer of skin, this case will help provide a slight protection against scratches, bumps and slight shocks. The rubbery feel of the case helps provide you with a much better..."

Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG will cut 7,000 jobs at its corporate telecommunications unit Siemens Enterprise Networks, officials with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press on Monday.

The cuts would amount to about 40 percent of the telecom unit's worldwide work force of 17,500 people.

SEN designs large-scale communications systems for corporations, but has come under pressure from the availability of cheaper Internet-based telephone systems which has eaten away at its customer base and sales.

The Munich-based company intends to announce the cuts Tuesday after a meeting of its economic advisory committee, according to the officials who asked not to be indetified by name because the official announcement had noy yet been made.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported the planned cuts on Sunday.

Siemens, whose diverse products include trams, turbines and telecommunications equipment, will eliminate 4,000 jobs in the unit worldwide with 2,000 of those cuts coming in Germany, its home market, according to the officials. Another 3,000 workers, including 1,000 in Germany, will be shifted to other units owned by Siemens or to company partners, they said..." More at cellular-news.

Congress May Force Telecoms to Offer Phones without Contracts is a good read over at Brighthand- "Under a proposed U.S. law being debated today, telecoms would be required to offer handsets without requiring users to sign a service contract to get them.

Despite what some have said, this law wouldn't require telecoms to offer unlocked phones that can be used with any telecom, but it would force them to sell all their devices without forcing users to agree to multi-year contracts.

The most obvious example of a product that would be Apple's iPhone. The only way to get this model in the U.S. is to sign up for two years of service with AT&T..."

Today's free eBook is The Four Hundred Thousand "I stand on the balcony outside my parent’s cinder-block apartment, watching contrails drift apart in slate skies. My left hand grips a just-delivered letter, crushes it. I can’t help it, the tracking device that the officer has shot into my hand makes it impossible to uncurl my fingers just yet. It burns.

By direction of the President… the following personnel are ordered to active duty… on that date, the named will proceed to ______ __ Military Facilities for the retrieval of said personnel out of Jet Oberaan(yr-15)/ovaries-2:

In the living room, a printout of number and letter combinations sits on the couch: four hundred thousand, one name for each egg follicle inside me, one name for each potential soldier. I’d stopped reading after the fourth page–there are one hundred and nine pages more. By my calculations, and the doctors’ latest report, I’m twenty-six healthy divisions full of death to our enemy. No surprise I’ve been called. I always sort of knew. I just thought I had more time. I have five days..."