Comments on: Editorial: Why the Palm OS Is the Inevitable Winner

Just a word of warning for anyone else coming to this a few moths late: DO NOT bother reading any of the posts below. For some reason a bunch of PPC users have been let out of the asylum for a day trip and have filled up the comments board. They seem really angry about something....

Personally, I think PPC is ****e so won't buy one. The rest of you can do what you want...

FBN

I keep reading this statement by NR owners, and yet I see no reason to believe it. The NR launcher doesn't even have the OS 5 icons on it. The OS 5 version of the NR may have a better battery life, etc. Only time will tell.

Microsoft doesn't win at everything it does.

It's a little early to say but have you been paying attention to how poorly the Xbox is selling?
>>>>>>>>>

Interesting that you mention the XBox. The X-Box is actually one example of a superior product not selling well. How interesting that M$ produced it, because usually with M$ products it is the exact opposite: a non-superior product dominating the market.

Anyway, I will contend your original point that M$ will not automatically own the PDA market just because they are M$.

Game Cube, Play Station 2 and even the late Dreamcast are 128 bit machines. In this regard the Xbox is in the same boat as PPC.

I'm sorry but A Desktop Game Will never...EVER Be as good as a game on a Console.

Resident Evil (considered to be the most violent console game) is now a Game Cube exclusive (go to gamespot.com or ign.com for the press release). And the already released Resident Evil remake for the game cube looks more gory than any PSX2 or Xbox game today.

Also many gory games are now comming for the game cube including Turok 3, Mortal Kombat, etc.

>-Bosco

There are things that PPC will still do better. For example, OS 5 will not allow for native file extensions.

Maybe .3 inch thin handhelds with 15+ hours batteries.

But now the shoe is on the other foot. Palm OS handhelds have less hardware requirements and therefore their prices are lower. I expect history to repeat itself.

Several recent studies have shown that it is Palm who dominates enterprise sales. Gartner Group recently calculated that in 2001, Palm OS licensees accounted for more than 50% of handhelds sold to large companies and government organizations worldwide, compared to 32% for Pocket PC licensees, 1% for Symbian, and 16% for other operating systems.

Microsoft doesn't win at everything it does.

This is different. Palm is ingrained as the market leader. The average joe on the street sees a PDA and goes "Is that one of those Palm Pilots?"

That type of Mindshare is exactly what Microsoft is used to leveraging to its advantage. It'll be interesting to see what it can do to overcome its second-player role in a market that has already emerged? My guess would be.. that it has to create a better product. I'm not sure it can.

Yep. When the press started to go ga-ga when 'PocketPC' came out, i encountered so many people who just assumed microsoft was going to beat out Palm because they were so powerful and - after all - they beat out Netscape and would do the same here. This is lazy analysis. The reality is that there are HUGE differences between the MS vs Palm scerario and MS vs Netscape:

1 - Netscape users didn't invest $500 in their browser the way Palm users did in there PDA.

2 - IE was free to download. Last time i checked, nobody in Redmond had plans to lose THAT MUCH MONEY on such an approach here!

3 - IE runs all the same 'software' (webpages) that netscape did. Palm support - as most here know - is huge, with something like 15,000 apps available. PPC still only has a few thousand apps at best.

4 - IE's interface is basically the same as Netscapes. PPC is quite different (and as mentioned above, unintuitive) from Palms.

The proof is there: WinCE has been out for 5(!) years and they only have 15% of overall market. Sony - which has been in the biz for only a couple of yrs - has been flamed on PIC for achieving the same.

If this were anyother company in the world they would have dropped the platform by now. But its MS - they'll pour hundreds of nmillions into this until they realize there mistake (maybe they'll just keeping flush cash down the toilet forever?).

Its time will come, and it will go the way of all human creations. Into doom and obsolescence.

Actually Microsoft is already today fighting very hard for survival. I agree, MS will not be defeated now by its errors in creating the Xbox, the PPC or Windows XP. But already now the errors are summing up.

Not much more is needed...

And this is not wishful thinking, it is just the lesson history tells ;-)

Just wait ten more years ...

Could be anytime that MS collapses like Enron !!

I agree. im not saying palm is for not-so-smart people. but its like a cellphone. who needs a complicated cellphone? i find nokia to be userfriendly and guess what! theyre on TOP!

A pda needs to be simple and easy to use. a LONGER BATTERY LIFE FOR CHRISTS SAKE!

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum: Hwy High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

-Brett

MS would have you beleive that to open a door you must first open the trunk, and drag the tire iron to the window. Palm recognises that the handle is an intuitive design element, but leaves it up to the OS licensee to decide if the handle should lift up, lift out, or be wireless. They only specify that the handle should be there, and the action it should perform when it is used.

Heh, and one of the better metaphors for the PPC handhelds is the "Homer-mobile" (you folks, DID see that episode of the Simpsons, right?)

This is probably the most important issue for Palm and its licensees (and others?) to recognize. I use a PalmOS handheld in order to have all my notes, schedules, reminders, etc. in one place, and quickly retreivable. There are many other bells and whistles available for the PalmOS that are interesting and fun, but if it doesn't make it easy for me to keep my sh*t together, it's failing at its job. K.I.S.S.

Standards change.

Even in the case of word applications. Word Perfect was THE standard for the longest time, until MS came along and stirred things up. Now, the standard is MS.

People change, habbits change, standards change.

Ah well, at least that's what I was thinking anyways...

maybe until the tech is available for ultra-long battery life pda's, you should count your blessings... we've yet to (always) lug our charger around "just in case" our batteries run out.

