Comments on: Top Three Handheld Makers in U.S. Market All Use the Palm OS

The thing about Sony PDAs is that they don't have a "professional" feel to them. Made worse by Sony releasing a new model every 3~4 months. Seems quite evident from the new models that Sony is going for the consumer market in earnest, not the corporate market. The corporate world is in Palm's hand for now :).

Anyway, Acer has just released their PalmOS PDAs in Asia. I am quite impressed with them (http://global.acer.com/products/pda/s15.htm), so in the months ahead we can expect to hear more from Acer too.

Sony is king, Palm and Handspring are dead.<<

First off, PLEEEEEAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSEEEEEE! Don't you post this every time numbers are reported? I remember how Palm was supposed to be dead by the end of 2002. Not likely to happen, huh? Get over it.

The "Whap! Whap! Whap!" from my subject line refers to the nails being driven into Pocket PC's coffin. PPC is losing money--for Microsoft, for its licensees, and probably for those companies dumb enough to buy into it wholeheartedly. Xscale will NOT save PPC--all it will do is make a lame OS run faster and drive up the prices of new PPCs while NOT significantly lowering the prices of current PPCs. This'll be fun, watching all the PPC trolls try to explain away this one. Now if we can just get the Sony trolls to shut up...

Ummm, no. iPaq isn't making any money for Compaq. Its measly sales haven't even begun to pay back all the developments costs over the years.

Compaq doesn't lose money on each handheld it sells. The high price is enough to cover equipment costs (and discourage most buyers). But it loses money on the whole line because it doesn't make enough money to cover the development costs..

> I bet they can make several rough PDA circuitry before lunch.

So does the backlight work on these handhelds Compaq is throwing together so quickly? That would be a nice change from their current model.

www.theregus.com/content/54/24627.html

That's OK, Mr. Troll, you can get Compaq to replace it. What's that you say, Compaq WON'T replace it? You're stuck with it? Sucks to be you.

Which just goes to show that you're a TRUE PPC "troll." You've probably NEVER owned a PalmOS device, but you like to go to PalmOS sites and slam people.

"In worldwide shipments of handhelds, Palm is also in first place by a wide margin, with 39%. In second place was Compaq, with 10.1%. In third place was Handspring, with 9.9%."

3,250,000 * .475 or 47.5% = 1,543,750
3,250,000 * .146 = 474,500
3,250,000 * .108 = 351,000
3,250,000 * .086 = 279,500
3,250,000 * .05 = 162,500

Carter

MS is like apple in that it has a more advanced, more expensive product and a small market share.

Now with the fall of HP it is down to essentially a single company selling the hardware while Palm keeps picking up vendors.

Note how the penetration of WinCE is falling from 20-25% last year to 15% now.

This game is over!

The whole move towards OS5 and up was designed to go from "lawnmower" to "Porsche".
I wouldn't use these terms, however. Many people refuse to buy the Porsche because it is outperformed by the lawnmower on some critical points of performance.

The move to OS5 and up should address the remaining points. Well.... in theory anyway.

Cheers,
Jan

/*
One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.
*/

Actually, THIS is Round III, and it's a loss for PPC with PPC 2002. Round IV begins this summer with XScale overpriced toys vs. OS 5.

Joe Six Pack (which is the market that MS *MUST* convert if they ever want to dominate) doesn't need to watch Star Wars movies on his PDA. Or use Excel. Or use MS Word.

Browsing the internet is something that will be cleared up with hi-res.

Palm is the sentimental favorite.
Palm is the market favorite. (not stock market, but *THE* market).
Palm provides BENEFITS that are peceived as equivalent by Joe Six Pack as the same as MS.

Advantage : Palm

Clue up, pal.

Oh, and by the way, Palm is losing market share to Sony, and HARDLY any to PocketPC.

oh well.

What's the difference if HP stops making PPC and combines the design team and product line into iPAQ? Slight marking on top of the machine probably. For consumer market: who cares. There is always different brand.

(note: Digital line's of laptop being folded into currents Compaq's Evo after the two companies merger)

HTC is planning to release their own brand of PPC/smartphone. (they are the maker of iPAQ btw. They own the biggest handheld assembly line in the world able to crank up 2million handheld a year.)

NEC makes the late comer 300model.

Just because they are not a current player doesn't mean they are not a future player. Phillips was a big player and they are not anymore. Acer could be a big player since their model is similar to the low cost Toshiba e310. Even Samsung still stick around with WinCE for korean market with their strange product.

What's the big deal about clone? If Genio e550g is a clone of iPAQ3870 is a clone of LOOX is a clone of e310. than be it. I don't see any Palm product with 4 inch screen, 1Gig microdrive model or 128megs models with bluetooth built in. (chicklet keyboard, oh woo hee....big deal)

who need 8Meg?
-oh my gosh everybody should have 8megs, how could you live without more memory, 16Meg is great too.

Who needs color
-lookie the beautiful m505 color, everybody is dying to have it, come and get it you won't regret it..*grog*

Who need mp3?
-wow..what would Sony think up next, the ultimate PDA is here.

Next: who needs it, fast CPU, multimedia, multitasking, file system, flexible wireless.

CPU: Dragonball is cutting edge?
screen: 4inch polysilicon is here. Sharp even have a 3.7inch VGA model.
AI: handwriting recognition, voice recognition

that's just what's on the headline. Let's face it, Palm is behind in adopting technology. If Hitachi can squeeze a full feature handheld with WiFi at roughly the size of Palm, why can't Palm do the same? (that would be Xscale, new screen, new WifiModule, new battery, etc etc...)

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IDC analyst and author of the report, Alison McKenzie, predicts Palm's share will drop to 30.8 percent share in 2002 with Microsoft closing the gap at 27.9 percent. By 2003 McKenzie predicts Microsoft will overtake Palm with a virtual swap in figures: Microsoft's Win CE at 30 percent Palm falling to 27.7 percent.

The IDC report with 4 numbers is what PIC reported, not the entire IDC number. c|net has the entire Q1 figure.

With limited memory, expansion and small B/W screen, the low cost palm models are only used as electronic organizers, that's about it. It doens't create cascading demand for more complex softwares and peripherals. Okay a few freebies tetris titles and stylus replacement maybe.

your idea of PDA is like what people say about PC. What could possibly people do on PC beside Visicalc spreadsheet. And it turn out Quake is driving up the graphic technology, while internet is driving up low cost PC.

Handheld will be a carry-on data access that's for sure. And PIM being one of the early application of portable data that can easily be implemented. Soon people want to access all their data, from office works to personal entertainment files.

Will it sell widely at $600? of course not. But will PDA destined only for $99 PIM?

heh heh...

That's only in Palm's Zen realm, while the rest of the world is pushing to achieve the full portable data access.