What happened to Palm - the original portable computing king?

Mike Elgan, technology writer and former editor of Windows Magazine has a Computerworld article titled: “The decline and fall of the Palm empire” (see link below).

Remember when PDA’s (personal desktop assistant) took the country by storm? The Palm Pilot quickly stood head and shoulders above the rest. It was Palm followed by the rest of the field.

It was fashionable to have one in your pocket. Even people who really didn’t know how to use them efficiently carried them. It was almost a status symbol.

The latest Palm is the Treo (top photo) trying to struggle against RIM’s succession of Blackberry (center photo) devices and other new products designed to go after the Palm Treo.

During the past year, all the major players launched Treo-killer devices, including Research in Motion [RIM] with both its BlackBerry Pearl (lower photo) and the Pearl's full-keyboard cousin, the Blackberry 8800.

Samsung's BlackJack goes directly after the Treo market. The Motorola Q is hot. Nokia, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Samsung and others are all gunning for the Treo with brand-new, full-featured smart-phone gadgets.

And then, last month, iPhone changed everything. Jobs' Mackworld keynote was like a nuclear bomb in the world of smart-phone enthusiasts.

Link here to the story of Palm’s possible path to oblivion.