Comments on: Tapwave Discontinues Zodiac Business

Even minus the analog stick and one of the SD slots, such a device would've been a KILLER machine in every sense of the word.

Did anyone ever think a year ago that the lame duck T5 would (patched) be left holding the title of the best Palm device currently in production/on the market? Folks, it's getting grim...

Btw, Tapwave's perpetual "spring has sprung" promotion/motiff on their website kinda gave me some signals something was dead wrong with 'em...here we are sweltering in the brown grass of late July and they are still showing the green grass of spring on their site.

P.S. I wonder what'll happen to Scott & the gang at Tapland? How long will the lights stay on at Tapwave.com? I guess no one wanted to partner up with them to license "Zodiac" technology for next-gen devices!?!

I'm afraid to set my Treo down too hard for fear that vibrations will travel through the earth's crust, making their way to PalmSource headquarters, collapsing the shaky foundation they set upon. Seriously, is there anything further that could make this platform look any more hopeless? I'm beginning to think Microsoft is actually paying PalmSource and its licensees to implode. It's all too perfect.

You can bet Windows Mobile based products are in the pipeline at Palm. Their only concern now is offering what the customer wants, not in cultish platform ideology. Palm's money is in selling hardware, not PalmOS..especially not a DYING PalmOS.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

So much potential. So much RAM! At a time when it was sorely needed!

I recall a few weeks ago there was an article stating Tapwave was shifting the company's focus, and someone started a thread stating companies make their boldest statements just before going out. Gekko or Voice Of A Prick said it. Either one, it doesn't matter. Good call.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T637

You often criticize PIC as a place of bullies, but you seem behave that way yourself at times. I suggest the doctor take some of his own medical advice.

I'm sure after the embarrassing exposure of Jeff's lack of insight on his own website, he's particularly touchy of being challenged or having to prove his statements. He/Reggie deleted every factual or insightfully post I made at 1src in an apparent attempt to protect their users from the truth.

Pity they cant protect PalmSource licensees in the same manner.

Surur

You have GOT to be kidding me? PalmSource isn't in a position to pick up ANYTHING or anyone, except perhaps rubbish along the highway. As for Palm..why would they want this company? The Zodiac was unsuccessful. Buying them up and slapping a new brand name on the device won't make it anymore popular.

Second, Tapwave is going out of business. Ueker and Associates handles bankruptcy cleanup. They're finished.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

Well it all depends on how much the Tapwave folks want for their IP, but PalmSource could be interested in whatever progress they made on getting Linux running on Palm-compatible hardware. And as for them being unsuccessful, we all can only speculate as to what the reasons for that were. I personally believe it had more to do with poor brick & mortar distribution and insufficient marketing. You're certainly welcome to have your own opinion and to believe that the Zodiac platform itself was unappealing, but I definitely would disagree with that.

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

Even Microsoft has a problem with this on the X-box. I dont see how Tapwave ever stood a chance.

Surur

It's not as if the Zodiac was a big mover for Palm Source anyway. How exactly does this spell doom for Palm Source? For what it's worth, Palm (which of course exclusively uses Palm OS) just shipped more handhelds worldwide than HP. And this didn't even include the Treo.

Over time it doesn't matter as handhelds are going the way of the dinosour. If you ask me, Palm Source is in good position as the Treo is only going to continue gaining momentum. This phone wouldn't work the way it does with a WM or even Symbian OS. I'm anxious to see what the Linux flavor looks offers as well.

It isn't a matter of want, it's a matter of facing reality. PalmSource is dying, and the Palm platform is shrinking. Unlike other Palm enthusiasts (zealots might be a better description) I choose not to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is coming up roses. Others are free to do so, but I don't generally don't believe in prayer chains.

I look at PalmSource, and the larger mobile device space, with a high degree of detachment. You have to, otherwise you always apply your own emotional desires where they do not apply. View PalmSource or mobile devices through the eyes a fan boy and you'll misinterpret reality every time. You WANT PalmSource to succeed, therefore you think they ARE succeeding.

I don't have a vested interest in all this, other than hoping PalmOS will weather the storm. I view the mobile space from a business perspective, not as a fanboy end user..even though I kind of still am. The business reality is that they aren't going to survive. They are cash starved, and burning through money faster than they earn it. The stock is trading at the bottom of the barrel, Cobalt was collasal failure that robbed PalmSource of valuable resources (not to mention the most critical factor: TIME). The entire survival of PalmOS now depends on an OS that is two years out, an eternity in tech terms.

Add to this the fact that Windows Mobile is now ahead of PalmOS, and you have a recipe for failure. None of this would be a problem if PalmOS were still sitting on 80-90% market share. But those days are long gone. And PalmOS are already losing against larger players. Truthfully the only thing holding PalmOS upright at this point is Treo. It's highly popular, and highly successful product. Peel back that layer of the onion and you see that everything below that is tanking. And I'm betting LifeDrive is failing as well. Largely because the market is shifting away from PDAs to Smartphones, at nearly breakneck speed. I predicted this was going to happen, but never THIS FAST. At the rate of PDA decline it's doubtful any vendor (including Palm) will still be making traditional PDAs after next year.

That's the long and short of it. So..am I supposed to sit back and whisper sweet nothings into everyone's ear? Perhaps I and others are sometimes TOO cynical, but when there is little to be positive about, cynicism is all that's left. Give me something positive and raise you. Otherwise you're just complaining that we have the audacity to discuss PalmSource's misfortunes.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

The consumers weren't disinterested - you have to know something exists before you can have a lack of interest in it!

