(image courtesy of Engadget)

Remember back when Palm was the king of the mobile devices?  Back in the days before the iPhone and Windows Mobile.  In fact, for those of you who can remember that far back (all the way to the late 1990′s) Palm essentially invented the palmtop computer.  Of course, since that time, Palm has taken quite a tumble and has long since ceded its king of the hill status to Windows Mobile. 

So, is it to late for Palm to climb back up to the top of the slagheap and regain its throne?  Engadget seems to think it can be done, however, it will take a lot of work to do so.  To help Palm along, they have offered to stage an intervention designed to steer them back to the right path.  Among Engadget’s recommendations are:

• Make it Thin — this should have a big "Duh!" next to it.  Ever since Motorola gave us the RAZR, the Windows Mobile industry has turned into a bunch of anorexics.  Everyone is shooting to be the thinnest, and if Palm doesn’t start keeping up with that trend, they will begin to look (let alone act) like the long dead dinosaurs.
• Add Wifi — come on, Palm, seriously, my MP3 player has Wifi.  What is the holdup here?
• Better Apps  — This was actually the subject of several bullets, including better multimedia, better web browsing, and better out of the box experience (to name a few).  Read together, it all adds up to better apps out of the box.
• Tell us what you are up to – Why is everything about the Treo 800w such a secret?  Will it won’t it?  To be honest, I gave up trying to figure out what the new specs would be and bought a Mogul.  Why?  Because I knew exactly what I was getting.  I am not going to wait around for almost a year to find that none of the rumored specs were true.  So, come on Palm, tell us what you are doing.  Advertise.  Look at the buzz generated by the iPhone.  Take a page out of the Apple manual and hire some great marketing and PR firms to get the word out so that people will line up around the block for the Treo the way they did for the iPhone.

Of course, there are plenty more "suggestions" in the full Engadget article, which is really a very good read.  Check out the full list, here.

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