You are right on the money.
Most handheld companies arrived at the estimate of 30 minutes per day being average based on observation and testing. There are extremes in either direction. Some people I know use their device for about 10 minutes per WEEK. Others use them for several hours per day, but it usually averages out in the end when you add the groups together. Either way you look at it though, a device with a 5 hour battery life will not die 5 hours after you remove it from the cradle unless it is on the entire time. 5 hours works out to ten days for the "Average Joe". Even the Palm OS devices with the worst battery life would make it through one of my average days (which are pretty exterme themselves), with only the unusual days getting me in trouble. Heck, even when I still had a IIIe I would go through a set of batteries per week. The list of things I use my Palm for in a day would be longer than I care to write at this time, but everthing work related saves me a huge amount of time. In light of this, I'm grateful for a device just as reliable as my old IIIe, smaller, faster, has 72 times the memory, and I don't have to break out in a sweat if I find out the battery is half empty on the way to work.

I could be wrong, but it seems there used to be a large difference in "standby" time between the 2 competing OS's, with PPC consuming more power while in the "off" mode. I have seen M505's go for well over a month in standby, while one of my best friends has to charge his iPaq every few days, even if he does not use it, and every night if he does use it. Is this standby drain still pretty big on the PPC2002?

Several recent studies have shown that Microsoft hasn't done all that good a job at enterprise sales. Gartner Group recently calculated that in 2001, Palm OS licensees accounted for more than 50% of handhelds sold to large companies and government organizations worldwide, compared to 32% for Pocket PC licensees, 1% for Symbian, and 16% for other operating systems.

I'm not sure where this idea came from that Pocket PCs were selling like hotcakes to the enterprise. A while back, David Nagel called it the triumph of wishful thinking over the facts.

---
News Editor

1) They are already spending money on desktops / employee.
2) What does the handheld permit a user to do that a desktop and/or a mobile phone can't?

In my opinion this second reason is the biggy. Anyone remember Lotus? Lotus was the company that made the first killer app for desktop PC's -- a spreadsheet. Even with the backing of IBM, M$ would not have won over the enterprise market without Lotus. M$ built the platform. IBM provided the muscle. But Lotus provided the *desire*.

I do not necessarily agree with Ed that the Palm OS is the inevitable "winner". The Palm OS will eventually become irrelevant (just as M$ DOS would have) if a kiler app does not emerge for the platform. Yes, the Palm OS is simple, intuitive and is great at being a portable database (it could push this a little more, I think). But, until it acquires that additional function that makes it absolutely necessary for the enterprise market, it won't really matter whether it is more successful than M$ because people will begin to lose interest. Whoever dreams up this "function" will become quite rich as will whichever OS - Palm or PocketPC - is the beneficiary.

Because of the size difference, PDAs will never catch up with desktops, even as PDAs become vastly more powerful within a small form factor. So in any given year, the latest version of desktop Windows will not be able to fit reasonably in a PDA. Therefore, I think there will always be a distinct OS--not necessarily in coding or interface but in ability and power--for handhelds that is different from desktop devices. And desktops will always command a higher price. So it seems unlikely that Microsoft will ever get away with charging the same for minature computers/handhelds as they do for desktop OS's.

I'm all for a little well-deserved M$ bashing, but I find it hard to believe they would shoot themselves in the foot like this. Surely they understand that handhelds and desktops will never have the same capability and therefore their OS's cannot have identical pricing.

Lets say you had a PDA with a cradle that had a wireless KB & mouse hooked up to it, a flat screen monitor, hard disk, and dvd player. Software being compariable in functionality to the current desktop software. Then you'd effectively have a desktop replacement. (You can make a similar thing for laptops.)

The reason that this can happen is because a 1Ghz machine is pretty much fast enough to run all business software right now. In 3-4 years, PDAs will be at 1Ghz+.

This means that PDAs (with accessories) can first "disrupt" laptops and then desktops. (Read "The Innovator's Delima".)

When/If that happens, MS will have fewer PC OS sales at $65 each, and more PPC OS sales at about $10 each. This would amount to billions less each year in MS's core product line.

This isn't about MS being greedy either. MS's financials are set up to expect $15B+ per year from Windows + Office. If PPC would "win" the PDA war, and then disrupt PCs, it could amount to a loss of $10B+ per year. Not even MS could withstand that for long. And it would be realy, Really, REALLY tough for them to change the company to live with less.

Do you really think that there won't be anyone at MS fighting the changes needed to be done? Especially with this much money at stake? MS is already very famous for bloody turf wars.

Read "The Innovator's Delima". This is one situation in which it fully applies.

Todd.

So $65.00 or $10.00 per software unit is not the point, is how many copies you can sell of each.

But this doesn´t consider the corporate market, anyway

Just a littel thougth

Of course I've heard of it. It just usually work well with a disruptive technology. MS's customers are *not* going to all fit into the nice and tidy boxes that MS wants to put them into. If people right now could buy PPC machines (w/ free office) *right now* that could fully replace their PC for only $500, don't you think that that would cut into full PC sales?

There are people *right now* replacing their laptops with PDA/folding KB combos. In 3 years what might happen?

Please, read up about disruptive technology, and how it impacts a market. Repeatedly large, well run companies have been crippled and even gone under because they didn't understand it. For example, when hard drives went from 8"->5.25"->3.5", the market leader in total HD sales changed after each transition. These were disruptive changes, because they changed the inital target market and lowered the price per unit. On the other hand, incredible breakthroughs such as new HD head technologies have never changed the market leader because they targeted the current markets.