What the heck do I do with my Z2 now? If I ebay it I'll get very little for it. Can you install Linux on a Zodiac? ;-)

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

Funny to see him repeatedly change his position again. In the space of two weeks he's gone from saying that PalmOS multitasks to saying PalmOS sorta multitasks to saying who cares if PalmOS doesn't multitask since it works adequately for many people to saying there's no need for PDAs that offer anything more than the bare bones that Palm's PDAs offer. His rationalizing has an eerily child-like quality about it. I suppose ignorance/denial is bliss and he must be quite blissful.

Kirvin seems determined to ignore the facts that people prefer value and features for their money and Palm's crappy hardware and reliance on Primitive PalmOS cripples Palm's ability to compete with Windows Mobile. It seems obvious that even more users will migrate from PalmOS if this situation stays the same. If Palm wants to survive, they must become OS agnostic + offer products running Windows Mobile that will give customers access to advanced functionality. (Imagine a Treo 700 or [FIXED] LifeDrive running some of these apps: Opera or NetFront, Pocket Informant, Wisbar, TextMaker, The Core Pocket Media Player, ListPro, Pocket Artist, Skype, CalliGrapher or PenReader, CoPilot Live, Pocket Quicken, RepliGo, Resco Explorer 2003, Nyditot Virtual Display, etc.) With native multitasking and finally some apps worth using, Windows Mobile becomes a platform that even Palm Fanboys will take a serious look at.

TVoR


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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

I can imagine it, then I imagine the new Axim X60v with a 20 gig hard disk that is more compact and sells for $100 less. Palms whole life had depended upon huge margins. They could never compete with Dell on that. I have no idea what they do with the money, but imagine how little it cost them to have a TE2 made? Or worse yet, a T5. They won't compete in WM arena.

As noted elsewhere, I could definitely go for Microsoft releasing a version of Windows Mobile for a gaming device like the Zodiac. In fact, just fix a couple hardware flaws and flash WM 2005 onto a VGA screened Zodiac right now, and you would have a better game system (IMHO) than the PSP.

The sudden attempts to spin their product as an iPod killer, or a multimedia jukebox. The almost delusional PR statements, trying to turn perception into reality. It'll go down as a textbook example of a company's slow implosion.

Does this remind anyone of a certain product called the LifeDrive?

Surur

No wonder zodiac have no future with Sony PSP out in the market. As others say, if they can design one of the following, I think that many companies will be considering branding it:
1. Lifedrive like design, slimmer, no HD, 512MB flash, WIFI + BT and sliding keyboard.
2. Mio 168 like device (integrated GPS) with 3.8" or even 4" device - strong speaker and a none propietery GPS receiver (unlike the aging Garmin iQue 3600)

Moshe

But the major focus was lack of advertising. Had their been an advert saying, this is a "Palm" device that also acts like a iPod, and acts like a portable movie player, (and maybe also a games machine). Something like Palm + iPod + Movies + Doom = Zodiac (copyright infringement not withstanding). They relied far too much on word of mouth and some computer magazine reviews.

I hear what people say about accessories like car chargers, cases, GPS, etc. and although I would love to have these for my unit, these accessories appeal to only a percentage of buyers.

Interesting comment. My personal feeling has always been that openness of a platform would encourage its success. For instance java made free jdk available from day one and gained a lot from free IDE (forte, netbeans and eclipse). The MacOs also was quite open and developers loved it, though tools were not free.

But maybe game development and marketing has different rules. I also wonder whether the real issue here is name recognition. Tapwave and Palm have none in the gaming world, unlike Sony.

--------------------------
Waiting for a TT successor

Date: 7/27/2005 13:53:44 -0700
From: "Joyce" <joyce@tapwave.com>
Reply-to: <joyce@tapwave.com>
Subject: Update on Tapwave

I’m sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued as of July 25th 2005. On behalf of Tapwave Inc., Uecker & Associates will be liquidating the company’s assets and managing outstanding account balances.

If you have an outstanding account balance (accounts payable or receivable) or an interest in an asset purchase, please contact XXXX XXXX directly at:

Uecker & Associates, Inc.
Assignee for Tapwave
xxx xxxxx Street, xxxxx xxx
San Francisco, CA xxxxx
Tel (415) xxx-xxxx
Fax (415) xxx-xxxx
E-mail XXXXX@XXXXXX.com

We thank you for your past interest and support and apologize for any inconvenience or potential business loss that this may have caused.

Sincerely,

Joyce Morrell & the Tapwave Team

it does seem the company is disolving - i'm just wondering whats going to happen with the bits of research/fun they were doing and if that is going to be involved in the sale or if the tapwave employees are considering starting a fresh somewhere?

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

I saw the bid sheet they were sending around and really, gang, they were selling off everything short of the light fixtures. I'm getting a couple Zods and related stuff from him myself.

Which doesn't mean they are done as a company. It doesn't cost much for a company to continue to exist on paper in some lawyer's file cabinet while the principals all yak over next steps while soaking in the hot tub(s) @ their respective Portola Valley spreads.

However, I'm even more saddened by the fact that this company had SOOOO much potential, and it squandered it all away because they could never find TRUE focus in what they wanted their device to be. So much money and talent were wasted, and now there is no real Palm competition.

Very sad! :(

All good things...

The belief that the Zodiac was "too big" was a widely propogated one and this is where their lack of a brick and mortar presence hurt them. I can't count the number of times I've heard new Zodiac owners say, "Wow, it's not nearly as big as I thought it would be."

I agree that it's not well suited to traditional portrait-mode stylus entry. It's a great device for developers who want to try something new and design untraditional PDA apps that are optimized for a landscape two-handed experience.

