(Last edited March 17, 2008)

Thanks for visiting Palm Discovery

One of the fun parts of doing a Palm blog is that I get to “meet” people (at least virtually) in the Palm community and I keep saying over and over again. It’s a GREAT community. I get so much support from this community that I felt that I wanted to give some back to it, thus, why I started this blog.

Recently, I was able to get in contact with Jan Slodicka, the developer and head of the Palm division of Resco. If you are not familiar with Resco, they develop a great set of programs for the Palm, Pocket PC, Windows smartphone, and Symbian devices. I’m always amazed at how they keep coming up with more and better features to already perfect programs, but they do. For the Palm OS, Resco has produced Resco Explorer, Resco Backup, Resco Locker (freeware), Resco Photo Viewer, Resco Sudoku, World Cup Mobile 2006, Resco Neeews, Resco IDGuard, Resco BackupPro

Most of these titles and much more are also available on the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile platform: Utility Package, Media Suite, Brain Suite, Action Suite, Explorer 2007, Photo Viewer 2007, Pocket Radio, Audio Recorder, Keyboard Pro, Backup, Sudoku, Table Soccer, Guardians, Diamonds, and many more.

For the upcoming Palm Discovery one year anniversary (Oct 16), Resco will be donating a few copies of their programs for Palm Discovery contest. I want to take this opportunity to thank Jan and the Resco team for their support and software donations! Stay tuned for information on the upcoming contest in a future Palm Discovery posting!

So, I took the opportunity to ask Jan a few questions about his opinion on the Palm OS and Palm in general. Here’s the interview:

1 - What is your programming background and how did you get started with Resco?

We all started with Windows programming. Then some of my guys noticed that Microsoft was starting a handheld platform (Windows CE at that time) and they decided to try their luck. They started a new company (Resco) and experienced all kinds of starter problems. At that time, Palm was #1 and since they weren’t sure how the battle will turn out, they offered me to start up the Palm division. After some hesitation, I accepted. Today the situation reversed and now Palm is far behind Microsoft.

2 - What motivates you to update and create new programs for the Palm and other portable platforms?

Of course, we do it for our living. But that’s only part of the answer: If
that was all, we would have more less capable applications and probably more
money. Instead, we strive for perfection and keep improving. Simply it makes
us fun. (But I also hope that this attitude will pay off in the future.)

3 - With all the negative opinions about the Palm OS biting the dust, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think that the Palm OS is dead? Will you continue to develop programs for the Palm if that happens?

If Palm were dead, it would make no sense to develop Palm programs. I have a theory: Market size is unimportant (as long as there’s a guaranteed threshold size or market share). What matters is the market dynamics. PPC is growing and attracting more programmers. If it stopped growing, the companies would start having financial problems. Palm is in decline and companies are leaving, as they cannot make enough money for a living. There is no equilibrium between PPC and Palm. We see it in-house and it is clear that in case of equivalent programs the PPC version will make substantially more money than the Palm version. I believe that future developments will converge to a new equilibrium where PPC/Palm markets will have different size, but will offer similar developer revenues.

4 - Besides programming and related work, what are some of your favorite activities and hobbies?

Reading - especially historical novels, travel, tennis, squash

5 - Are there anything else you’d like to say to the Palm readers and the community as a whole?

Heads up, it’s just a game. Mobile computing needs more players. It was good
that Microsoft entered this market as it brought Palm under pressure. It is also good that the other platforms are entering the game. In the end, the main winner will be the user.

Thanks again, Jan, for taking time out to answer the questions for the Palm Discovery blog and provide us with your thoughts on the Palm and the future. I am glad to hear that Jan has given a somewhat positive outlook on Palm and how Resco will continue to support Palm. It will be interesting how the future develops. It’s always interesting to get the “developer’s” perspective as they are an important insight on how things are behind the scenes.

Resco makes a great set of Palm programs that work very well. Please take a moment to check them out at Resco.net and support future developments by purchasing their great programs.

Alternatively, you can also check out all the various titles available at Handango (and help support Palm Discovery with your purchase there as I am an affiliate of Handango)

Resco Palm OS software

Resco Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket PC) software

Resco Windows Mobile Smartphone (Classic/non-touch screen) software

Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or Palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is guilty of copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.

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