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Wednesday was the final day of the Sprint Open Developers Conference.  The day included two keynote speeches and some breakout sessions.  I’ll wrap up everything with my thoughts on the conference. Note: This is the third part of my coverage of the conference, don’t miss parts one and two.

The morning began with a very long session on Google’s Android.  It included sections on the Android Market, targeting multiple screen sizes and densities (pixels per inch) and speeding up Android applications.  One thing that struck me in all this is the difference in app development styles between webOS and Android.  There’s no doubt that Android provides some very powerful tools for application development.  However, the HTML/CSS/JavaScript approach that Palm has chosen neatly sidesteps many of the pitfalls discussed.  That said, there are likely some good ideas in Android for Palm to look at, particularly as it comes to immersive applications that need very specific pixel placement.

I chose the attend the Cisco breakout event titled Business Transformation:  Sprint / Cisco Mobility & Unified Communications Solutions.  I can assure you it wasn’t how the title rolls off the tongue that attracted me.  This session was of interest to me because my ‘day job’ involves using Cisco equipment to develop bar code and RFID solutions for business.  Cisco and Sprint have a very strong relationship, with Sprint having (if I understood correctly) 100% of its infrastructure based on Cisco equipment.  They have worked together to provide seamless solutions for telephony.  Their system allows customers to be able to transfer calls between desk phones and mobile phones, allows for DID to cell phones and allows for cell phones to display the caller ID of the main business number.  Cisco has a developer program available, though be prepared to open your wallet:  $3,500 for the basic badged level.  Clearly, if you’re not making Cisco a major part of your business you will not be joining this program.  Even for my business, I cannot justify the cost.  However, for those who do join the program, there are a number of benefits, including technical, marketing and sales support.  I did not win the Fliq HD video camera they gave away.

Going on concurrently was a session titled App Stores and Sprint.  In it Sprint made it clear that they were not going to be standing in the way of the app distribution models of the major smart phones, once again setting themselves apart from competitors.

Following lunch was Palm’s keynote speech, delivered by Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith.  If you were expecting any announcements about future direction I am sorry to disappoint.  However, what they did do was paint a very compelling picture about the future of the Web and, by extension, mobile devices.  They both stressed that as the Web has evolved the browser’s interface has become less important than the content and that the browser’s internals have improved.  As things continue to evolve the Web will get more interaction with the users’ data and will have more power to process and display it.  What excites Ben and Dion is how Palm has embraced this future by enabling all these technologies on webOS.  As Ben said:  “The Web has already won.”

After Palm’s keynote speech Jason Mackenzie of HTC took the stage.   HTC, for those who don’t know, is the largest manufacturer of Windows Mobile and Android phones.  Jason definitely was there to toot HTC’s horn and their marketing people did a good job.  He told us the HTC is launching a global ad campaign that started Thursday, so expect to see a lot from HTC.  If you’re interested in developing on the HTC check out:  http://developer.htc.com, just don’t expect to see much yet.

HTC demoed their HTC Sense add-on to Android.  One thing HTC Sense allows for is widgets to customize the Android desktop.  This sort of simple customization is something that Palm should look at adding to webOS.  A simple widget API with a packaging scheme to allow the user to customize the desktop would be nice.  I can see this working with the current card paradigm without too much difficulty.

I decided to skip out on the next breakout session as nothing appealed to me and the opportunity to talk with other webOS developers was a big draw.  The very last breakout session was Rick Boatright’s session titled: webOS and the Open Source Community.  This was one I was particularly looking forward to.  For those who don’t know, Rick is one of the more respected members of the webOS development community and plays a major role in webOS-Internals.  Rick talked about how quickly the webOS community gathered, saying it was the fastest he’s ever seen a community come together.  He talked about how webOS-Internals was one of the first open source communities for webOS and how they helped guide the adoption of a standard feed system built on the .ipk format that Palm uses.  One of the benefits of the standardized feed system is that apps, such as Preware, can be used to install apps that otherwise might not be able to appear in Palm’s App Catalog.  Preware can also be used to install system patches and themes, the most popular of which, he says, has been the on-screen keyboard patch.  Next, he discussed resources available to webOS developers, including webOS-Internals, our site here, our sister site webOS 101 and webOS School.

One of the themes of Rick’s talk was that open source is a way to give something to the community and get back much more than you put in.  He finished up by saying that Palm gets this.  His proof is that Palm has hired Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, two open source luminaries.  He next said “Sprint gets this.”  His proof there was that Sprint asked him to attend the conference to speak specifically about open source.  He also added mention of all the open API’s that Sprint has provided.  His final words were:  “Developers should get this.”  Very wise words and well spoken.  If you are a developer and looking to participate in the knowledge sharing please join all of us in the webOS IRC chat, as outlined in Palm’s recent post.

Following the last session, several webOS developers gathered in the adjacent hotel and talked shop for a bit.  Then, it was time to hop into a taxi, train, plane and car to get home.  After an exhausting red-eye flight back from California I’m ready to tackle even more webOS development.

Here are my final thoughts on the conference:  I’m impressed with what Sprint has done.  I never thought of a network provider as having a role in development.  Sprint has done a remarkable job of trying to become more open and transparent.  I’m not sure that this has yet done anything that trickles down to the end-user, as evidenced by their customer loss lately.  Next, I’m really happy that Palm was one of the sponsors of this event.  That said, I think Palm could have taken better advantage of the opportunity to reach developers from the other platforms.  Allowing your coding session to be placed opposite the Android session where HTC gave out 400 or so free phones was clearly a bad move, especially since no phones were given out by Palm.  Add to that that Palm gave no forward-looking information from the conference.  They didn’t even announce the upcoming release of the Pixi, which was made public opening day.  Still, at the end of the day, for me, the biggest thing was that Palm made available their people.  This conference was a fantastic opportunity to meet developers, content providers, Sprint and the people behind the phones on Sprint’s network.  Most of all, it was an opportunity to meet other webOS developers I’ve only spoken to online.  To me, that was priceless.