After some speculation, Sony made it official today. They are not going to develop any more PalmOS PDAs for the US market. However, they will continue in Japan. They say that they will remain dedicated to small wireless communication devices such as cell phones and the PSP handheld.
Read the full story here: http://www.brighthand.com/article/sayonara_clie
Sony really led the PDA market in the last three years. They did things people never thought possible. The twist and flip screen on the NR/NX series, and the extremely compact UX series come to mind right away. Not to mention they introduced hi-resolution screens to the PalmOS, using a hacked display API to do so. Sony developed the Virtual File System (VFS) that made it possible to run programs from a memory card. Build in mp3 hardware, built in cameras… all of these things that we take for granted in today’s PalmOS handheld market was first brought to light by Sony. Just think about how much pressure PalmOne was in to release the T3 with the virtual graffiti area because Sony had been doing it for two years already. I’m almost afriad that innovation is going to slow down without a driving design force like Sony. I hope I’m wrong.