From My Perspective, Mar 25

Time to Get Rid of the Palm Desktop

One of palmOne's key strategic drivers is to increase the appeal of its handheld/PDA line in the enterprise. It's working on a range of initiatives to do so. Here's my 2 cents worth ... born of recent experience (frustration?) with a new Tungsten: Get rid of the Palm Desktop, make HotSync Manager more intuitive, and streamline synchronization with the user's default email program (in enterprise accounts, Outlook or Notes in 90% of cases). Here's why:

• Palm Desktop: This product is an irrelevant waste of time for an enterprise user. They don't need it and won't use it ... so don't force the user to install it. If there are key components in Palm Desktop required for sync, then fix HotSync Manager (see next).


• HotSync Manager: HotSync Manager needs a major revamp. There are two places I have to go to configure settings ... HotSync Manager itself, and the right (or is it left) click context menu on HotSync Manager while it's in my system tray. Make them one. And don't make the default option in HotSync Manager whether I want it to start-up automagically when I start Windows ... I'm only going to look at that screen once or twice a year at the most. Give me a sensible list of conduit settings instead.


• Sync to Outlook or Notes: Yes, Palm now ships Outlook sync conduits with its devices, but these need to be installed after Palm Desktop and a variety of other things, and from a separate menu. It's easy to miss them. The first screen after "thanks for spending mega-bucks to buy our latest gadget" should ask to what I want to sync it with ... after a scan of the system to see what appropriate software I have available. In terms of out-of-the-box sync conduits, Outlook and Notes sync support is critical to deliver. Those are the products most in use in the enterprise.