Spam over. ;)

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

Anyone for whom it would look stupid to take out a PDA with a joystick during a business meeting/dealing with a client/seeing a patient/etc, etc. [i.e. most "grown ups" that have serious jobs in which their image acutally matters.]

Tapwave's decision to eschew proressionals looking for Zodiac 2 specs in a Tungsten E body was a HUGE mistake. Had they simply released the design I'd proposed, they would probably would not only be in business - they'd be thriving. I emailed Lim about this when he was starting out, but he chose to ignore my advice. Now he's managed to burn through millions of ven cap $$$ for no reason. Congrats.


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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Again VOR, you're simply wrong. You may work in a place where you have to worry about what your boss thinks about the device you're using, but for many Zodiac users who have used ours in big corporations, it's been a non-issue.

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

The fact the the zods looked like a GBA shouldn't be big factor. Many ppl, white collar office ppl and the like are buying the PSPs for its other features as well.

Ummm... so are your legions of "white collar workers" whipping out their PSPs during meetings with clients? Didn't think so.

RE: Still a shock
Scott R @ 8/1/2005 10:51:57 AM #

I guess my IBM Thinkpad is a toy as well since it's got a bright red analog controller in the middle of the keyboard.

Again VOR, you're simply wrong. You may work in a place where you have to worry about what your boss thinks about the device you're using, but for many Zodiac users who have used ours in big corporations, it's been a non-issue.

No, Scott R, YOU'RE wrong. I'm looking at a jewel-like IBM X40 sitting on my desk right now and the Trackpoint is elegantly integrated into the keyboard. Not quite the same as the Zodiac's big honking joystick jutting out of its case like a hideous wart.

While it may be OK for you to use your Zodiac at work, I'll bet you also wear a nametag and a uniform with a hat at work. Not that there's anything wrong with that... Others need a more professional-looking device.

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Would you like to place money on that bet?

It sounds like you have to worry too much about what your boss thinks about the PDA you use. One day if you work hard enough, you may move up to a position where you don't need to concern yourself about such things.

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

I don't think there were people running around "propogating" the myth the Zodiac was "too big." I own a couple of them, and my remarks were from the point of view of the "average" user that seems to be the target market of PDA/Smartphone makers at this time. Treo 650 is a case in point- barely any RAM because apparently Palm's intelligence tells them that only the rare "power users" load anything on to them except the basic applications (and thus they can skimp on RAM).

Zodiac has a radical design - extremely effective from a "gaming" viewpoint, but from the perspective of the "average" PDA user it's larger and "too different" from other PDAs - kind of a 'nerd' appeal, not a 'bling' appeal. In a market where people choose the tinyest cell phone they can find, regardless of the actual technology within the phone, Zodiac's 'larger than average' size was destined to relegate it to a very niche market.

If you're picking one up casually, that's fine, but if you're serious, I'd doubt the zod2 will dip below $150. If the T|T3, z71, and variety of kickass Clie's are of any indication, the price many months/years later will will only be $50 to $100 cheaper than the current price point. The clie's are special b/c some models are actually selling for $50 to $150 over its MSRP

[signature0]
the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
[/signature0]

[signature1]
My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 5 of 6 screws still remaining) --> zodiac 2?
[/signature1]

1) Long battery life - went out with color screens.
2) Cheap devices - probably still true, but you don't get much for your money. Also I heard Zires may be discontinued.
3) Simplicity - if you hear of the shenanigans the LD owners have to go through to make sure they do not kill their devices (e.g. backing up their saved prefs due to random deletion, installing software very carefully etc) thats clearly gone too.
4) Reliability - Again see the T5 and LD.
5) Speed - Again, look at the LD.
6) Large software library - which will crash your device due to not being NVFS compatible. There is now a growing movement to run your devices as "stock" with as little third party software as possible, due to the fragility and instability of the system.

As I see it the Palm you fell in love with is long gone, and you are only defending a memory. What you have at the moment is just a poor WM competitor.

BTW, WM for smartphones has had one-handed navigation and persistent storage for 3 years now. Isn't smartphones where the treo's at?

Surur

Ok, let's make a WinCE/PPC/WinMob/whatever list too:

1. Not just an organiser - then why do your customers use it as such? And why is the leading after-market software a PIM? Because the poor guys purchased a poor-excuse-for-an-organiser, that's why.

2. I can do more - system maintanence, dealing with crashes, staring at hour-glass symbols, etc.

3. Have a PC interface - great, how innovative, and so elegant on a 2.4 inch screen (not).

4. The device has a faster chip / more memory - each of which is needed merely to eke out reasonable performance from that bloated kludge of an OS. What does this do to battery life, I wonder?

5. Multitasking - why is it that so many users pay good money to purchase software which switches it off? Because it degrades performance and contributes to crashes, that's why.

6. It synchronises with Outlook - doesn't every handheld computer?

7. I can work with Word and XL files - yes, and loose your formatting. How convenient.

And the predictably lame response from Pool_F@rter and Vat of Refuse is ...

The fact is, the people who buy things like macs and iPod and palms are more concerned with the cleanliness and practicality of the user interface and whether it does the job quickly and easily.

The majority of people DO want an organizer, and use their PDA that way. The fact is, not having to deal with multitasking and a cartload of button presses to get things done is the reason these people buy palm.

But windows fanboys will never understand this and demand features like multitasking that I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've wanted it (and what I do want it for, palm does reasonably well).

I do agree palm is doing alot wrong, but until microsoft can release a usable OS, we'll probably more likely to switch to symbian or linux than your crappy OS :).