Now we get to creating a new market in order to grow both. This works fine for most things, including the start of a disruptive technology. However disruptive technology sales eventually start cutting into the higher margin sales of the major market. It's well documented by many case studies how difficult it is for a company to go down in margins. A PC->PPC transition would be an incredible drop in margins for MS.

As for selling more copies of each, I think that if MS could get WinXP to run on a PPC, they would be really happy about charging $65+ a pop for each PPC sold. A PPC is nearly the price of a PC, and 1/2 to 1/3 the price of a laptop, but MS only makes ~15% of what they would make otherwise (less if office is taken into account). They need to have 7 PPCs sold to match 1 PC.

Todd.

Yep! I'm one of 'em. I use my laptop primarily for our work request system (for which the Palm interface never materialized), and for surfing the web. My Palm will do the surfing fine, but NO handheld has a screen that I'd prefer to a full size laptop display.

You know which students get to class first? The ones with the laptops and PPC's... they all try to sit near a wall outlet. Me? I have not written anything on my laptop for over a year, as I prefer my Palm PPK combo over my laptop or desktop.

that's why the invest heavily on phone and handheld so massively. Desktop revenue will be comparatively puny to the future handheld related items. It's simply because of its higher replacement rate and ubiquituosness. You wanna sell 20 titles at $5 with 60% margin a pop via wireless internet or a $80 shrink wrap with 50% margin?

you be the judge.

http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/developer/technicalarticles/whatsnew2002.asp

...check the heading 'Smart Minimize' aprox halfway down the page.

Can you believe this???? In other words, the user now doesn't know whther or not the app closed or minimized!! They will never win the PDA war.

Why minimizing is a good thing (although MS should have included an option to close): If you need to keep switching back and forth between something (like contact list and e-mail), you can do it without losing everything.

As for ease of use, stop whining. I figured out how to use my first PPC in about 20 minutes. What's so hard to understand? Give some examples, and we'll see.

Bull. Are you a complete moron? Has anybody out there used a PPC for an extended period of time? PPC may close down apps after enough are running - but you will experience MAJOR slow down before this - i am a ****ing app developer who has free access to Palm and PPC devices - ANY ONE defending this boner of a MS design flaw is insane!!!! (why the hell do you think MS *tried* (lamely) to fix this in 2002? this is the most blatent example of brand loyalty denial i have ever seen! NEWS FLASH: unless you tap at 5(!)times to get to the 'running programs' menu on PPC in order to close it - your subsequent apps run slower! COME ON - don't ****in lie on PIC just to justify yr purchase - this is the dumbest thing in any modern OS - and by all defintions of PDA OS usability WINS MY PERSONAL AWARD FOR DUMBEST INTERFACE IDEA EVER (it's a PDA - so not having a keyboard and mouse means the OS is supposed to counter this by requiring less to do the same - NOT 5 times more!!!!). Don't tell me
that : "the user doesnt have to know" : the user (if they have any sense of sanity - BLOODY WELL KNOWS A SLOW DOWN AS SEVERE AS PPC CAUSES WHEN NOT SHUTING DOWN APPS - when they experience it - or maybe yr a moron incapable of understanding the obvious. Sure - lots on PIC readers will be pissed for my blatent flaming here - but just use a PPC instead of bitching about it - its worse then you think. As for this poster - you have to be a moron or a liar - which is it?

Mr. Developer, it's obvious from your CAPS laden tirade that you feel strongly about several issues with the PPC devices. Before I even get started, I'll list a little bit of my experience with handheld devices to help you better understand where I'm coming from. I've owned several different Newtons (fine machines those were too!), a Psion Revo, multiple Palm OS devices (starting with the original Palm Pilot and growing from there, the last of which was the M515), as well as many WinCE OS units starting with v1.0 of the OS (clamshells with keyboards) leading all the way up to the first PsPC's and now the PPC and PPC2K2. My current "daily driver" PDA is an original iPaq 3630 with a silver slider CF sled and the PPC OS. So I suppose that you could say that I've used quite a few different platforms, models and OSes.

I seriously doubt that you will find too many takers when it comes to defending Microsoft's decision to not give users an easy way of closing running applications on the PPC and PPC2K2 OSes. Taking five taps to access a list of running applications is ludicrous. However, installing a simple task switcher / closer is quite trivial, and the very best ones are freeware; WISbar and Gigabar are the two that instantly come to mind. So, the installation of a small program gives you instant access to a nice little close icon that gives you the functionality Microsoft choose to leave out. That surely makes this a non-issue.

Which now brings us to your severe slow down issues. The only time that I have ever noticed a severe slow down on a PPC or PPC2K2 device are when Microsoft Reader or Windows Media Player are running in the background. These two applications, more than any other, cause slowdown issues when they are running with other applications active. Leaving the OS to manage the running applications shows no noticable slow down on the device as you switch between running apps, or as the device shuts down running apps while you launch new ones. However, this is only the case when the above listed applications are not left open and running. Those particular applications are real resource hogs, and can really bog the system down. But again, with the installation of a freeware utility, that slowdown can be completely eliminated.

I have performed many tests on several different models of PPC's, and that slowdown issue doesn't occur unless one or more of those two applications are running in conjunction with several other applications. By avoiding those two; launching new apps, or switching between running apps is nearly instantaneous. So, once again, using a freeware utility to close down those two specific apps eliminates this issue. If you wish to take it a step further, why not install some third party applications, and completely eliminate the need to run those two any longer?

Why do you seem to have such an aversion to installing a simple freeware app on the PPC? Or to replace the offending apps with others that don't cause these issues? Surely you have quite a few hacks installed on your tweaked out Palm OS PDA, as well as some applications that enhance or replace the ones included on your PDA's ROM. Why is this very same thing heresy on the PPC?

