Comments on: Rumor: Palm Planning m525 for Next Year

Palm's product council is VERY slow on making decisions and are very pathetic when it comes to making anything good. A lot of them are old useless ex-Apple people who were poor performers there and are equally useless now. Why else would Palm's competitors be kicking their asses when it comes to design and innovation so easily?

Nonsense. Palm is not holding back. They simply are unable to compete now that several other vendors are offering better models.

> Suggestion:

> Split hardware and OS into two groups under
> different companies.

Like what they're doing? Everyone knows Palm can't make profits from OS sales alone. Over 90% of their income is derived from hardware sales. (If they sell 2 million copies of PalmOS per year to Handspring, Sony, Symbol, etc. for $9/copy, this generates only $20 million/year. Hardly a drop in the bucket for a company previously "worth" ove 50 BILLION dollars.)

-Brian
Sr Consultant
Troll Management and Relations
Palm Inc
btroll@palm.com

ps on a serious note, once again great job to Ed for bringing us the breaking news.

Are you sure you need a palm and not a laptop? You make me laugh.

What are you using your internal memory for? Avantgo? Games? Dictionary? Books? I say, improve VFS support.

AMEN!

ROTFLMAO!

I hope you're happy with your 128MB brick, because that's all it'll be without RAM!

--GrouchoMarx

reidjazz

-fuzzy

That's very different from what we have here -- a rumor that will, by tomorrow, be disseminated to maybe 3 or 4 rather obscure web sites. Maybe one out of every one hundred PDA buyers is savvy (okay, nerdy) enough to read sites like PIC. The other 99 will happily plop their money down on the m505 in the next few months, oblivious to the possibility of something else coming along. They probably won't even know about the m525 until after it's released.

Remember -- and I'm guilty as charged -- we're a bunch of freaks, following itsy-bitsy news items religiously on Palm web sites. Most people are far more well-adjusted than us.

If that's the way you think, then there's no point in ever buying anything again because a better model is always in development. Don't buy a Sony 610, a better model is coming next year. Don't buy a new Ford Mustang, a better model is coming next year. Hell, don't buy a Big Mac, a better hamburger is in development.

All this rumor says is Palm is working on a replacement got the m505 that will be out in about 7 months. Bet you Handspring is working on replacements for some of its models that will be out sometime next year. And Sony. And Handera. If anyone is already thinking about upgrading, they should go ahead and buy now because by the time the m525 come out, there will be rumors of the next model. And so on, and so on.

We all know that any company works on the next model as soon as the engineering staff are freed up from the previous project (this is true of cars or Palms/PalmPC's). Also it always takes longer to make changes tham people project/like.

The bright side is we have Palm, Sony, HandEra (and others, especially in the area of peripherals) all innovating the platform bit by bit. This is better than the more restrictive progressions happening in the WinCE world due to Microsofts hold on the platform. So, we should all be grateful and make our individual buying decsions on what our needs/preferences are.

I just bought a 64MB SD card and it is of little use due to the restrictions of much of the software to date. I would welcome more internal memory, but also a footprint of the m505, 320x320 16bpp screen, wireless and a soft grafiti area...so I guess I will be waiting for 2+ years before I am changing my m505;-)

1. hi res screen
and
2. virtual graffiti area

A-ha!!! We've tricked you into eliminating 50% of all possible suspects! Viva la revolucion! =)

Damn you! Now I'll always hear that voice when I read Ed's posts!

"Apparently, you intellect is not vast enough to envelope the importance of the issue you currenly hold. Even if you possesed the significant funds necessary to purchase this collector's item, I would not sell it to someone such as yourself incapable of grasing its significance. Please remove yourself from my place of business."

I love that guy!
And Ed!

1. size - no PPC today is the size of a 505
2. battery - no PPC today has the battery life of a 505. Barely get though a weekend with my iPaq
3. reliability - get ready for daily or weekly hotsync problems, and other M$ related software quality issues. A more complex PDA means more headaches.
4. software - if you use any specialized software, be sure to check that there is a PPC software that meets your needs.

