Palm Desktop is a personal information manager

Personal information manager

A personal information manager is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to Personal information management as a field of study...

 computer program for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 or Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

/Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 and can be used alone or in combination with a Palm OS

Palm OS

Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

 personal digital assistant

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

.

Features

Palm Desktop contains four main modules which correspond to the four main modules of the original Palm Pilot:

• Contacts, analogous to index cards in a rolodex
  Rolodex
  A Rolodex is a rotating file device used to store business contact information currently manufactured by Newell Rubbermaid. The Rolodex holds specially shaped index cards; the user writes the contact information for one person or company on each card...
  
   or address book
  Address book
  An address book or a name and address book is a book or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields...
  
  
• Calendar information as discrete or repeating appointments
• Tasks, sortable by priority, date or category in task lists
• Notes, for reference materials, memoranda or journal
  Diary
  A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
  
   entries

Palm Desktop ships with all current Palm devices, and it can synchronize with a variety of devices using Palm's HotSync software. It is also available as a free download and can be used as a standalone application on personal computers. The Macintosh version has a much more sophisticated interface and many more options inherited from its history as Claris Organizer, including extensive printing capabilities for mailing labels and printed pages in various sizes of paper organizer.

History

The original Macintosh and Windows versions were similar, until 3COM

3Com

3Com was a pioneering digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw...

 purchased the Claris Organizer

Claris Organizer

Claris Organizer is a personal information management software program for the Mac OS that Claris acquired from a small company called Trio Development and sold during the 1990s. Trio Development was founded by James Harker, Jack Welde and Joseph Ansanelli , afterward joined by Seth Odam...

, a Mac-only product, from Claris

Claris

Claris was a computer software developer formed as a spin-off from Apple Computer in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several programs that were owned by Apple, notably MacWrite and MacPaint, in order to separate Apple's application software activities from its hardware and...

 and rebranded it as Palm Desktop 2. Interestingly, the four modules of Claris Organizer had influenced some of the original Palm developers, who were familiar with it from earlier work on the Macintosh.

Synchronizing with Palm Pre

Palm Pre

The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...

 : some external companies made it possible .

Since last release (2008) and external company made a software to extend features of the software (Agendus for Windows ).

Last release

Palm Desktop 6.2 for Windows Vista was released on January 15, 2008. It works with the following Windows versions:

• Windows Vista - Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate (32-bit editions)
• Windows XP Home and Professional (32-bit editions)
• Windows Media Center Edition 2005

This versions is not compatible with the following:

• 64-bit editions of Windows for USB cable sync! Therefore, you have to use other options like serial port, infrared, WiFi or BlueTooth to HotSync.
• Windows Server or Tablet PC

Palm Desktop 6.2 is also not compatible with computers featuring multiple CPUs; however, it is compatible with multi-core CPUs.
Users that decide to upgrade to Palm Desktop 6.2 should know that this version does not support color coding of events in the calendar application.

Linux support

Palm does not provide a version of the software for Linux operating system, nor do they officially support the ones developed by third parties such as:

• J-Pilot
  J-Pilot
  J-Pilot is an open source GTK+-based desktop organizer for Unix-like systems written by Judd Montgomery, designed to work with Palm OS-based handheld PDAs. It uses the pilot-link libraries to communicate with Palm devices...
  
  
• Gnome-Pilot
• ColdSync (stopped in 2005)
• PilotManager (stopped in 2006)
• Kpilot