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Safely ignore Palm database - if you live outside USA

Palm Computing has maintained its reputation for missing the point of GSM, by announcing a "Smart Client" database package, which only works on the US-only version of Palm, the model i705. Astonishingly, it supports PocketPCs better than European Palms.

The announcement has baffled Europeans in particular, who see the market leader as badly needing a credible wireless access solution in the corporate database arena, where Compaq's iPaq and H-P's Jornada are rapidly eating into that leadership.

The new software is Palm's first "open" handheld software that can support development of a single application that can be deployed to a Palm Powered(TM) or a Microsoft Pocket PC device. Palm is releasing WDBAS developer seats now, and will be make a WDBAS Enterprise Edition available later this year. The Enterprise Edition will include deployment licenses and additional advanced features.

The product is the Wireless Database Access Server (WDBAS) - and it's a tool, for developers in IT departments -- or Systems Integrators -- who need to create wireless applications that access corporate databases in real time.

Or, it would be, if it worked on Palm platforms generically. It would make Palm a credible player in the wireless Web services market, where Information Builders currently sells the BlackBerry from Research In Motion (RIM) and where Handspring sells the GSM-enabled Treo in conjunction with Genie (MMo2 or Cellnet).

Palm says that WDBAS is the second element of Palm's enterprise software strategy, following the introduction of the Palm(TM) i705 Wireless Messaging Solution for enterprises in late January. That, too, doesn't work outside the north of America.

What makes this even more baffling is that Palm refers to these two products as "Strategic, open elements of our Wireless Enterprise Strategy."

WDBAS "lets software developers use familiar Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) -- such as AppForge and Metrowerks' CodeWarrior -- to develop mobile applications and extend them so that remote users can access corporate data wirelessly."

No question but that this is a popular requirement. The fashion for Web services means that in-office workers are becoming "hooked" on timely updates of critical information - stock shortages, share price changes, price adjustments, critical alerts. Increasingly, it's perceived as vital that mobile workers have access to this same instant-update services.

Companies like Peramon offer SMS and GPRS-based solutions over GSM phone services, pushing email and critical reports out to specific users from the corporate IT database.

Palm clearly sees the gap in the market. The familiar IDEs in WDBAS would let developers create "smart client" applications "that are optimized for wireless, and take full advantage of real-time database access;" says Palm, but it then goes on to claim, wrongly: "This is unique, and contrasts with other approaches that are only sync- or browser-oriented."

Palm has promised to explain its wireless strategy to the Newswireless Net when a suitable spokesman can be found.

In the meantime, we pass on this quote from a market researcher: "Having real-time access to live data can be the difference between business intelligence and business lost. While mobile applications written to use synchronized snapshots of archived data can offer definite business value, live database access is the next step and crucial in maximizing the potential of most applications," -a quote attributed to Adam Braunstein, senior research analyst with Robert Frances Group, an IT advisory and consultancy firm based in Westport, Conn. (www.rfgonline.com).

"Palm, Inc.'s WDBAS has the capability to help IT executives enable smarter decisions with customer relationship management [CRM], e-commerce, enterprise resource planning [ERP], sales force automation [SFA], and many line of business [LOB] applications," says the official announcement, still quoting Braunstein.

The Wireless Database Access Server for developers is available now in the United States from two sources:

· Metrowerks has bundled it with CodeWarrior Enterprise Edition CD for the Palm OS(R) platform; it can be purchased from www.metrowerks.com/specialoffer/palmee/.

· AppForge has it available for use with Visual Basic; it can be downloaded at www.appforge.com. Additional information about the Wireless Database Access Server (WDBAS) can be found at www.palm.com/enterprise.