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Only the Casio is 16-bit colour, while the m505, Clie 610 and Handspring Prism is 16-bit. What banding?

Wordsmith can give PocketWord a run for its money (except it does cost a bit)

Please say that again in English. I didn't understood a damn.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me Microsoft's next version would fix all the problems with the current one. I've heard it a million times about everything they make. In the months before the Pocket PC came out people everywhere said it was the version of WinCE that would finally crush Palm. It didn't happen then and it won't happen now. WinCE is what 5 or 6 years old and still has less than 20 percent of the market. Its a niche product. Go home and lick Bill Gates' feet you MicroSerfs.

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No actually PPC Os is only 2-3 years old. I am not saying that they will fix every issue, but I know for a fact that they will fix a lot. I noticed one in the screen shots that were posted at pdalive! There is an X icon at the top right of the screen like on a computer. That right there is a big improvement that needed little work. I am not a PPC troll. I happened to be a palm fanatic. But they have made some really bad decisions and that is what took me away from palm. Even if PPC only has 20% of the market, who gives. PPC is growing in market share, and palm is loosing its market share. When they meet at about 50% for each of these companies. That is when M$ is gonna kick in, and come out with something really revolutionary that will break the tie. PPC WILL be ahead of palm. Palm will go pretty low, and someone will buy it. That is the truth, and there is no escaping it.

A truly new and innovative product without major flaws takes time...there's the initial design, then that design has to be implemented and tested, then any improvements that the testing shows to be needed have to be designed, implemented, and tested in turn. Good design is a cycle, not a process with a beginning and end....products are released at a point in the cycle where it makes sense to the execs (not necessarily the engineers!) do so.

If Palm took the time to really do this right, and released products only at those points in the cycle where they were something truly new and innovative and special, everybody would be bitching about them not having a new product every year, or six months, or what have you. And some other company could take advantage of the lag, and release their product in the meantime, and grab a chunk of that sought-after market share.

So what do they do? They release a new product before the design cycle has quite come around enough to make it really new, whenever they have any little feature to add on, simply to stay in the game, all the while watching everyone else, and complicating the cycle by trying to add in all the stuff they think they have to do because everyone else is.

And everyone bitches that these products aren't revolutionary, only evolutionary, and gets peeved that whatever they buy, something better will be out in the next six months.

And all the companies, from Palm to Sony to Handspring to Handera to all the Pocket PC people, are doing pretty much the same dance. The only thing that makes them different is where they make the compromise between allowing time to design a truly innovative, quality product, and releasing products often enough to stay in the market.

Either way, someone's gonna complain.

--rueyeet the cheerful cynic

Now drop and give me 50....

I could care less about a significant alteration, but don't call addressing the screen and adding RAM a leap forward thats just more BS. Like I said I will not buy the m525 or any other Palm model I will probably invest in the clie as it is the most competitive if not significantly better. For instance where is the jog-dial that everyone says would be a huge boon?

Palms incremental upgrades is atrocious and I wouldn't be surprized if they were seriously hurt by those early adapters being burned and not returning to do so again.

For a company to say, "Well, we've got this great new product here, but we're gonna release this crappy test version first to see how many people we can scam" is just silly.

It's not like the supposed "improvements" of the m525 were already a reality when they released the m505, or they'd've released the m525 to begin with. But to stay in the market, they released what they had at the time.

Now they've finished whatever improvements they didn't have ready yet when the m505 came out, and will put them in the m525. Yes, they could have waited until the best version was finished before releasing anything....but then the best of their line would still be the III series and Vx, and they'd lose a LOT of customers to all the other companies who already had expansion slots.

Like I said, catch-22. Take the time to design it right the first time, and lose customers who are tired of waiting for something new. Or, keep releasing every incremental development just to stay in the market, and get blasted for "lack of innovation."

Palm has adopted the second strategy. So every time you buy a Palm, prepare for the announcements of something new and better to come a week after your purchase.