But at this point, first real PDA with 40gb or bigger hard drive gets my vote, even if its microsoft.

svrontis, your comments and the seemingly blind sheep approach that many Palm users have taken with Palm for the last five years are precisely why PalmSource has fallen on hard times.
1. Let me ask you, have you heard of Agendus or DateBook5? Aren't they two of the most popular Palm software titles? To use your logic, I guess Palm doesn't provide a very good PIM.
2. Apparently you haven't tried Palm's latest and greatest, the T5 or the LifeDrive, because you just described their end user experience. BTW, I have a LifeDrive for sale, cheap!
3. This is a matter of personal choice, however, I'm not aware of any PPC with a screen as small as you indicate.
4. The same thing it does to battery life on every recent Palm release - seeing as they both use the same Intel processors these days.
5. Some of use would prefer to be able to cut information from our web browser, paste it into an email or word document, and return to the same spot in our browser. This is just a small sample of what multi-taksing provides. Much like you close programs on your desktop when you no longer need them, third party progroms in WM give you the same choice.
6. Yes, what's your point?
7. Just like the Palm OS requires a third party product to "maintain formatting", the PPC requires the same thing. If it is an issue to the user, it can be resolved via third party software.

The problem is for too long apologists such as yourself have been too busy pointing out WindowsMobile flaws while accepting the BS Palm gives you as Gospel. If you had taken Palm to task 3 years ago on these issues, we may now have a stable solid alternative to WindowsMobile, which I think everyone in here thinks would be a very good thing. Nothing is worse than the complacency being an uncontested market leader brings. Look at what happened to Palm or Internet Explorer for an example of this.

As far as Tapwave is concerned, I think they had a very good idea, but picked the wrong platform and time to bring this market. Because of Palm's previous OS decisions, there weren't a lot of ready made games that need the horsepower and ease of use that the Zodiac brought to market. I still thing it was a very good idea, and would have fit a very much needed niche in the WindowsMobile market. Certainly it would never have competed with Nintendo or Sony for the biggest slice of the portable gaming market, but there are more WM titles that could have taken advantage of the hardware than PalmOS at this point in time.

LOL! Linux eh? I do hope you enjoy TrollTech's sucktacular QT interface. It is by far the worst user interface I have EVER seen on a mobile device. Repeating all of the same mistakes of Microsoft's early Palm-Size PC GUI; a shrunken desktop UI on a tiny screen. You think Windows Mobile is bad? Pulllleeeeeeze! It is a paradise compared to QT Linux. If you don't believe me just try out a Zaurus. Very poor quality software that looks like it was designed by amateurs.

The best solution for mobile Linux, as on the desktop, is to have proprietary software (including a well designed GUI) layered on top of it. PalmSource made the right decision; they just did it too late. If the Nagel and his merry minstrels of mismanagement hadn't wasted the last few years on a stillborn platform, and moved PalmOS onto Linux from the start, the Palm platform would be set for life...with a bright future ahead. Instead, Cobalt (the OS that never was) sucked up most of the company's development resources, and wasted PalmOS's most vital resource; time.

Because of this we are now stuck with an OS that was originally slated for decommissioning, for the next 2 years.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

The problem is any company that acquires PalmSource instantly inherits its failures and financial problems. At this point Palm Inc. is doing well financially. If they buy PalmSource that changes in the blink of an eye, and they transition from a stable profitable company to a cash burning machine.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

Now I agree that a WM device still has to come out addressing the advantages of the Treo (good keyboard and one-handed navigation) but there is a lot of competition out already. WM phone devices already outsell the Treo, and with a raft of very attractive devices coming out addressing those specific areas (keyboard and one-handed navigation) I expect the Treo (and POS) wont be sitting so pretty in a year's time.

Surur

As for Pocket Word and Excel vs DTG, they're about similar issues

The PalmOS advantage here is that many pOS handhelds are bundled with DTG, a decent office program that retains formatting. If you can't wait for the WM5 update of Pocke Word and Excel, due to wishful thinking that the update will still suck anways, just buy the 3rd party alternative for $30 to $50. WIth PPC, u spend extra $$ is all

[signature0]
the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
[/signature0]

[signature1]
My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 5 of 6 screws still remaining) --> zodiac 2?
[/signature1]

Surur

But at this point, first real PDA with 40gb or bigger hard drive gets my vote, even if its microsoft.

Voice_of_Troll? Wow, that really hurt me. Anyway, to dismantle your exceptionally weak arguments:

Initially people were saying PPC would never get more than 10% of the market. Then 50%. Now you say "windows mobile will never really take all the business from the palm side". That doesn't sound like you have a lot of confidence in PalmOS. If Palm sells only 100,000 PDAs per year or plummets to a 1% market share, will you still consider them successful?

Despite what you say, people prefer getting more for their money - features sell. Macs still sell (though in relatively miniscule numbers compared to Windows) because some people like the idea of using a non-Windows environment; because of the zombie-like obedience of Mac Cultists; because Microsoft needs Mac to stay around so Windows isn't considered a monopoly; and perhaps least important of all, because in some ways it is actually a good OS.

iPods, on the other hand are a FAD. Apple was the first company to get the right integration of hardware, software, music sales and industrial design in a portable digital music player. Marketing then took it to the next level. The fact that people will buy an iPod shuffle instead of a better quality/better featured/less expensive competitor underscores how good Apple is about marketing + brainwashing its customers.

