Palm's Software Chief Quits

alphadogg writes "Michael Abbott, the head of Palm's software and services team, will leave the company at the end of next week, according to a regulatory filing Palm made on Friday to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He submitted his resignation on Monday and will leave the company on April 23, Palm said. The resignation came as reports surface that the struggling handset maker is seeking a buyer. Last month Palm reported disappointing results for the quarter that ended Feb. 26. Its Pre and Pixi smartphone lines, which run the WebOS operating system, are up against a growing number of smartphones using Google's Android platform as well as Apple's popular iPhone."

Re:And nothing of value was lost.

[zippthorne]

Palm didn't do the Treos, either. Those came from Handspring, which they acquired almost a decade ago.

Re:And nothing of value was lost.

[contrapunctus]

You mean the great OS that reports data back to palm? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/12/1616243/Palm-Pre-Reports-Your-Location-and-Usage-To-Palm/ [slashdot.org]

Re:ha!

[Chysn]

I used to work for Palm about 8 or 9 years ago. I was one of their higher level tech support agents and had direct contact with their software engineers. Their corporate people, like Mr Abott were a joke.

You supposedly worked at Palm way before Abbott started there in 2008. How do you know he's a joke?

Seems like an unfair assessment, is all I'm saying. I opted for the Hero over the Pre this year, but WebOS is a pretty damn slick bit of work.

Re:ha!

[charliemopps11]

I was referring to their corporate leadership, which I doubt has changed much over the years. Especially given their current state.

Re:And nothing of value was lost.

[quacking duck]

I don't usually reply to ACs, but you're already modded to +2 for a comment that's patently wrong.

5. the iTunes compatibility thing. That was rather unethical business by palm in the first place to in essence hack the phone

They didn't "hack" the phone - whatever that's supposed to mean. How far has the world come that it is now unethical, even for a technology oriented forum's standards, to interface one piece of software with another's API. If anything, it is unethical of Apple to lock out every other device out of iTunes API besides their iPods and iPhones.

This shows how much you know of the actual situation. What Palm did was a hack in the original technical sense--it was a quick and dirty solution (a "hack") to an problem, but one of their own making.

Palm *didn't* use Apple's public APIs for accessing iTunes playlists. Instead, Palm faked their devices' USB vendor and device IDs to make iTunes think an iPod had been connected. This is something expressly prohibited by the USB spec. This part of the spec had relied on the honour system rather than strictly enforced via some signed handshake, but Palm violated it, and the USB Implementers Forum which oversees the USB spec rightly slapped Palm silly for even making the complaint [slashdot.org].