Having worked for Palm for as long as I did (and having managed the desktop software team), I’ve continue to stick with Palm Desktop to keep track of my contacts, calendar and so on. Today it crashed on me, so I clicked Yes to send the error report to Microsoft. I know there’s no one at Palm that will ever pick up these crash reports, but it’s an old habit.
The Microsoft Windows Error Reporting site gave this summary of my problem:
This problem was caused by Palm Desktop. Palm Desktop was created by PalmSource, Inc.. Microsoft has been unable to contact the manufacturer and has no further information available at this time.
Ouch! Even better was their final recommendation:
If you are unable to fix this problem and continue to receive errors, you can also remove Palm Desktop.
If you want to get a glimpse of the current level of support, check out the Palm Desktop download page. I challenge you to make sense of all the notes and caveats on that page. Don’t even think about running it on Vista — it’s not supported.
I guess Palm Desktop is getting near the end of its useful life. Maybe we’ll all just switch to Outlook and get it over with.