The thing about being on the cutting-edge is that the edge is always a moving target. :)

---rueyeet the redundant

I'm runnin at 55mhz with a 64mb CF
and a 32mb SD. I've got 42 funny WAV files loaded on
Excel
Word
Virtual Graffiti
REALLY REALLY LOUD speaker (dude, it's REALLY loud)
Landscape
Hi-res

I stuck for a long time
But I had to say it.

F-uuuuuu-c-k color!
This is The bomb, bro! I ain't ever goin' back!

JOIN ME MY BRETHEREN!!!

BTW: just so I don't have a thousand Clie users jump me in the parking lot, I was at CompUSA yesterday and someone asked me about handhelds because they could not get a sales person. I don't work there, but I sold him on the Clie because it was the most suited for his purposes. He WAS going to buy a cheaper PPC. Just goes show there is no one handheld device which is perfect for everyone.

The new Palm 7 is now called Everest. Kind of a stupid code name for it.. worse than Skywalker I suppose.

Anyway, within 24 hours of when this person stopped posting and was allegedly out of town, someone else on the thread suggested that the person who was worried about getting caught could simply post what they know anonymously on the thread. To my knowledge, no one ever did.

But let's say this person comes back from wherever they were and decides that's not such a bad idea. Of course, why would they post that info on an obscure thread among the many active threads at PDABuzz when they could give a boost to the Palm-related website with whome their loyalties primarily lie? And so, 10 days later (or so--I can't remember exactly), here we are.

BTW, the reason I won't say who it was is out of fear that this message will be deleted (not that Ed deletes messages often, but he still has to protect his sources, doesn't he?). But look around and maybe you can figure it out for yourself.

I DID NOT GIVE ED ANY INFO ON THE M525!!!!

--

So you admit you are aware of such an advice ...
:o)

--

Just wait 'til PalmSource then we'll know what's going on. (anyone wanna pay for me to go - including return flights from blighty and a nice hotel?)

-
kHiTeDev

Two Cents

And I still have 32.2Mb free

It's more a case of not being aware of what Palm OS devices can do...

Why not email him asking him why he sucks ass? Anyone want him email address? Post it here and I will make it available!

Get real!

I wasn't very sure about the PPC operating system, it did seem ok at the time, but now I've started using Palm I'll never go back. For me once you've added the simplicity of the palm o/s to the form factor advantage you've got the perfect handheld (in my opinion).

Probably my only gripe with Palm is that they seem to take so long in developing thier products. We are already starting to see bluetooth and 802 wireless products for the PPC but when will I be able to get the same thing for my m505?

----------------------------------------
JDM

Earth...mostly harmless.

I was faithful to Palm by buying m505 and enjoyed it for a while, but I guess I was in denial, because the Clie just blows it out of the water. Damn.

BEFORE: I don't need to listen to MP3's on my handheld. I'd rather carry a CD/MP3 player. My PDA is not supposed to be a multimedia powerhouse.
NOW: I am jealous as hell that the dude sitting next to me is listening to his favorite album (while he reads AvantGo).

BEFORE: Double the res doesn't help that much. Doesn't make me organize my address book better.
NOW: I can read the news without squinting on the Clie. Look at those grainy images of Palm.

BEFORE: The dark screen won't bother me, and it saves battery-life. I don't have to charge it for weeks!
NOW: I have to keep the backlight on all the time, so I have to charge the damn thing every other day.

BEFORE: SD Card is the coolest thing ever.
NOW: Nothing else is compatible with SD card. I ended up getting a Sony Camcorder that supports the memory stick. What the heck. and where are all those add-ons they promised? I thought that was ONE advantage of Palm over Sony.

BEFORE: Palm m505 is smaller and lighter.
NOW: I can't tell the damn difference between m505 and Clie. I can hold Sony better because it is much skinnier. It ends up fitting in my pocket better too.

For 50 bucks more, I should have just bought the Clie 710. Honestly, I was one of those people who supported m505 over Clie, but that changed after I took a very serious look at them both. People who still support m505 over Clie PEG-N710C really have not tried the Clie enough. (actually, most people se the difference immediatley when they check out the resolution)