For the uninitiated, Palm Source is a conference hosted by Palm Computing and their partners in the Santa Clara Convention Center. To those in the know, it is Mecca. It is the destination at the end of the pilgrimage that is developing--and running small business based on--software for the Palm OS. At PalmSource you have the who's who and the what's new, the struggling new developer and the potentially more struggling Fortune 500 technology company.

They are united here, if anywhere, in the excitement surrounding Palm-powered handhelds and Palm is doing a great job, in my opinion, of promoting that. You see a wide variety of sessions, some are for the entrepreneur looking to expand their business into new markets that Palm has identified and some are for hard-core techies to have access to Palm OS Engineers (marked by their black-labeled badges), or even, as almost everyone reported, to the market insights of Claudia Schiffer.

All of that variety and all of the logistics of hosting and feeding that many people and catering to their many interests, meetings, and recreations makes it hard to get a handle on what is going on. Luckily, there are a number of locations for downloading the conference map and guide offered by Petaluma-based NearSpace. Who says technology lives in the south Bay?

The Gemeinschaft of PalmSource is developers and the marketing cadres traditional at conferences definitely live in an awkward and sometimes stark contrast with the indigenous that bodes interesting and unexpected times as this market matures. Large companies, like Sybase, IBM, and Motorola (to name a few) are relative newcomers and seem focused on extending traditional products and services to the platform, typically through wireless solutions. For most of the attendees, though, the draw is the challenge to bring their obsession to market. To make money doing what they love and get others to buy-in to and support that personal artifex. As PalmGear's Kenny West said to me, "You've gotta be an enthusiast to be a success." I can think of no better proofing stone when looking for what's cool at PalmSource.

More tomorrow!

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