Palm Easily Retains Lead in Worldwide PDA Shipments

I agree. Who would want to spend an extra $100-$200 bucks for something that a Palm can do?? Especially corporations that are laying off people.

Microsoft, Compaq, HP and others, if you are listening, multimedia functions are NOT necessary in a business environment. If you continue to make products that can play movies and music well and yet, crash and lose important data as well as make it difficult to access this data, then your market share will dwindle. Especially if you continue to charge 600-800 bucks.

I don't think PocketPC will die.
I believe there are many people "waiting" for PPC2002.

For the record, have you tried a pocket PC? The crashing part is just bull... My Visor crashed more often than my iPaq... I don't think you're basing these comment on real-life experience. Prove me wrong! ;)

As for the 8 hours battery life that's another myth. Don't forget that it's 8 hours of *continual* use. My Visor on very good rechargeable batteries lasted me about 5-6 days of usage, my iPaq about 2 days. It's not as horrible as you say...

Oh and by the way, have you seen that all the PalmOS machines that are becoming the more populars are the one that are adding more functions like the pocket pc? mp3 player, color screen, movie playing, expansion slots... you find some of these in the Palm m505, Sony Clié, Handera 330.

And for the record, my brand new iPaq cost more than 100$can less than a Palm m505...

Sorry for the long post...

I agree Multimedia is not needed in the business enviroment...But than why is Palm shifting in this direction after years of complaining like a little girl that it's not needed? Why the MP3 add ons? Why the more colored screens? If the Palms can already do it all, and the Palms have been virtually unchanged in the last 4 and half years, why the big threat from MS and the move to the new ARM processor, OS 5 even after OS 4 isn't even a year old, and the desperet attempted to buy a dead company called BE to try and get some new light and function in a Palm OS which HP could already have done in some of their higher end calculators?

Now don't look to me as the bad guy here... I am just pointing out the obvious. What the Palm community doesn't want to look at is costing them. Every single Palm unit you see now and all the money and accessories and software you have now and invested in your palm will be a waste when the new Palm arm processors hit the market. Tht too me sounds like starting over. I am more worried about Palm than I am about PPCs. Palm has made themslevs looke like the biggest @$$ to the world with the market share dropping to just over 2 bucks, loosing a deal with a company they were about to purchase cause there stocks weren't worth a pile of S**t when the deals was suppose to go through, There new complex, having to back out cause they had no more money, and grossly over pile of invetory for a product that was no longer in high demand, the m505...(need I say more to the disappointment?) Their compettors making new innovation while they are wasting their time attacking their own customers for using the word PALM in their websites. It's Palm that looks like they don't know what they are doing. Like they are making up the business plan each dayas they wake up or as they go along.

I wouldn't get too excited about palm's lead. It's only nature for people to hold off buying a product when a new one is about to be released. So for MS it is expected. BUT WHAT has Palms excuse been for the LAST YEAR??????

"Palm has made themslevs looke like the biggest @$$ to the world with the market share dropping to just over 2 bucks, loosing a deal with a company they were about to purchase cause there stocks weren't worth a pile of S**t when the deals was suppose to go through"

Let me tell you something. If Microsoft only made profits off of PocketPC products, they would have gone out of business a long time ago. I can almost bet that they are losing money on PPC. They are STILL not outselling Palm in the PDA market and Palm is at, as you say, $2.00 a share. MSFT has the cash from their slew of other products to keep throwing money into PPC. Now, in saying that, drop the nonsense and understand that MSFT has no idea what everybody wants in a PDA and how to get it to them cheap.

Microsoft doesn't have to make money out of PPC (or at least not yet). They have many money making sources. What they are doing is trying to gain as much market share as possible at the moment. Therotically if their market share gains to a point that we all depends on it, that's the time Microsoft will make money out of us. So Microsoft is pathing *the future* of PPC and does not want to suck your money right now.

By the way, I love and hate Microsoft.

i am actually looking into new iPAC. the main reason in readily available 802.11 support. plus color, plus multimedia. sure it may crash, and the battery life may suck, but its all a price to pay. palm has just continued to dissapoint me time after time. i am not say 'palm sux, and ppc rewlz'. right now i just feel an iPAQ will be a better fit for my needs. keep up the good work Ed, and i will always be a palm user at heart

-Raishe
"Monster Pig eats Jesus
More at 11"

Comparing PPC ram size to Palm OS ram unit for unit is the work of rookies. For the record, you can get 7 times more memory in an IPAQ (64mb) than a Palm (8mb) and still run out of memory on eqivalent software before the small ram Palm. The PPC's are ram hogs!!! I know I own BOTH. Just because it has a big head doesn't mean it has much in it.

People have use this examples before and before, which is

Netscape vs. I.E.

I.E. wins because it is illegally bundled into Windows 98. Also, it wins because it is FREE.

Who is going to buy a version of I.E. if it charges you $30? (Hmm. Yeah the service packs should be free.)

Now, Pocket PCs are even more expensive than Palm handhelds. Who is expecting Pocket PCs to win?

What M$ should do is to give out free Pocket PCs in Christmas so that it can regain some market share. After the battery life is used up, it can be thrown like snowballs because it is as goog as bricks.

