Like JWZ, I've been a happy user of Palm products and (importantly) their un-corralled app ecosystem, since before Palms were phones. I have a Centro because I

Like JWZ, I've been a happy user of Palm products and (importantly) their un-corralled app ecosystem, since before Palms were phones. I have a Centro because I had a Treo because I had a palm pilot, AND because the app ecosystem that my Centro lives in is the same un-corralled ecosystem that it's been for years. The ecosystem is an essential part of what the product is to me. The apparent desire of Palm to embrace and confine Palm's once open ecosystem means that the Pre, which I had been looking forward to as another shiny Palm device, is now for me just another piece of noise like the iPhone. As a customer I'm not interested in a closed ecosystem, and I'm beginning to realize that in the end the thing in my pocket is just a phone and I can get a really cheap one (with text!) from Cricket. If I need a restaurant or movie somewhere, I can look it up before I get there, and I can listen to my own farts in the elevator without having to buy them from Steve Jobs or his counterpart at Palm. So Palm's task is to figure out whether they'll make enough money on apps to make up for lost phone sales from people like me. Because in the end, they have no responsibility to customers, employees or outside developers; their only responsibility is to shareholders. And if they decide to go with a closed system, then like Jean Kirkpatrick, I will wave fondly as they sail into the sunset, and look wistfully at the Palm devices in my sock drawer.