My new roll was announced today at PalmSource. 

Here is an email that I sent around announcing the change:

I wanted to let all of you know that my 4+ year stint as PalmSource’s Director of Competitive Analysis is coming to a close.

For the past four years, I have served as the eyes and ears and long range radar of first Palm, and now PalmSource.  And as you know, I’ve also been a tireless advocate of the importance of users and applications to the Palm Economy.

I’ve often felt like the guy way up in the crow’s nest of an old sailing ship – shouting down “land ho” and “beware, pirates off the starboard bow!” to the crew working below.  But one bright star on the horizon has always captivated me more than any other – and that has been the potential for the Palm Economy to really blossom into an amazing ecosystem where it is easy for users to find the perfect applications to make their devices truly their own; and for developers to be able to easily profit from the joy they bring into the lives of users.

This is truly the place where Palm OS has the potential to rise above all of our competitors.  We still have more developers and better apps than any other mobile platform.  But what we need to do now is make it vastly easier to get applications into the hands of users, and potentially even more important – we need to make it easier to get money into the pockets of developers. 

If we do this right, I see the potential for a supernova in the Palm Economy that will leave Symbian and Microsoft and all the proprietary “smart” platforms in the dust.

This past year (in my spare time) I have been the driving force and visionary behind the PalmSource Installer project – the first step towards this better future.  And though it is just a first step along the road, since we launched it last month at our Munich DevCon we’ve gotten some amazing feedback from developers and carriers alike. 

What started off as a skunk-works project is now going mainstream – and it needs a full-time shepherd.

Effective this week, I will be leaving Michael Mace’s employ and I will be coming down from my crow’s nest to join PalmSource’s Product Marketing team to take on working towards this vision as my primary job.  I will be leading PalmSource’s effort to improve every phase of  the application lifecycle – including application discovery, purchase, activation, upgrades, management, sharing, new device migration, and uninstall.

I will also be responsible for working out the issues around the lifecycle of the entire device as well – from purchase onward, including easing the user experience of moving from an old device to a new device.  I will also be working on a great “provisioning” experience for Palm OS smartphones in order to make the initial setup of new devices simple and intuitive with no PC required.

I’m excited about this change.  It is a profound shift to move from yelling “go that way” to being the one at the helm charting a course.

 I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

              - chris

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My ex-boss is now looking to fill my old job.  He is the most amazing person I have ever worked for, and it is in many ways the best job within the company.  Hell, perhaps within the entire mobile technology industry….  You get paid to play with all the latest toys and technologies, travel the world, dig up secrets, and predict the future.  I must be a fool for giving such a sweet gig up.  ;-)

Anyway – leads appreciated.  Here are the details:

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Duties/Responsibilities: You'll keep the pulse of the mobile industry: track competitive software and devices, sleuth out competitive plans, and test competitive products to identify advantages and disadvantages. You let us know where the competition's going, and guide us on what to do and say about it.

Qualifications: You burn with technolust for mobile products. You think about them all the time, and you love to play with them. You enjoy a good marketing battle, and are not intimidated by competing against big companies like Microsoft and Nokia (in fact, you enjoy it). You have very good knowledge of the mobile device market, with wireless/phone experience a major plus. You know the difference between a cool bag of technologies and a truly useful product.

Skills/Experience: Outstanding presentation and written skills are mandatory. Experience in journalism would be extremely useful. You don't have to be an engineer, but some level of software technical knowledge is a big plus. This position may be a director or manager based on the experience level of the person hired.

Education: MBA or equivalent experience required, but in this job, experience is more impressive than education.