- Joseph

I bet you're proud of yourself and think that was clever.

It wasn't.

2 - Palm Office apps have better sycing with the desktop than M$ ones. Amazing what competition does.

3 - Why does my mom need a 2GHz PC with 64MiB of video RAM, 40GiB of hard drive, etc etc just to get her email. It was never a good idea on the desktop IMHO.

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

If there was any doubt in my mind who would win the PDA battle, it was resolved the first time I sync'd a word document with my PPC.

TB
---------------

Can't wait to see the Sony Palm OS 5.0 device.

This is one version of Word talking to another version of Word. Why can't they make it work?

TB

Also, most writers will not often need tables, and other than that, there will not be a lot lost.

Also, with Activesync it is much easier to move files between PDA and Desktop.

GB

I've been undertaking my bi-annual "see where MS PDAs are at" with two state-of-the-art devices: the iPAQ H3875 and now the Toshiba e570. (I mean, *everyone* knows that MS finally "gets it right on the third try", so it should be pretty impressive, right?)

Let's just say that so far, my experience is similar to yours - nicely stated.

Microsoft Hotmail still runs on U**x

Microsoft admits it still hasn't upgraded its Hotmail system to Windows, almost four years after embarking on the task, and fifteen months after the first load balancing machines began to be shifted to Windows 2000 from FreeBSD.

www.theregus.com/content/archive/23348.html

Donwload here: http://grc.com/id/idserve.htm

The program can look the server software of a specific domain, on Hotmail they are using MS IIS on Windows XP. Definitely not Linux.

Please don't take me as a Microsoft fan, I hate PPC crapware, but that does not mean that every Microsoft product is crap. Windows (on the desktop) is definitely a very powerful OS, but on the handheld this same power is what makes it useless.

> That way I can still run VNC and other admin apps that I need on a daily basis.

Why not get the VNC client for the Palm? I use it all the time and it works great.

www.harakan.btinternet.co.uk/PalmVNC/index.htm

And as for HoTMaiL.com - you've nearly got me. Things have improved since theregister.co.uk did their article - more of the HoTMaiL servers are running IIS than were then (6 months ago). However - anyone simply going to look up what server www.hotmail.com is running on is obviously an idiot - have they ever checked the URL (or to them - "what it says in the address bar at the top of Internet Explorer") when you actually read your HoTMaiL? If they had they'd realise that it doesn't say www.hotmail.com - other servers are involved - and many of these run Apache / BSD.

And that's ignoring any faking they're doing...

And replying to a comment someone wrote in response to a totally different article - let alone this discussion thread (hey I'm drunk - sue me) - while it may take 3rd party software for a Palm to do MS Word - have you noticed that a Palm plus a decent Word editor is not only cheaper than a PPC - but also works better - i.e. format is retained even if the PDA version doesn't show it.

The reply starting "SQL database applications for the Palm..." was from me - mtg101 / russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk - forgot I don't auto login on every computer in the world...

Cheers
Russsell

russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

An article comparing the two would be very informative to many people I think.

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russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

that's what an editorial is--opinion.

Betamax was 'better' than VHS. And the Phillips VCR was even 'better'...

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russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

You mean ... Micro$oft's products ? Windows .NOT ?

- I dont' see a Mame version for Palm OS yet. (working buggy, or even alpha version......anywhere on the net)

Not at all. I use lots of products that use both Windows CE and Palm OS. To me, they are both great, but for different uses.

I just found this article offensive because of the sheer stupidity of the author. He demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of either of the product lines in question combined with the reasoning powers of a lump of coal. Virtually all of his conclusions are unsupported by any real facts and the opinions presented don't even help much.

This is my own editorial piece, so it is OK for me to present these ideas without any justification or logic (at least that is how it looks from reading this thread).

Thanks - that's good advice :) However, I am doing my PPC research in a number of other fora; here I'm asking for some specific examples to back up the contention that PPC is so much more capable than Palm.

Since the "enter" stroke in Graffiti is just one quick line, it doesn't need to be one paragraph--it's quite easy to break it up!

and talking about games - can your palm play strategic assault (a ccommand and conquer clone)? what about snes emulator (meaning i can play classics like x-men, ninja turtles, spiderman, mario)? even a playstation emulator is coming soon. sim city?

palm's most downloaded games at download.com are tetris, pinball, and dope wars (a text based game). what does that tell you about games.

M$ - the PDA is a small desktop PC - and we know how to do that.

Sony - the PDA is a consumer electronics device - and we know how to do that.

Nokia - the PDA is a connected handheld device - and we know how to do that.

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russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

As for Symbian needs to do better in the US before we take it seriously - the EU market for phones is bigger than the US market - and phones is what Nokia do. Oh - and analysts predict that the PC and gaming and comsumer elecs markets will be roughly equal to the US by 2004 and then start to get bigger...

Do I detect some sour grapes perhaps?

Also, it would be nice if you had the decency to not hide behind Anonymous when you insult someone's hard work. (I really don't think your name is Jesus now is it?)

-Brett Blatchley

"bright apple" is an American figure of speech. It means someone who is smart.

well, that's a matter of opinion

> and layout system.

true

> Its data storage and networking are still primitive.

wrong and wrong

> PalmOS 5 applications are going to have many of the
> same limitations as PalmOS 4 applications.

not really

> use of the ARM processor may finally allow people to
> port other, more powerful toolkits to PalmOS

quite true

I think the root of this "believe in choice made by licensee" is just a thinly veiled incompetency to innovate. ie. Hey let somebody else write it, and we jsut cheer them on.

grog......

