PalmGear Consumer's Choice Awards

PalmGear announced the winners of the PalmGear Consumer’s Choice Awards aboard the Norwegian Sun during a 7-day Western Caribbean cruise. The PalmGear “Decaffeinated” Premier Partner cruise consisted of top Palm OS developers, e-Book publishers, PalmSource representatives and other industry personnel.

The PalmGear Consumer’s Choice awards were designed to honor those developers and applications that best exhibit the power and flexibility of Palm Powered devices. The awards were voted on by PUG (Palm User Groups) as well as consumers through industry forums. Each winner will be awarded a beautiful glass and marble trophy, additional promotion on the PalmGear site and special onsite recognition as a PalmGear Consumer’s Choice award winner.

The winners in each category were:

  • Legend Award – Handmark
  • Developer of the Year – Astraware
  • Best New Developer – Snapperfish
  • Best Overall Application – Quick Office by Mobility Electronics (formerly know as Cutting Edge Software)
  • Best Use of Technology – AcidImage by Red Mercury
  • Best Use of Graphics – Dynomite by Astraware
  • Best New Concept - SlideFree by PocketScience

The Legend Award presented to Handmark is the first of its kind for the Palm OS industry and signifies the contributions they have made within the industry. “We are excited about the honor bestowed upon us by such an important group of industry luminaries. We look forward to our continued partnership with PalmGear and growing the Palm OS further with opportunities in the handheld mobile market" said Cassidy Lackey, vice president of Engineering for Handmark.

The Developer of the Year award was presented to Astraware for showing the greatest understanding of the Palm User’s needs through product development, product updating and customer relations. The Astraware team also won the Best Use of Graphics award for their product Dynomite which takes full advantage of the graphic capabilities of the Palm OS.

The Best New Developer went to newcomer Snapperfish whose application Snappermail allows for wireless email including attachments. “In the less than two years since Snapperfish was conceived, we’ve seen incredible growth which has been something quite special.” commented Will Lau, Snapperfish company director.

SlideFree by Pocket Science won the Best New Concept award for their innovative product for the Tungsten T that allows access to all the buttons on the silk screen which is obscured by the slider when closed. "The credit for SlideFree must be shared with the users. The regular feedback from users on what can help improve their Palm OS experience is crucial in ensuring products like SlideFree maintain their relevance.

Mobility Electronics (formerly know as Cutting Edge Software) won the Best Overall Application for their iGo Quickoffice Premier product which allows Palm OS handheld users direct access to native Microsoft Office (Microsoft® Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) email attachments and native office files saved to removable memory expansion cards.

Red Mercury took the Best Use of Technology award for AcidImage which is the essential image viewing application for Palm-Powered handhelds and combines the latest technology with ease-of-use so digital images can be viewed anytime, anywhere.

“Palm application developers are the heart of the Palm Economy,” said Pam Parish, vice president of marketing for PalmGear, Inc. “Everyday the Palm OS development community continues to push the limits of Palm OS platform in efforts to bring users the best experience, flexibility and usability from their handheld devices. It is a pleasure to honor the best of the best with this year’s Consumer’s Choice Awards.”

PalmGear plans to reward their best developers again next year with another soon to be announced PalmGear Decaffeinated event where the 2nd annual Consumer’s Choice Awards will be handed out.

Article Comments

 (15 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Comments Closed Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.

Down

Quickoffice?????

javylsu @ 10/27/2003 4:29:09 PM #
I don't know about you, but Docs to Go (specifically 6.0) blows Quickoffice out of the water; but that's just my opinion.

RE: Quickoffice?????
noshow @ 10/27/2003 5:11:59 PM #
I agree HANDS DOWN!!!! Not even close. Just goes to show you what really drives these gimmicks... $$$.

No Show
Palm Tungsten T, iambic Agendus, Vaja 924 FlipTop Case, Palm UltraThin Keyboard, SonyEricson T68i
RE: Quickoffice?????
JKingGrim @ 10/27/2003 5:20:04 PM #
DTG6 has been released very recently. Maybe there just wasn't time to catch up with QuickOffice sales.

RE: Quickoffice?????
Patrick @ 10/27/2003 10:12:31 PM #
I do believe Quickoffice was first to market by quite a bit with a suite of native-file format tools. This in spite of the fact that they face a very uphill battle against a competitor which is delivered to every customer in the box.

I dislike these charade competitions as much as the next guy, but you might want to cut the folks who make Quickoffice some slack. DTG does have some fine tools, but at least Quickoffice doesn't put up a #$*#@?& splash screen each time you start it up. That kind of behaviour only tells me that a company thinks more about their right to market you than they do about your time.

RE: Quickoffice?????
a3 @ 10/28/2003 7:38:13 AM #
I remember an interview published by PIC with one of the guys from DataViz (DCTG producer), he said that they had thought about office native file and then they woke up from that one... This comment is not an award winning comment because it lacks award winning attitude!
Maybe he was just taking the heat off. Nevertheless there is one fact that we can not forget: Quickoffice has been the first to innovate almost every time (320x320 support, 320x480 support, native file support). Hopefully they will bring in real time sync as PPC has...

____________________________________________
Former Tapwave's Helix fan, now a T|T3 fan.
RE: Quickoffice?????
Quaffy @ 10/28/2003 11:23:13 AM #
a3,

Check the record, bud...
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=4107

Pretty irresponsible of you to attribute an arrogant quote from QuickOffice incorrectly to DATAVIZ! (and state it as fact). I was alarmed and then checked since I've had nothing but great experiences with theyre software and support.