Don't! That hurts! :-p

humm ... so people don't buy PPC coz they are waitting for PocketPC 2002 ... and so Palm sales is down coz people are waitting for OS5 ??

I for one will hold on to my Visor and start saving money while the battle of PocketPC vs PalmOS goes on.

>This is just not true. OS 5 will run all current >Palm applications. All handhelds from Palm will use >the Universal Connector (from the m500 series and >m125) for at least the next 2 years.
>
>Ignore this troll's FUD!!

To the Troll..

OS 5 is VAPORWARE. Don't tell me what OS 5 WHISHES to have when Palm is still trying to buy BE to help them get their heads out of their @$$'es in trying to make their OS with more multimedia functions.. Besides.... HOW MANY DEVELOPERS do you know still write software for Windows 95?????? Maybe a few..but hardly anyone.. Even though most of all Apps for Win 95 will still run on WinXP hardly anyone is still writing just for Win95. The same will hold true with the new OS 5. IF Palm had the talent and ability to make their new OS backwards compatible (Ha..good luck) What makes you think people will keep writing apps that will only run on the old technology of Palm? Hence..

EVERYTHING YOU SEE NOW for Palm will be of no use... And you will windup having to buy new stuff..ALL OVER AGAIN.

BESIDES..Here is something to think about. HOW LONG Do you think the new Palms if and when they ever come out with the new OS, and new Arm processors running at 206 or 412 mhz will last with a color screen? You actually think it will get any better time than any PPCs now?? U think you will be able to use 2 AAA batteries? I will give you a hint. The Palm IIIc get's worse battery time than any PPC out there with a slower processor and smaller display. I'd say Palm users are the ones who look foolish for barking and complaining when their own devices can't even compare.

You know you are in the middle of a flame war when only two people dare put their names on their posts. Anyways, just for the sake of accuracy (perhaps they were typos?):

Battery Life - The Palm IIIc has a continual runtime of up to 16 hours on a single charge. In the real world of cranking up the brightness to impress onlookers, you get 12 to 14 hours. The iPaq will run 3.5 hours with the sidelights turned down to a moderate level, knock that time down to 2.5 if you turn the sidelights up. This is not a problem unless you are traveling, or put more than 3 hours of use on your device a day. For travel, there ARE travel chargers for most handhelds, but to tell the truth I only used mine once on my former IIIc just to see if it worked.

Memory - I have a 72Mb Palm with no "helper apps" to run things from the card, so forget about the 8Mb glass ceiling for Palms, it no longer exists.

Multimedia - Don't know where the idea came from that Palms cannot do multimedia... I have about a dozen media clips, trailers, and music videos. Yes, that's with sound.

Multi tasking - I've never seen anyone on a PPC actually USE more than one app on the screen. The other apps may be open, but they are covered up while the user is doing something else. The ability to do is good, but I don't see it in the real world being used a lot. It DOES serve some purpose, as I don't know what I'd do if I could not access my notepad, address book, and others while in the middle of a telnet session or something. The argument of saving time by not closing the app does not stand, how much faster than "instant" do you want?

> OS 5 is VAPORWARE.

You've stopped listening to facts that don't agree with what you've already made up your mind about so I'm going to stop talking to you with one final statement: Palm showed off OS 5 almost a year ago running current Palm apps on an ARM-based processor. So you are totally wrong about that. You totally ignored me when I said Palm would be using the Universal Connector for another couple of years because that wasn't what you wanted to hear. So your statement that all peripherals would have to be replaced wasn't just wrong, it is now a lie because you know that's not true. When you start having to support your arguments with lies, you lose.

"humm ... so people don't buy PPC coz they are waitting for PocketPC 2002 ... and so Palm sales is down coz people are waitting for OS5 ??"

Well i think there is a difference. The PPC2002 devices have been announced for a while now while the OS5 devices are nowhere to be seen... (if you know where we could see them, give me a link, i would be interested). That's normal than people are waiting for the new PPC2002 machines.

Just look at Palm when they announced too soon their m505.

I think the christmas season will be the real test...

"I listen to mp3s and surf the Web all the time on my N760C."

Exactly my point, multitasking has its use. The only difference is that your Clié is able to do that because they built a mp3 player into their PDA.

These are worldwide figures so it'll be low, BUT, for the usa, and just the PalmOS market, Sony holds 10%.

and just recently in a cnet news article the Clie S320 is number 3 in retail sales.

"They're toys, not real computing tools."

You are talking about PPC, aren´t you? They crash and eat your batteries (8 hours at most), weigh double than a m505, need an extra sleeve for expansion, etc. (I forgot that you need a bigger shirt pocket...)

Corporate support?
Maybe you don´t know how to surf the web or use Google, I won´t teach you, but there are lots of corporate solutions for PalmOS, and support from Palm inc. is more than adequate. (You don´t need technical support because they are easy to use, two taps and you are on the soft you want, and they work and don´t crash).

Another question:

Isn´t Palm Infocenter a center for Palm related information? Why is PPC people always here bashing Sony, HandEra, IBM, Handspring, Palm, etc.?

Don´t they have a specialized site to explore and know about the new marvels of MS?

I know there are some inteligent guys who make really impressive software for that platform and some accesories too, so I think that there must be something interesting to discuss out there...