People use PDAs as an organizer, but if that was all they did there would be no need to sell anything other than a few cheap Zires. Unfortunately for Palm, traditional PIM functions can easily be taken over by modern cell phones. CONNECTED PDAs are the future. And to be useful as a connected PDA, multitasking is a must. The fact that you don't see multitasking as being important suggests to me that you've never used your PDA to connect to the Internet. Once you start using a PDA as a mobile browser, you'll quickly get frustrated that you have to close out your browsing session EVERY TIME you need to do something else in another app. If Palm could come up with a simple way to allow the browser and two or three other apps to remain open at the same time (and support multiple browser windows) I think most users would be satisfied. As with desktops, usually only a few apps ever need to be open at the same time. I agree that PPC/Windows Mobile has a suboptimal User Interface, with too many taps being needed to do things. Also, switching apps + closing programs should be handled better. Unfortunately for Palm, these UI problems can easily be overcome with the addition of third party programs (many are freeware!), while NO third party program can overcome the limitations of the PalmOS architecture. Also - especially if you're not familiar with the advantages of the PalmOS UI - people that use Windows Mobile can quickly adapt to the UI anyway.

It's funny you mention Linux, since Tapwave (who had a number of talented programmers and had done some impressive hacking of PalmOS to create a stable platform for the Zodiacs) were experimenting with Linux this year as they struggled to stay alive. Furthermore, PalmSource also finally woke up and are now praying that PalmLinux will save the platform's sorry a$$. Only problem in that hammering Linux into a suitable PDA OS takes a lot of time, effort and skill. Palm seems to be lacking in those three qualities these days and Windows Mobile has a several year head start on Palm in fielding a multitasking OS.

I find it ironic that you completely undermined your argument that OS matters when you concluded that "But at this point, first real PDA with 40gb or bigger hard drive gets my vote, even if its microsoft." I guess you've now proven to us all that FEATURES (like a 40 GB HD) actually do matter to some people (like YOU)!

TVoR, Esq.


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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Fine, 3.5 inches - let's say 4 inches to be on the safe side. Whether it's 2.4, 3.5 or 4 inches, that familiar Windows interface is neither an innovative nor elegant way to run a handheld computer.

> If you want to know battery life, just look it up. I suspect that you actually don't want to know, since it would show that even with fast processors most PocketPCs are still quite long lived, with the good ones running 8 hours with Bluetooth on and a moderate brightness.

Shall we do a challenge? Name me a typical WinMob unit, we'll look up the reviews and compare battery life with a roughly equivalent Palm unit. I vote that we select the x50v. Let me know which unit you want to choose. (The comparison must be done on the basis of the stock-standard unit - I don't want any tiresome arguments about replacement batteries. OK?)

> Nobody switches off multitasking. I don't know where you got this idea, but it's incorrect. Perhaps you're thinking of task switchers, which allow people to easily sort and control what programs they have open.

I was refering to Wisbar. Users instal it so that when they 'close' an application it is actually closed, rather than running in the background. It prevents the 'closed' programs contuining to run in the multitasking environment. This means that users instal this program to prevent multitasking the 'closed' program. Why do they do this? Because, if the 'closed' program continues to run, it needlessly ties up system resources, and retards performance.

> The Word formatting issue is finally supposed to be fixed in WM5.

That doesn't exactly help the poor guy who will buy a WinMob 2003 SE unit today, thinking that he can work with his documents on it. Does it? This is so typical of some of the Whiners here at PIC - they critize Palm rabidly - but when you refer them to a WinMob issue, they tell us it will be fixed 'soon'. For goodness sake, people have been complaining about missed alarms and ActiveSync problems for 5 or 6 years now and these issues have STILL not been rectified.

I'll try to respond to some of the other posts addressed to me another time. (I have some work to do.)

By the way, I'd like to offer an unreserved apology to Foo Fighter and The Voice of Reason for my name calling. This was entirely uncalled for.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=&a=&c=&s=msft

They are heading south too.

I REALLY REALLY need to do some work now.

He's a comparison between your employer's stock performance and Apple.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s=MSFT&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=aapl

That ain't a stellar performance, is it?

That ain't a stellar performance, is it?

As usual, you show your ignorance, Bubba. Let's just go a little further back in history (pre-iPod) and see how your precious CrApple was doing:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=aapl

Face it - if it wasn't in Microsoft's best interests that Apple be kept on life support, they would have gone bankrupt in the 1990s. And right now Apple's living mainly off its iPod FAD. What happens when the fad is over and they have to go back to being a computer manufacturer (or more accurately, a computer MARKETER)? Simple: the RED INK returns.

I think most people now see through Steve "Svengali" Jobs' smoke and mirrors nonsense (gotta love how they finally now admit the Power PC performance numbers were a crock of sh*t...) so I expect their future as a desktop OS will be pretty bleak.

Bill Gates

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Hey, Voice, your employers will be very disappointed in you. You see, you have now admitted what they have tried to deny for years. Their whole 'you can do more' marketing campaign was based on the knowledge that the poor-excuse-for-an-organiser PIM component of WinCE/PPC/WinMob/whatever could never compete with what even a low end Palm can do in terms of time/contact management. It's a classic marketing tactic - if you can't compete, disparage the rival. We still see a lot of that here on PIC even today.