And if it's so hard to port software to the PalmOS - why does PalmOS have better MS Word apps than PPC? And of course PalmOS has support for ICQ, MSN Messanger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger. Useful stuff like Metro and TomTom Citymaps is on PalmOS. We have GameBoy and Speccy emulators. And databases from Oracle and Sybase. Oh - and if you want to study numbers... check out the number of PalmOS apps vs PPC on Handango.com

Oh - and see my "True Story" above for how easy PPC development is...

Cheers
Russell

russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

what's your point?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but technically, Windows 9x is still running under DOS. As the joke goes:

Windows is...

A 32-bit extension of
a 16-bit graphical shell of
an 8-bit operating system coded for
a 4-bit processor by
a two-bit company that can't stand
one bit of competition.

:)


Jim

And people, stop arguing what Palm OS 5 might be able to do. Once it comes out, you can start talking. And also, Palm is playing catch up - it's trying to pick up all the features that PPC has always had.

By the way, I have no idea what's wrong with your iPaq and EVT, but I develop for the PPC all the time without a hitch. I guess it's like Windows - people say it crashes all the time, but I've never had XP crash on me yet. But I'll probably get singed by a bunch of people who would like to say differently. I'm a power user, I know how it all works (I consider myself adept at the Windows API) and maybe that's why it doesn't crash. Maybe everyone else is doing something really stupid. But then again, I might just be lucky.

By the way, I've used a Palm but don't own one. I'm a PPC guy (iPaq 3600 series). I might buy a Palm for serious PIM if I ever need it though.

Embrace the duality of mobile computing - a fusion will be messy, inefficient, and costly (at first anyways). Besides, it's better this way. It's like a computer. If you're an artist go for Apple, if you're a developer go for Windows/Linux.

I don't see PPC kills PalmOS but I do see Toshiba kills iPAQ & Jornada (or HP iPAQ what so ever)

btw, Handera can record voice!

They invented the whole concept of FUD. Fear Uncertainty Doubt. See, you don't have to make people like your own products. It is enough to make them doubt your opponents. One of the best ways of doing this is to post a lot of fake complaints on the Internet complaining about your opponents'' products.

Or lie and say you are about to release a new version of your product that is much better than your competitions, when you really know you are months, or even years, away.

Or pressure analysts to predict that your product will do a lot better that your competitions'.

Or spread rumors that your product is selling very well when it really isn't. That's why people think PPC is doing well in enterprise sales, Microsoft propaganda. This is a flat out lie.

So attacking Palm for putting out propaganda when the company you are defending uses propaganda as its main method for advertising is the worst sort of hypocrisy.

And calling them Nazi's is totally contemptible.

LOL:) He certainly has no answer to this - as 50 posts above can attest to - there are several 3rd party Palm apps that blow PPC Word out of the water AND don't screw up the formatting (ie: they integrate better with desktop Word then MS's own PPC Word! what a joke!).

And yet others say the opposite.

"Having the Grafitti area on board the Palm is a waste of valuable screen space; the space would have been better used to enhance the visibility of users."

No arguments, but there are two PalmOS devices (3 if you included the Symbol QVGA prototype displayed at PalmSource with HandEra's OS4.1) that have virtual graffiti areas. Two of the three have the same resolution screens as PPC's, the third is even larger.

"If only Palm uses a handwriting recognition software, able to record voice for short memos, and yet still have battery life last for weeks while maintaining its existing size and weight, it would have been a perfect model."

Save for your handwriting quibble, you can have just that, in the form of the HandEra 330.

Both the HandEra 330, and the Sony NR70 echo your graffiti strokes in the software driven graffiti area. Built in.

I mostly agree with that statement. Sure, learning A-Z and 0-9 was pretty easy, but remembering those less-intuitive punctuations is a pain. I've been using a Palm for 6 months and still have to bring up the graffitti help menu once in a while. That being said, a learning curve does exist for Graffitti, albeit not a very large one. Transcriber and Calligraphy for PPC, however, require almost no learning curve.

PPC's Transscriber and Calligraphy with close to zero learning curve vs. Graffitti with a small, yet noticeable learning curve. I think PPC has Palm clearly beat in this area.

I heartily agree and you can read through the rest of the postings on this article to see which OS gives you the most comprehensive feature set. But keep in mind that an easier input method is a feature that PPCs hold over Palms. If I'm correct, the original poster was concerned only with the different input methods between the two OSs, which is the only point I was addressing.

As I pointed out in my replies earlier, Palm has always overlooked ex-Palm users who switched to PPC and never looked back, yourself being a good example. Who wants a crippled PDA with no sound and worst of all in greyscale all in the name of simplicity? Notice how Palm is slowly adding features that PPC now have.

You have also rightly pointed out that the Palm interface is not necessarily simpler than the PPCs. I myself have been used to Microsoft's interface that when I first picked up the PPC, I am comfortable with the wallpaper, the start menu, etc just like the desktop pc. When I hold a Palm today, it still takes me some getting used to, having to relearn the interface. Although it is intuitive, it is not easier than PPCs and it would be easier for one who does not have a PC background to acquaint the Palm than one who is used to the PC.

Don't confuse opinion with fact. Ed's editorial offers a compelling argument for how technology has effected the innovation practices of Palm and Microsoft, but it is still just a theory.

If Palm were really only concerned with the hardware catching up to the software, they would have continued to innovate after the Palm V and basically done what Sony has done in the past couple of years. Instead, Palm rested on its laurels.

