Palm tries to tread water with new Treo 500V.  Is it enough or too late?

Looks like my favorite phone provider maybe out of business real soon.  Palm, the pioneer in smart phone technology is on its death bed.  But how can this be?  Analysts are blaming their problems on the stiff competition from their rich competitors and internal mismanagement but most importantly the company’s failure to significantly update the Palm operating system.      

Palm’s flagship product the Treo which was once beloved when it arrived in the 600 model is now been stampeded by competitors like Apple and HP who feature software platforms aimed at today’s multimedia multitasking culture.   Not to mention the Treo which was once considered sleek is now much bulkier than lets say the new Blackberrys.  Although Palm is said to be building a new Operating System based on Linux its unproven and not guaranteed to be the companies savior.    

This is very bad news.  I loooooove my Treo but I can understand how tech junkies can get bored with it.  It works for me but it does have its problems.  I think the biggest problem is the fact that the Palm OS is antiquated.  I had a Palm OS Treo before my Windows model and it was very user friendly which was good and bad.  Very easy to use but was too basic for today’s mobile office person.  The most alarming limitation of Treos are their inability to handle Voice and Data simultaneously so if a call comes in while you’re sending email your device is likely to freeze.  Very frustrating.  

From a design perspective I hear Palm unveiled a new slimmer Treo 500v in Europe last week.  It’s the first significant hardware upgrade in 5 years.  A similarly thinner model called Centro is also expected to hit the U.S. soon but experts are saying it’s more an “evolutionary improvement … rather than a revolutionary device.  Bummer!