So now you've sunk to taking quotes out of context? How lame. Let's just see that quote in its orginal context, Bubba:

"People use PDAs as an organizer, but if that was all they did there would be no need to sell anything other than a few cheap Zires. Unfortunately for Palm, traditional PIM functions can easily be taken over by modern cell phones. CONNECTED PDAs are the future. And to be useful as a connected PDA, multitasking is a must. The fact that you don't see multitasking as being important suggests to me that you've never used your PDA to connect to the Internet. Once you start using a PDA as a mobile browser, you'll quickly get frustrated that you have to close out your browsing session EVERY TIME you need to do something else in another app. If Palm could come up with a simple way to allow the browser and two or three other apps to remain open at the same time (and support multiple browser windows) I think most users would be satisfied. As with desktops, usually only a few apps ever need to be open at the same time. I agree that PPC/Windows Mobile has a suboptimal User Interface, with too many taps being needed to do things. Also, switching apps + closing programs should be handled better. Unfortunately for Palm, these UI problems can easily be overcome with the addition of third party programs (many are freeware!), while NO third party program can overcome the limitations of the PalmOS architecture. Also - especially if you're not familiar with the advantages of the PalmOS UI - people that use Windows Mobile can quickly adapt to the UI anyway."

If you're going to take part in the discussion here, at least try to not stoop to such sleazy tactics. If you're finding that you have no convincing response to the points I've raised, perhaps you should simply admit that you (again) lost the debate, S T F U and slink away into the night.

By the way, besides Surur, most of the people at Palminfocenter that have recently made posts critical of Palm/PalmSource's efforts are actually experienced PalmOS users. hkklife, Mike Cane, TVoR, Kent Pribbernow, etc have all probably each been using PalmOS devices for over six years. In fact, some of us started out as early adopters with the original Pilot. If you feel better by suggesting that those critical of Palm are actually Microsoft employees, be my guest. Unfortunately, your smear tactics don't change the facts that have been outlined here before. And people aren't dumb enough to fall for your FUD, as the late RhinoSteve also found out before he mysteriously disappeared from Palminfocenter.

Bill Gates TVoR

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

"In our standard play-'till-you-drop music burn down test, the E2 lasted an amazing 17 hours before refusing to keep playing music, even though it still had a tiny bit of power left. While not enough to top the Treo 650, it still beats the pants off of nearly every other handheld in the market, most of which get 6-8 hours in the same test."

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/07/14/438991.aspx

Surur

So is Palm in a catch 22 here? If they buy out PSRC the sinking ship takes them down too. If they don't (and PSRC goes under), they have to license WM and compete with the other WinMob vendors. I don't think Palm can make it as "just another Windows Mobile device".

I'm sure that's not the whole picture. But in any case, the picture does look bleak.

Maybe we'll all wake up tomorrow to some fantastic news from Palm or PSRC that'll prove the doom-sayers all wrong...

...and, then again, maybe not.

I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."

Palm will buy PalmSource because that was probably the plan all along (see conspiracy theory link at the bottom of this post).

- First PalmSource stock needs to plummet to near penny stock levels so the takeover bid will be painless.

- When PalmSource is absorbed back into Palm, remember Palm will no longer have to pay (itself!) licensing fees, plus it gets whatever is left of PalmSource's (dwindling) cash reserves. The $30 million "gift" Palm gave PalmSource appears to have been nothing more than an absurdly bold way of fleecing yet more money from Palm's victimized investors. This shell game is getting out of control. I wonder if Nagel quit because he was getting scared that if things unravel he'd end up like Michael Milliken, Jeffrey Skilling or Bernie Ebbers.

If you don't think PalmSource stock will soon be worthless, ask yourself why insiders like David Nagel, Gabi Schindler, etc are trying to dump their stocks as quickly as possible.

And to the person trying to spin that Microsoft is somehow in a bad financial situation, here's a couple things to chew on:

- They're probably sitting on more cash reserves than any other company on the planet (despite being sodomized by a series of bogus lawsuits they've lost primarily because everyone loves to hate Big Bad Micro$oft).

- http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=aapl

'Nuff said

;-O

Hugs and Kisses

Your Pal,

Billy G

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Yes, that is the conclusion I have reached as well. I'm just trying to get Foo Fighter to explain his perspective more fully.

TVOR has reached the conclusion that this was all a conspiracy from the start to make a lot of money for a few people on the inside. I'm not yet convinced. I think the evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways. Just because someone can propose a plausible explanation, doesn't mean it is true. Time may tell.

I still see this as a series of very bad business decisions coupled with some (minimal) bad luck and exacerbated by the deep pockets at MS and the perception of the average computer user (i.e. people who didn't know that programs like Wordsmith worked better than Pocket Word). And the withdrawl of Sony (and the Acer debacle) left Palm without a realistic presence in Asia (that's big, whether Americans understand it or not). Admittedly, I still haven't figured out whether the CMS acquisition is going to pay off.

And can it be turned around? I'm not sure any more. It'll take some serious work and serious business smarts. And maybe someone needs to quit paying out huge severance packages to execs who don't deliver. Let's see, how many really good programmers could you hire for a few million dollars?

Hey, why doesn't someone pull an Iacoca? Come on in for a $1 yearly salary, turn this thing around, and then prove what you are worth. If in a couple of years this thing is really moving forward, then company heaps praise and money upon you. But if not, you walk away with your $2, no hard feelings. But maybe it is already too late, and anyone with enough smarts to do it has enough smarts to avoid it.

I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."

Why stop at Apple?
The fact that people bought Windows 3.1/95/98/ME instead of a better quality/better featured (OS/2, BeOS, even MacOS)/less expensive (Linux) competitor underscores how good Microsoft is about marketing + brainwashing its customers.

Voice of Reason said: Tapwave offered advanced hardware specs and solid software, yet somehow remained utterly clueless about marketing, even to the bitter end.
So what's your aim? You criticise Apple for their marketing their product and making a success of it and yet you criticise Tapwave for their lack of marketing for their product.