And can you honestly say that the many new features that make OS 5 seem so attractive would have been in OS 5 had PPC not had them first? PPC's growing market share has caused Palm to take notice and, if nothing else, influenced Palm's new OS. Therefore, I think that the conclusion that Palm is now incorporating many PPC features in its new OS is a fair one to make.

Hmmm... here we go...

Word and Excel files must be converted on the PPC platform - that's why they loose advanced formatting when you move back and forwards between desktop and PDA - unlike the better Palm solutions which retain the formatting.

Open MP3s and JPEGs natively - I do that on my Clie all the time. Granted native JPEG viewing requires 3rd party software coating me $20 - but my PAlm cost a darn sight less than a PPC...

And yes - explorer-like access to files is missing on PalmOS - but then again any decent Interaction Design person will tell you that the whole file based system is as intuative as a door with a nice pull handle on it that you need to push...

Cheers
Russsell

russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

(on a rant :)

2 - Actually all the important apps run fine already under OS5 - IE AdressBook, DateBook, ToDo, MemoPad :-P Even beyond my irony... most apps don't use non-standard calls. Games... yeah they often write directly to the screen - but the worthwhile ones will be upgraded - in fact lots already have been.

3 - M$ don't have any BT cards on the market. BT solutions excist for the PPC platform - yeah. As they have for the PalmOS for well over a year. In fact before any mass-market phones existed with BT. And now BT support is part of the PalmOS - not so for PPC.

4 - If you think neccesity over frivolity is bad thing... oh I can't be arsed...

5 - Palm make hardware - just like Compaq or Toshiba. Just because one licensee of PalmOS doesn't have a good color device doesn't mean the platform is doomed. Maybe another licensee will do better. Sony for example.

6 - Wireless. Erm... you have 802.11b and BT for Palm and Handspring Visor devices. And when you can't find an 802.11b network on a PalmOS device... it doesn't chew up 80% of processor time looking for a network. EG - you can debug a PalmOS device with a non-connected 802.11b card in it - can't do that on PPC.

And the 400$+ market... yeah... real good numbers there (ohhh.... Bill Hicks would kill me for saying that...)

russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

(the rant continues...)

Uh, I've got to take exception to this. There is no BT-support in the PocketPC operating system, the drivers are supplied by the peripheral and device manufacturers. Same with Windows for the desktop.

Also, Sony had a Bluetooth peripheral for their N710C (BT spec v1.0, released in Japan only) when it was released in Japan in early 2001.

I had an iPAQ H3875 that I was using as part of a Bluetooth demo to IBM. The radio was v1.1-compliant but the drivers were completely buggy. Compaq finally shipped a service patch with drivers that worked better, but too late for the demo. We used Palm m505s with the Toshiba/Palm SDIO cards without problems. (for anyone interested: we were also using the 3Com BT PCMCIA card; Sony-Ericsson T68i cell phone and HP 995c printer -- very cool stuff :)

Don't just take my word for it: do a Google for "Cahers Bluetooth" for an independant advisory committee's assessment of current Bluetooth devices. The Palms and Pico's BT access point actually got perfect scores. There were a number of incompatibility problems with the iPAQ.

A further frustration of mine: I'm using a new PPC2k2 Toshiba e570 and would love to get the BT SDIO card working with it. Unfortunately, although the hardware is quite nice, Toshiba has really poor customer service and hasn't released the drivers. Tsk.

I personally would never want to see the day where Palm or PPC becomes the clear-cut winner. If both survive and continue to vie for the same market, the only winner will be the consumer, which is the way it should be.

The Palm OS isn't playing catch-up with PPC. As I said in my editorial, PalmSource simply waited to add multimedia until it was sure it could do so successfully. Microsoft didn't wait and so over-promised and under-delivered.

While H-P and Toshiba have deep pockets, so does Sony. And PPC's dependence on large PC manufacturers might even be a weakness. The iPaq will never be H-P's main focus. If it runs into problems and needs to do some cost cutting, what is more likely to be cut, a PC line or the iPaq? Palm, on the other hand, will never stop making handhelds.

---
News Editor

Yes palm has storage cards, but it doesnt have a file system worth 2 cents. PPC cards work as smoothly as putting a cdrom into your computer

casio e-125 ppc reviewed by cnet 9/27/00, with type 2 CF slot

and what's the point of a cf slot on a palm device (other than sonys), when you can't use file explorer to explore the card, can't move mp3s onto it (cuz you can't play them), and can't move videos onto it (cuz you can't watch them)?

Most people complaining have not owned Pocket PCs, and it is obvious that Ed Hardy has not either.

There are a lot of vicious rumors about Pocket PC.

"Its slow"
No its not. Soft reset it once a day, you will have no problems.

"Its complicated"
Use it for 2 weeks.

"It takes forever to get to programs"
Are you sure about that? Usually 2 taps. Palm OS usually requires three.

"The new Clie has high resolution"
Wow. Now my screen will be slightly better!

"Its unstable"
I have had various Pocket PCs over 8 months, and I have not had even 1 crash. I use my Palm once every few days, over the last 6 months, and it crashes frequently.

"The battery life is crap!"
The HP Jornada 560 gets 14 hours, on par with even the best color palms.

"There is not as much software"
I don't need 28 different versions of snake. The PPC software is better anyway.

"Want multimedia? Get a Sony"
Multimedia is better on a PPC device.

"You can delete registries"
If you are stupid enough to play around with the registries, you deserve a hard-reset. Atleast PPC has a file system.

And to add to that, PPC is requires no conversions! Docs convert by default, but this is to save size. You can view them in native .doc format if you wish.

