Handheld Shipments Decline 21%

Becouse Palm switched to colorful and more multimedia devices. If there was no competition they would be still forcing black and white devices with 160*160 screen becouse of the battery life.......... I really wonder how will look the new palmos 6? With start menu ?=:)))

Not after you drop it -- ouch!

You blew the punch line...

... but I wouldn't put it past MS to intro the Table PC!

In their glory days, Palm had no competition. And they acted like it -- just like the Soviet Politburo. ("Never mind, Boris, the Berlin Wall can't fall. We can just add some more razor wire. This freedom thing is a passing fad. You watch. Now I must get to my daksha. 'Dallas' is coming on. I must find out who shot J.R.!")

You still have your m5xx? Or what?

Yeah, I'm a little confused too. All I was saying that in the market share heyday, I don't believe that they were selling many more, if any more, Palms than they are today in these times.... that's all. And no, I gave my m505 to a friend when I got the Tungsten T.

-Davy Fields
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Palm_OS_5/

Yeah but Microsoft would be well-advised NOT to go back even if it wanted to since it's software is awful out of the gate and only improves (notice I didn't say 'gets better'---not wanting to mislead folks) with patches and prayers (and we all know their hardware was so much better then too ;)). To me the verdict is out with Palm OS updates. I just can't see anyone falling over themselves with comments on how much easier to use OS5 is to 3.5.2. Can't do anything on it that I can't with my TRGpro (screen issues aside). And what is with this LithIon thing. Nothing like spending $400+ bucks for a disposable handheld (since the Lions die after 1-2 years of heavy use). As I've said before--I have to put my Windows PC's out of their misery since they don't die. Palms should do better.

Hey Edh, I believe that you're Ed Hardy the editor of Brighthand (former PIC)

I read Steven G. Bush review about the Z71 and I found this little gem: "The Zire 71 comes with 16MB of SDRAM (13MB of which is usable), which is plenty for most average users but considerably shy of that found on the new Tungsten C and most Pocket PCs."

I believe it is kind of biased (to say the less)to compare Palm's memory capacity vs PPC's. I hope you agree with me...

In case you're not Ed Hardy just excuse my confusion. :)

_______________________________________
Nothing: the worst you can do.

Yes. HP's numbers now include Compaq, so the combo of HP/Compaq in 2002 was 473,000 units. The combo in 2003 was 440,000, thus the 7% decline.

And no, I am not Ed Hardy. :-) I'm the Ed from Pocket PC Thoughts though.

"shareholders will wake up very soon, an will fire this idots in the Palmsource managment, which have made such a grazy decission!"

By shareholders I guess that would include Sony's 6%, and whatever Palm owns. So I wouldn't be optimistic. Both have still to show that they "get it". With PocketPC licensees doing more with less, for less, those two have everything to fear from the likes of a Dell, HP, or Toshiba in the palmos platform. Though unfortunately at the moment it looks like that happening is the only thing that would make for competitive hardware.

Still waiting for the marriage of our OS and apps, and their hardware.

I guess if it takes rooting for PPC marketshare gains to shake up Palmsource, Palm and Sony, so be it. Logic doesn't seem to be getting the job done... And my throat's getting sore ;-)

If you add the Palm Solutions Group and Sony unit sales numbers together, combined they actually *gained* market share, year-over-year, against everybody else. So it looks like it's more of an entire PDA market issue, or maybe even a PPC issue, than a PalmOS issue.

Yeah Mike. One day I hope to write like you so I can put copyright info at the bottom of all of my posts.

Copyright © 2003
by Ed Hansberry.
All Rights Reserved.

Yea it's great. Hansberry basically embarrasses himself in front of the outside world and clearly has no idea. If he does, it's even worse that he's willing to take that kind of bullet for Microsoft.

The only other explanation is that he's been picked on and/or beat up by a Palm employee somewhere along the way.

...on who you mean. Savvy power users may have been waiting, but there are so many people out there who don't know anything (like when new models come out or what features upcoming models are rumored to have). Remember, PIC posters and readers make up a very small fraction of the market.