And yes people want features but they want reliability and ease of use too. I think that's where the success of the iPod lies - you don't have to be a nerd in order to use it. There's no point throwing in features if you can't rely on them to reliably work! The iPods represent a balance between features and ease of use. Incidentally Mac sales are reasonably good too - at margins and volumes most other PC manufacturers would envy.

If Palm and PalmSource can conjure the same set of features as WinMob but easier to use then with the right marketing they'll make bucketloads of money.

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Why stop at Apple?
The fact that people bought Windows 3.1/95/98/ME instead of a better quality/better featured (OS/2, BeOS, even MacOS)/less expensive (Linux) competitor underscores how good Microsoft is about marketing + brainwashing its customers.

I mentioned Apple because it's a relevant example that most people are familiar with. The advantages of Microsoft's desktop OSes go well beyond their own intrinsic merits and into the realms of standardization, interoperability, company stability, availability of support, momentum, inertia, and perceived weaknesses of all of their competition. And never forget: OSes are only as good as the apps available for the platform. (PalmOS has long since frittered away the app advantage they once enjoyed over PPC.) No, I'm not a Windows fanboy - I'm just pragmatic enought to realize that Microsoft and its core apps and OSes are a standard for a reason and bucking that standard can create more grief than it's worth just to make a [deluded] "I'm a nonconformist" statement.

It's quite easy to destroy any argument you could make in favor of a typical business (or even end user) choosing the non-Windows OSes you present. Choose BeOS over Windows? Are you serious? Don't make me laugh. Anyone dumb enough to have banked on Pépé Gassée's "fantasy OS" deserves to have been left stranded for seriously supporting such an amateurish company of wide-eyed dreamers. MacOS? Again, get serious. Until the recent Unix-based rewrite, this was a dead-end OS that forced you into bending over in the prison shower for Apple as they had their way with your tender regions, pounding you with absurdly overpriced, underwhelming hardware. Apple's announced intention to switch to Intel processors only occurred because even Mac Sheep are starting to see through the wool that's been pulled over their eyes for the past 15 years. OS/2? At the time it indeed was a better OS than its Windows opposition, but with poor app support and slow-witted overall company support, it deserved to go the way of the dodo. Linux? If the average consumer is afraid of installing apps + rooting around even slightly with a plug and play OS like Windows, how the he11 would they do with Linux? Face it - desktop Linux is an OS For Geeks Only.

Voice of Reason said: Tapwave offered advanced hardware specs and solid software, yet somehow remained utterly clueless about marketing, even to the bitter end.
So what's your aim? You criticise Apple for their marketing their product and making a success of it and yet you criticise Tapwave for their lack of marketing for their product.

And yes people want features but they want reliability and ease of use too. I think that's where the success of the iPod lies - you don't have to be a nerd in order to use it. There's no point throwing in features if you can't rely on them to reliably work! The iPods represent a balance between features and ease of use. Incidentally Mac sales are reasonably good too - at margins and volumes most other PC manufacturers would envy.

If Palm and PalmSource can conjure the same set of features as WinMob but easier to use then with the right marketing they'll make bucketloads of money.

I don't criticize Apple for fleecing ignorant customers. Apple's marketing company could sell ice to Eskimos and sand to Bedouin. Svengali Steve Jobs could easily sell his feces as an iPoo™ to Mac Cultists aroung the world. I find the fleecing of the naive to be vaguely distasteful and would prefer to see products succeed solely based on merit. Were that the case, everyone would be using PDAs from HandEra syncing with their Amiga desktops. Unfortunately, in the Real World, success is only partially based on merit.

Yes, iPods are a seminal, intuitive, simple-yet-brilliant design. So were the original Palms. And like Palm, Apple is milking its reputation by charging steak prices for hamburger hardware. As with Palm, Apple has issued only incremental updates to the hardware. As with Palm, competitors with better features/price/quality are available. As with Palm, for a while Apple had a market almost all to itself. As with Palm, Apple got greedy, cynical and lazy. As with Palm, Apple is going to get its a$$ KICKED when the fad dies out. Unlike Palm, Apple has: a charismatic, visionary leader; a large group of sheep-like users to rely on in hard times; brilliant marketing; the cachet derived from once having been a leader in the computer industry; a lot of cash reserves; a certain usefulness to Microsoft. But even Apple can become obsolete if they fail to jump on emerging fads (iPhone, iVids) or jumping off dead horses (the [blasphemous!] PowerPC -> Intel switch).

Mac sales are probably less than 2% of the market, despite the B.S. spin Mac Cultists put on things. Palm quoting 200,000? developers, tens of thousands of apps, cumulative sales of "over 30,000,000" PalmOS PDAs is more B.S. we can do without. These companies BOTH need to S T F U and start INNOVATING rather than continually milking designs that are going dry. Palm can no longer compete with Windows Mobile because once a company starts coasting instead of RUNNING SCARED, they are officially A Dead Company Walking. It also would take at least a year or two for a new green lighted product to move from the lab to the hands of consumers. Unfortunately, the following fable is a FREAKIN' LIE:

http://www.ivyjoy.com/fables/tortoise.html

Competitors don't wait for you to pass them in The Real World. Microsoft, eBay, Wal-Wart (yuck!), Amazon.com, Dell, Toyota, Honda, etc are all very different companies, but all show the importance of pushing the envelope/evolving/thinking "outside the box" (if I may use a dotcom phrase I despise). By taking the easy road and beating a dead Garnet in addition to continuing a tradition of ex-Apple reject nepotism (Gassé's Be engineers take a big part of the blame the Cobalt Catastrophe), Palm has sealed its fate. The Palm "split" and then "merger" will be the fitting conclusion to this modern day tragedy.