Surprising as it may be, I am a Palm user as well. In fact, I like the Palm OS.

Its the uninformed users bashing PPC that piss me off.

By the way, I am not a zealot or a troll, although I know I will be called one, just because I am a PPC user.

The TRGpro with CF expansion was actually announced Oct.19, 1999. [The HandEra 300 (dual expansion with SD & CF) was announced April 24, 2001.]

Handspring unveiled the Springboard expansion technology a little earlier than that: Sept. 14, 1999.

See www.PalmEvolution.com

CF in palm has only been used by HandEra, who hasn't had a new model for over a year. And, they've only had two models total. If you asked most people what a HandEra was, they would have you clue.

Memory Stick is only used by Sony (and in the future, 1 ppc). And it's expensive.

i love CF.

If you believe that facts have been ignored... why not point them out? I, and I'm sure Ed as well, would be happy to know where he has not got the facts right. But just saying so doesn't make it so...

russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

Palm OS licensees will have at least as much choice as PocketPC companies. Speaking of choice, what happened to Microsoft's support for MIPS?

Uh, no that's not right, PPC has averaged about 15% for years.

>>Anyone that thinks Palm is going to win hands down is smoking dope.<<

Probably not hands down, but PalmOS is the standard and continues to be very popular and successful. PPC sucks less than it used to. Competition is good for the consumer, so hopefully PPC will continue to be around for some time to come. It's the competition between the different Palm device makers that's more interesting I think.

Based on how overheated a lot of people are getting in here, maybe it would be a good idea if we all shared a nice, fat joint. |-}

Peace.

/me starts twisting up a fatty

Not true. The auidence began asking Todd Kort questions when he did not stick to the topic he was supposed to. "Anatomy of the Pocket PC Industry". He was also required to have a panel, Todd refused. Todd never talked about any Pocket PC OEMs that is why people started questioning him. Todd also did not submit his presentation to the Pocket PC summit, some say it was bait and switch.

In the Brighthand forum, Todd Kort admits he had a private dinner with Chris Dumpfy, Palm Employee and with Steve Bush at the Pocket PC Summit.

my biggest beef is that a lot of you palm people haven't even used a PPC.

i have used both for substantial amounts of time, and definitely prefer PPC (b/c of NATIVE multimedia, the file exploring, and the more powerful hardware.)

From right off the start, you made it clear you don't know what you are talking about. In just the past two months we've had the NR70, NR70V, and T650C from Sony, plus the Treo 90 and Treo 270 from Handspring. Go back another month and you get the Palm m515 and m130.

> but over 15,000 is "few"

Could you point to the site on the Web where I can find these 15,000 applications?

> It took a signifigant part of Palm's market share and sold two million copies of the OS.

Whoa, two million copies you say? That's about how many copies of the palm OS are sold each quarter. PPC had a few months where it cut into Palm's market share but those numbers have been droping back since March. Did you read that part about PalmSource having 87% of retail sales?

> t's now HP/Compaq, Toshiba, Casio, Fujitsu/Simmens, and many
> other OEMs (ABIT, etc.) against Palm, Sony and Handspring.

Again, the ignorance. You left off half a dozen Palm licencees, like Samsung, Kyocera, etc.

> All of these things are what has made Pocket PC so successful.

13% of retail sales is successful? Not in my book.

> MS makes much more than that.

No, it doesn't. Licence fees are about the same for both platforms, roughly $10.

PPC units cost a lot more but they also cost a lot more to make. H-P/Compaq barely makes anything on each model it sells, not enough to cover their R&D costs. Its only hope of ever breaking even is to sell in much greater volume.

All the PPC makers are tasking a loss, hoping that someday the platform will be successful and they'll make some money. Microsoft has lost many millions on R&D over the past 5+ years.

Wrong. PPC is the only handheld locked into the Intel family (and their crappy StongARM). PalmOS manufacturers have the choice of three different ARM-processor families: TI's OMAP, Motorola's MX1, Intel XScale.

BTW, hold onto your receipt for that e740 -- the other PPC makers aren't releasing their XScale devices until end of July because PPC2002 has "power and performance" issues according to Intel.

Back under the bridge, troll!

Oh, what do you base that assumption on? With very few exceptions, PalmOS manufacturers don't pre-announce their devices months in advance like some PPC manufacturers do.

Why are you so defensive? I am a former Palm owner who owned a series of Palms. I found that I prefer the power and speed of the PocketPC. You, apparently, do not. Enjoy your weak PDA, little man.

Interesting. I didn't note any defensive attitude in the post previous to yours. Nor did that post resort to name-calling...

FWIW, I currently own a number of PalmOS PDAs, a few WinCE devices (Casio E-10, Philips Nino 500, Toshiba e570), and several pre-1996 PDAs. I try to keep an open mind and stay informed about the different platforms too. My personal preference is still the PalmOS for many reasons: UI elegance and efficiency, software selection, battery life, device size, and a broad selection of devices.

False. Do your homework troll.

> Insert my 1gb (Yes, Virginia, that is 1 GIGABYTE) IBM MicroDrive and this unit is smokin'!

Virginia must be really behind the times if your power hungry microdrive is so revolutionary in her eyes. If you were the type of power user you claim to be - and not just the battery power user you really are - you'd have a regular 1GB CF card sans microdrive.

> As for the demise of the PocketPC platform as described by the author of this BIASED article

This was not a biased article. It was an editorial, clearly labelled. Do you get all up in a huff every time you spot an editorial in the newspaper? Why don't you go write a letter to the NY Times editor with accusations of being "BIASED" (btw, nice use of all caps... not).

