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Final Post Direct from PalmSource DevCon

Posted on May 26, 2005
Filed Under PalmSource DevCon 2005 |

It’s all over.

I am absolutely shattered. If I could have split in two by a horrible transporter accident, I could have covered twice as much and still not met everyone I wanted to, or talked to the hundreds of interesting people that All About Palm can help and be helped by. So rather than a great big summary of DevCon (you’ll find that over at All About Palm) I want to throw out a few personal thank yous. I’m not going to get round everyone, so apologies if you�re not here and you did help me out - I really do appreciate all the support All About Palm has had from the Palm OS Community, I just want to highlight a few people here.

Chris Dunphy of PalmSource has been an absolutely fantastic personal contact. From our initial discussions and ideas on All About Palm back in London, October 2004, to helping me jump through the last few time-critical hoops last week as I was preparing to leave Edinburgh, thank you. Without Chris it’s probably fair to say that All About Palm wouldn�t have happened. I hope the two bottles of Deuchars IPA will be appreciated!

Also in PalmSource, Maureen O’Connell and Gabi Schindler kept us right on that all important use of the word Palm in the URL. I’ve worked out now why the paperwork for the Palm mark was/is delayed.

Michael Mace, PalmSource’s Chief Competitive Officer, gets a massive thank you. Chris said he’d try to get him to mention the URL in his closing keynote - the final session of the Conference. Given this is the one that almost everyone attends, a URL mention would have been fantastic. Michael, in the end gave us first place in “other things I need to mention,” the top half of a slide (which was just ours for a transition or two), and a good minute or two on why our site is wonderful. Summary: I love these guys and what they are doing. All About Palm carry news and reviews and articles, it’s a new route to all of you to get to customers, and it’s moderated so there aren’t any 14 year old trolls. That last point got a massive cheer.

John Iasulio, Michael Ashby, Rich Vance and Quintin Jones Jr from The Computer Outlook Talk Radio were amazing. They were broadcasting on over 80 affiliate AM and FM talk radio stations throughout the USA live from DevCon, along with a huge number of 15-20 minute spots throughout the day that were podcasted and streamed from both their site and PalmSource’s official blog. Natural PR junkie that I am, I managed to get one of those fifteen minute spots. It magically turned out that I became adopted as one of the co-host/analysts for the rest of the DevCon, including three days of national radio coverage from their live nightly show.

Howard Tomlinson from Astraware gets an honourable mention not because of Bejewelled (although the story of how that started will be in my podcast over at The Mobiles Show next week), but because of the strange looks we should have been getting as we quoted obscure areas of Monty Python and The Two Ronnies. I suspect that the Americans would be wondering why we were creasing with laughter simply because one of us asked for some “fork handles” and “bull hooks.”

Alex, Colin and the guys from Aceeca. Typical New Zealanders, they brought a gross of crates of beer, Cadbury’s Chocolate Fish, and the ‘Virtual Sheep Shearing” competition. The second they spotted the kilt, they wanted me in that competition and into the final (which was going to be on the main stage). I did (equalling the record of 19 in the process) before crashing out in the final with an absolutely dreadful 35. I blame the lighting�.

Short mentions go to Iain Barclay of Electric Pocket, who I’m going to be glad to touch up for some review copies of Busker now I’ve caught up with his move into the Palm space. Rob from Hobbyist Software proved that the bedroom coder is still alive and well. Chuck Horner from one of the many Palm User Groups for his passion.

Thanks go to some people who weren’t at the conference, namely Jody Armstrong, Dave Rushall and Suw (’you have a girl writing for you!’) Charman back in Blighty who not only kept an eye on all the press releases pouring out of DevCon for All About Palm, but ensured that when everyone awoke bleary idea for the first keynote on Tuesday, All About Palm was so far ahead of the news curve that when the stage announced news it was already on All About Palm. I don�t think any of us will ever realise just how much coding work Rafe Blandford did for the site, but the Herculean effort he put into the site in the week before launch made everything possible. I wish you guys could have seen the looks and smiles in people’s eyes when they called up the site on their browser, found all the news and views, and then discovered the mobile version right after that.

And thank you ever so much to Vikki, who realises (just as I do) that I do need to go away on business for a week at a time. It doesn�t make it any easier emotionally to leave, but to have such strong support from my family is the most important thing in the world. Three more sleeps and I’m home again…