TVoR, Inc.™

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

However, I cannot help but think that those are pieces of window dressing designed to mask the fact that your average Wintel box mops up the floor with a Mac spec-wise. Apple is still shipping, what, Radeon 9600s as their flagship graphics card? That was a midline PC card a year or more ago!

Still, Apple creates and maintains a BUZZ around their products that is simply unparalleled in the industry nowadays. The LifeDrive got, what, two weeks of mainstream coverage then quickly fizzled out. Yet a beat-up, dirty gen-1 iPod from years ago still gets admiring smiles when you're on the subway (and a mugging too, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong tine!) Palm, at the HEIGHT of its golden years, barely scratched the surface of that recognition when the V debuted and certainly hasn't had that kind of mojo since...though the Treo 600 came admirably close there for a while.

Clone PC manufacturers & Asian PC peripheral companies are still selling USB hubs and mice'n stuff in translucent iPod teal/white. Retooling costs aside, that's a pretty strong testament to the mark Apple managed to make on the Wintel industry-good, bad, or otherwise.

Sony (Still listed because they're still paying PalmSource a couple hundred thousand $ per quarter? Puhleeeeese!)

AlphaSmart (Sold last quarter and who knows how long the Dana will be around.)

Tapwave (Has been a Dead Company Walking for over six months. The dozen or so people that actually bought Zodiacs were apparently the only ones not in on this not-so-secret secret.)

Garmin (Looks like they've switched to Windows Mobile now. The original PalmOS model has now been expunged from most of Garmin's dealer inventories.)

Kyocera (When was their last PalmOS device made?)

Lenovo (Are they making ANY PalmOS PDAs?)

Fossil (Get serious.)

PiTech (Puhleeese.)

GSPDA (Well... at least they're trying.)

Aceeca (This town's not big enough for Aceeca and Symbol.)

Symbol (A good, legitimate PalmOS licensee... as in PalmOS 4!)

Samsung (Let us never speak their name again.)

LG (Don't really count since they probably won't ship product for at least another year... if ever.)

Looks like PalmSource is in major denial regarding how many REAL licensees they actually have...


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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Surur

Only days after the announcement that ex-CEO David Nagel is planning to sell part of his inventory of PalmSource stock, Gabriele Schindler, PalmSource Senior Vice President and major shareholder, filled Form 144 to announce her intention to sell all of her 55,220 restricted shares (with a current value of about $450k).

If you are not posting under another name, I apologize for my previous post. Vaguely Asian phrasing + posts pointing out problems with Palm are always assumed to spring from the same source. It has been interesting to see posts here at PIC from Surur/Ska/Hoplites/BlueAnon over the years, though. You're one of the few people on the Palm sites that actually cuts through the B.S. by posting FACTS derived from independent sources. But unlike you, I'm still rooting for PalmOS to turn things around. Battlestar Galactica AdamaDBrown is one of the few people I trust to tell it like it is with as little spin as possible. After reading all the B.S. that's been posted here in recent weeks, I'd have to say that if I was a newbie in the market for a PDA I be scared to buy anything.

[Tip to newbies looking for a great PDA that will easily last 5 years: pick up a European Sony CLIE TH55 with Wi-Fi + Bluetooth. If you look hard enough you'll find one and you won't be disappointed.]

I already posted about Gabi and Dave's selloff http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7990#110157 but thanks anyway.

Here's a Yahoo link confirming this info: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=PSRCh

PalmSource stock has nosedived to less than $8/share. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PSRC&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
The insider selloff will drive prices down some more. Next blow will be the announcement of a Windows Mobile Treo 700 for Sprint, likely available before the end of 2005. Then will come the announcement of horrific numbers from the current quarter's SEC filing. The final blow (coup de grace) needed to drive stock prices below $3/share (threshold for takeover) will be leaked info outlining problems/delays with PalmLinux.

I'm on record for predicting the timeline. Vegas odds are that I'm right. (But if I'm wrong, I'm sure Ms./Mr. Cane, svrontis, the late RhinoSteve's Danish widow, etc will all be here front and center, screeching that I eat crow while being publicly flogged. Ain't gonna happen. Only fools bet against TVoR.)

Steve "The dancing monkeyboy" Ballmer TVoR

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

I feel your pain. I've also been with the PalmOS platform from day 1 and have decided to make my Last Stand, holed up in my bunker filled with CLIE UX50, TH55 and VZ90. Even today I'm still amazed by these three models. It's especially fun to see people get slackjawed when they see photos or video running on the VZ90's incredible OLED screen. Sony came SO close to perfection - the UX50 with a slightly better battery, 128 MB RAM, slightly more tactile keyboard buttons and an OLED screen would have been the Holy Grail. I hope someone in Sony's skunkworks depoartment will at least release the photos so people will stop saying I'm crazy... ;-O

Since by 2004 traditional PDAs were almost as fully developed as they were going to ever get, my stockpile will probably still be serviceable for another 10 years. (I even loaded up on a few EB40 batteries, just in case.) Meanwhile, my 2 yeay old UX50 keeps on looking great and working as smoothly as ever - despite over a dozen falls (ONTO PAVEMENT, PARKING LOTS, CONCRETE, ETC). I'm worried the VZ90 will not be able to withstand even a single similar fall!

hkklife, if more people were like you and had higher expectations of Palm, they would have been forced to improve three or four years ago. Never settle.


------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038