Well just a few comments...

Wi-Fi on a laptop is not really an issue; Wi-Fi on a handheld/PDA has much less importance and is almost always better filled by bluetooth + internet access point (GPRS radio/phone, bt ap, bridge, etc). In addition, laptop usage patterns hardly conincide with PDA usage patterns. PDA usage may be considered more of a niche market, but it still doesn't share many of the same objectives as those with laptops.

Lastly, wide range internet access for low prices is almost here; most people I know (admitedly these are high end buyers who do not reflect the market) use a combo of GSM/GPRS phone (AT&T) and either have unlimited use of data services for free (GPRS, not CSD, mostly through company agreements) that they access through bluetooth on their PDAs or laptops, or failing that, use one of the AT&T data plans. Note that usage is subject to AT&T GPRS coverage (great in some places, practically ubiquitous in Europe, really horrid in some place, most notably middle-of-nowhere America areas, where GSM has barely rolled out), and the low price for go-it-yourself data plans is not quite here yet.

Since you have a T|T, I'm assuming you know the joy of wireless internet connectivity.

Well, like I said, wireless connectivity for the masses is not quite here yet, but it is very close.

WiFi for most PDAs is useless; PDAs are meant to be used on the go, while you're moving around. Unless you carry a roving WiFi hotspot with you, it's pretty much moot. Case in point: I have WiFi in my house (for an iBook and a nice new PowerBook G4 17"), and cat5 for everything else because I run an internal network that demands low latency + high bandwidth for certain applications (two windows 2k machines, a Linux dev box, a Linux server, an Xbox, Dreamcast, PS2, and PVR machine). Hooking my PDA into the network is not a problem with WiFi, and walking into my office downtown is not a problem either with their WiFi APs, however, it becomes totally useless in between the two locations.

Bluetooth alleviates this problem, because guess what? You can't have a roving WiFi hotspot, but you sure can have a roving BT AP, in this case, your mobile provider, connected through your phone, via BT. I can check my email, surf the web, and chat online while I'm taking the el (I live in Chicago) to work, or if I've taken a weekend in Moab and I'm at the lip of a canyon.

Now sure, WiFi APs will become larger in coverage over the years; I mean Starbucks has them everywhere, and even my neighborhood bar has WiFi access, but true nationwide coverage won't come for a long time, if at all, not to mention that most places that do provide WiFi, you have to pay extra for.

You seem to be one of those people who confuse WiFi and BT as competing standards, which is pretty far from the truth. While there is some overlap, they definitely don't share many common goals. BT helps me sync my phone with my PIMs on my computers, and my T|T. It helps me dial directly from my T|T's address book. It helps me download images to and from my phone w/camera. It connects me to other PDAs and laptops and computers for exchanging data, and sharing certain apps like whiteboards. WiFi connects me to a network, which is not to marginalize it, but instead to put it in perspective. To say BT is only for connecting to the internet is to miss 90% of the BT picture.

And if you think BT is not taking off, I suggest you look around. Practically every new phone Nokia and S-E are churning out these days includes BT, including the low end models. Just because your provider doesn't yet have these phones doesn't mean a huge wave of them isn't coming, not to mention everything from BT enabled mp3 players (Apple mentioned they'd like to enable bt in their ipods to control them wirelessly from a pda or phone or other bt device), to pop machines (yes, pop machines), to everyday things like keyboards.

I certainly understand very well the difference between BT and Wi-Fi, but I was simply stating the reality of cellphone bluetooth accessability as being very poor with little sign of improvement based on announced products and prices. That means most people with Tungsten T units etc. use Bluetooth in a fixed enviroment like the home through computer bluetooth dongles in which case Bluetooth is WORSE than Wi-Fi because it is a seperate cost when most could just use their already present and more common Wi-Fi system to do the same thing but with slightly longer range etc.

owned: Pilot 5000, PalmPilot Pro, Palm V, IIIc, m505, Sony T615, TUNGSTEN T!!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's me.

NO!! It's ska!!! (Yeah! That's the ticket! Nyahahaha!)