> Palm is real soon now, they promise, going to START pushing the 206mhz Intel StrongARM as their processor of choice.

False. Do your homework, troll.

Lucan

Buy one, use it for a week. You'll see there is more advantages than just hardware. You'll also see it is not hard to use. You will also see how stable it is.

1 year, no crash.

The evidence is there if you are willing to look at it. The Pocket PC no longer has any advantages over the Palm OS, while the Palm OS has plenty over PPC.

Palm OS advantages
* Usability
* Price
* Installed user base
* much larger developer community

Pocket PC advantages:
* Microsoft

Rob

there is also a grayscale ipaq, but nobody really bought it. shop around.

- The PPC OS is very stable (called unstable)
- Quick (called slow)
- Thousands of softwares (people say there is little software)
- Up to 14 hours battery life (people say the battery life is crap)
- Approaching sleek Palm size (said to be twice as big as palms)
- Extremely easy (called frustratingly hard)

Nobody saying the things in brackets have ever owned a PPC.

"We'll start worrying when they start innovating," Suwanjindar said.

"There isn't anything in there that we haven't provided for one, or in some cases two, releases."

Suwanjindar added that the move to ARM-based processors will force makers of Palm-based handhelds to start using more expensive chips and screens, potentially removing the cost difference between Palm-based handhelds and those using Pocket PC.

By Richard Shim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 25, 2002, 3:40 PM PT

In short MS won the desktop by taking CARE of it's developers...will Palm do the same? They haven't yet...take Metrowerks for example, it runs better on Mac than Win. I don't have stats on who is using which system, but why have your best tools on Mac? Does this even show sense? Looks and smells like an Apple again...nice stuff but to stuck up too let normal people like me play.

Perhaps in SIZE your analogy is apt: load me up with one of those iPAQs and a dual sleeve baby. Oh, and you'd better throw in one of those nice 22oz. D-cell battery pack extenders! Yehaa - now I'm portable!

Get a grip, fanboy. Here's a better analogy:
PlayStation2 vs. Xbox
- most market share
- more titles
- supposedly less powerful but can do the same stuff

Go get a grip on reality Micro$erf :-P

For what it's worth, I *am* a Palm user that has used the PPC, I was actually given a Jornada by MS to test for them and give them comments back, along with a whole bunch of accessories. This was before Sony really had gotten into the game, so I was really blown away by the color screen and being able to do things like listen to MP3s and record notes. But after a few months, the honeymoon was over and I was ready to go back.

Frankly, I just found too many things that I could not do that were so easy to do on the Palm. Things that took WAY too long to run. Things that took too many additional steps. Too many apps I loved using on my Palm that had no good alternative on the PPC. And of course, that dreaded lack of a way to close a program. For what it's worth, I twice lost all my information on the Jornada, although I certainly have had it happen on Palms as well.

The simplicity of the Palm really is one of the biggest reasons it still has market lead. I have no doubt that even with Palm OS 5 coming out, we will continue to see lower-end models for less than $100 that do just the basic organizer stuff. Regular users don't care about a file system or multi-tasking. That's something only geeks care about. They just want something that is easy to use that they can keep their contacts and schedule on. In terms of high-end, I think Palm is playing catch-up with Sony just as much as the PPC. They know they are losing the power users that want all the bells and whistles, and are working towards making them more happy, but we really are, after all, a small part of the market.

For now, I am back to the Palm, a Sony Clie actually, and am totally happy. I have a gorgeous high-res screen that is a joy to read, two 128 meg sticks of MP3s to listen to and books to read, great battery life, small form factor, and an elegant OS that does all the organizer functions fast and easy. I don't need desktop-quality games, that's what my desktop is for. Instead, I have a couple dozen very high-quality Palm games that are great for killing time when I need to (and don't sap battery life so bad). I have a cable to hook to my cell phone when I need to access email and web on the road. Using the free Eudora suite, I have all the internet access I really need, no problem and it syncs with Eudora (rather than forcing me to use Microsoft Outlook). I also have Pocket Quicken, syncs perfectly with Quicken (rather than forcing me to use Microsoft Money). Which of course is another advantage of the Palm OS, you aren't forced at every turn to use Microsoft products.

on the other hand, games and mp3's wear down the battery much faster.

two things to consider when comparing battery life. for the monochrome palms, they don't have to worry about backlight (which is a big consumer of battery). all palms except sony don't have to worry about mp3s using up battery.

btw - snails (for ppc) is a great game! exactly like worms armageddon, but with snails. truly amazing.

Not trying to pick a fight but that's not the best way to test. After an hour of use, my Vx is still at 100%. That doesn't mean it lasts forever, just that the battery gauge isn't all that accurate. Keep testing until it goes to 0% and tell us how much use you got.

All they did was outshipped the palm os, (not outsell) on total unit combined MSFT did not overtake the market or put palmX to sleep.

So it is your position that MS OEMs are idiots and they just shipped a bunch of product to fill the pipeline and spike the report? Okey dokey.

Expect PPC's share to drop back to single figures
The only single digit figure the PPC dropped into was #1.

I really wish we actually had a clear representation of the total sales numbers from an unbiased independent organization. Then we wouldn't have to worry about arguing about the math, numbers and so forth for each different analyst report.

Less than a year later, the Treo *IS* a Pocket PC Phone, and I still get a kick out of reading Ed Hardy's analysis a year 3 years after he wrote it. :-)

And could this article have new life? ACCESS after all just claimed they were going to take PalmOS via ALP from 4% to 30% share by 2010. http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8860/access-aims-for-30-marketshare-by-2010/