RE: Quickoffice?????
VisorMiser @ 10/29/2003 7:16:54 AM #
QuickOffice native support was first to market for the sake of being first to market. Maybe DTG and WordSmith adopted a BEST-to-market strategy. The fact is that native support is an over-rated "bell & whistle", the document conversion process in DTG, QO, and WordSmith is more than adequate for most documents that POS users want to edit/create on the go. I've heard little regarding QuickOffice native support performance that would tempt me to try it.

BTW, so far all new versions/updates of WordSmith have been free to registered users.

the VisorMiser
_____________________________________________________________________
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. -- Sir Winston Churchill

RE: Quickoffice?????
a3 @ 11/19/2003 10:08:54 AM #
Quaffy:

You are right. I am sorry for this, as a matter of fact after posting the comment I thought that I should have looked up the article instead of rely exclusively on my memory. I delayed and then forgot the issue.

Sorry again and thanks for your help.

____________________________________________
Former Tapwave's Helix fan, now a T|T3 fan.

They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?

The Ugly Truth @ 10/27/2003 4:43:06 PM #
PalmGear announced the winners of the PalmGear Consumer’s Choice Awards aboard the Norwegian Sun during a 7-day Western Caribbean cruise.

I wonder if some of the profits taken from all those part time developers (that had marketed their apps on PalmGear and never got paid) went towards paying for PalmGear's little "cruise". If I was owed money by PalmGear, I wouldn't be too amused by this story...

Sometimes the truth just isn't pretty™

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
htomlinson @ 10/27/2003 6:17:59 PM #
(figures here are approximate but relevant)
According to the info for the ship, the rooms onboard will have cost between $1k and $3k. To qualify would take upwards of $30k in sales. The Premier Partners pay 10% more than the base percentage, and so its arguable that the developers that had attended had more than paid for themselves in terms of the higher revenue to PG.
Whether its the best use of that money is a different and multi-faceted question! Perhaps the motivation for developers to reach higher sales targets more than offset the cost of running this event. Just something to consider.

However, the concept of "decaffeinated" brings me out in a cold sweat and has me reaching for the penguin mints... *shudder*

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
ardiri @ 10/28/2003 5:04:58 AM #
thats irellevant howard.

wouldn't it be better to get the normal 30% and then pay your own way to the cruise? that 10% probably gives them more money than the cruise cost - and, yes, they still owe money. anyhow.. the fact that you have to be listed/sell through their site to even get mentioned in the 'comsumer choice' awards doesn't allow every developer to get involved. anyhow.. everyone has their own opinion - mistakes have been made; time to move on.

the more marketing money you invest, the more consumers know about you. you end up paying for these awards; they are not true awards based on talent/superiority or anything.

on another note - dynamite is a direct clone of puzzle bubble; wonder why taito hasn't jumped on that one with pop cap.. hmm.. or, does this now making cloning games legal?

http://www.astraware.com/games/popcap/dynomite/

i dont mean to start up ugly truth discussions here again - just raising a point :) i wonder how the whole software patent thing is going on these days..

---
Aaron Ardiri
PalmOS Certified Developer
aaron_ardiri@mobilewizardry.com
http://www.mobilewizardry.com/members/aaron_ardiri.php

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
Konstantin @ 10/28/2003 8:51:09 AM #
Ardiri I totaly agree with you on Dynomite.
I was like "wtf?" that game won an award?

Those kind of awards invite developers to take a step back on the creativity curve.

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
pocketscience @ 10/28/2003 4:17:23 PM #
Aaron, come on - that's just BS. You know me - I'm a one-man band with no money to spend on marketing. I have not paid for any advertising on PalmGear ever. I'm signed up as a Premier Partner - that's it. I don't believe I "bought" that award in any way shape or form!!


Cheers,
Gavin.

Wassup? http://www.pocketscience.com.au/

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
ardiri @ 10/28/2003 6:21:42 PM #
> I'm signed up as a Premier Partner - that's it

still, giving up more than others. was this award stuff only available to premier partners? maybe someone who didn't pay marketing fee's was thrown in there as a dummy *g* anyhow..

but seriously, if your software is not listed on their site because you have problems with them; or, dont agree to their fee schedule; you were not at all even in the slightest chance going to have a shot at any awards. what ever happened to having a non-bias'd award system?

---
Aaron Ardiri
PalmOS Certified Developer
aaron_ardiri@mobilewizardry.com
http://www.mobilewizardry.com/members/aaron_ardiri.php

RE: They can afford a cruise? Have they paid their debts yet?
pocketscience @ 10/28/2003 8:59:44 PM #
Dude, you can't honestly expect them to include software that's not listed on their site. For an impartial award comp you'd need someone like PalmSource to do it - but as they are now aligned with PalmGear that wouldn't work either. PalmOne? That wouldn't work as they use Handango. Is there anyone who's truly impartial in this world anyway?? I doubt it.

The voters were user groups/communities around the world - the awards weren't decided by PG.

Anyway, whatever - I've got a pretty trophy coming in the post - so you can piss on my parade all you like - but the trophy is still mine. :-)


Later,

Wassup? http://www.pocketscience.com.au/

Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass: