1. Would you pay millions of dollars for a company, then declare its products dead? Would anyone smart enough to have millions of dollars to spend buying a company buy a company with dead products? Our opions aside, Access must think PalmOS has a future, or they wouldn't have paid what they did.
2. We'd better hope the PalmOS doesn't die. If you're out tonight enjoying a beverage or two, toast to PalmSource's health. We need a healthy, growing, competitive PalmSource that releases one great idea after another. The day that Palm dies, Microsoft will stop most R&D for Windows Mobile. Can you imagine being stuck with an XT box running Win95? That's where we'll be with handhelds. Two examples: I was at a Microsoft function (four years ago I think) when Pocket PC 200? was introduced. After the program, I told the presenter I thought the emphasis was on fun and games, evidently leaving businesspeople to buy Palms. The feature set emphasized games, music and video, but Pocket Word is a horrible little program, and there was no Pocket Access or Pocket PowerPoint. I was told that this would be addressed in the next version. Well, we're just now seeing improvements in Pocket Office that should have been there years ago. One of the MS WinCE department heads asked in an online forum (forget which one) what improvements we'd like to see in future versions. One popular request was the ability to switch screen orientation from Portrait to Landscape. Too expensive, too much R&D, too many problems, too little interest...we were told. Then Palm introduced the Tungsten T3 which could instantly change screen orientation. Couldn't be done, huh? Wasn't too long after that MS released PPC 2003 Second Edition.
I'm looking at a box on a shelf that contains a Compaq HPC that originally shipped with Windows CE v1.xx. I used that a lot, and loved that little device. Still, I wouldn't want to abandon my newer Pocket PC. I depend on my Pocket PC for many things when I'm out and about, I enjoy using it, and will buy one or more devices with WinMobile2005. Without competition, MS would likely be telling us why it would be too complicated and expensive to put Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in such a small device.
Take away the competition and most companies lose their drive to reach out, innovate, take bold steps, and improve. I own a small business, and when competition threatens I work harder, advertise more, try harder to motivate employees...I have to! The competition goes away, and I can relax a little. It's human nature. Kill off Palm and the most innovation we'll likely see is "A beatiful assortment of exciting case colors for WinMobile 2007."
Take away the competition and most companies lose their drive to reach out, innovate, take bold steps, and improve.
Microsoft is aiming at RIM and Nokia. they quit taking PalmOS too seriously several years ago, just like Sony, handera and all the other PalmOS licensees.
There is plenty of competition to keep MS on their toes. Trust me on this, MS is NOT even considering resting on their laurals. They take their eye off the ball and it is a Blackberry world real fast.
Microsoft has taken their eyes off the ball before.
Microsoft left Internet Explorer to wither on the vine for some time once they felt secure enough. Firefox has knocked them back awake. It is good to see WinMob phone edition and Winmob Smartphone being rolled into one sollution. This will allow for handhelds to progress and let Microsoft keep supporting our PDAs as they support their phones.
If the next generation Sony video game systems (portable and desktop) ever reach the potential for real computing work and internetability Sony has claimed they would have Microsoft will do even more work on their WinMob/game divisions.
I personally see WinMob already far ahead of Symbian and POS in features so even if MS does coast for a while, they will still be ahead of the competition until 2008 when POS/Access releases a workable version II of Plinux. I suppose they could get the first version right in 2007, but I doubt that.
Well CBR has retracted the article. EdH at Brighthand contacted Access and they said that CBR totally misquoted and misinterpreted what was said.
Since it seems CBR isn't disputing this, I'm guessing that the guy writing it probably did screw something up. Otherwise, why not stand by the story?
Yeah, but had Ed Hansberry followed up on it like Brighthand did, the story at Pocket PC Thoughts wouldn't have been as sensationalistic... where's the fun in that?
As far as BT goes, it's worked flawlessly on every Apple computer, Palm, and cell phone I've tried it with. The only times I've had problems were when I used it with Pocket PCs. So why blame BT?
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Yeah, but had Ed Hansberry followed up on it like Brighthand did, the story at Pocket PC Thoughts wouldn't have been as sensationalistic... where's the fun in that?
Can you give me a link to the story we wrote here at Pocket PC Thoughts on this issue? I know where the link is to the post I made linking to the article, but I think you need a journalist to write a story. I don't know that PPCT has any journalists and I sure know there isn't one roughly 30 inches from the screen this particular post is being made from.
(Hint: see the subtitle under "Pocket PC Thoughts" in the upper left corner of your browser window.)
...CBR has pulled the article with Access now saying much of the content was incorrectly reported. I, on the other hand, maintain PalmOS is dead. (yes, I know... shocking isn't it?) ;-)
I would agree with you that the PalmOS is dead but I do think that they'll try and bring in Linux. They do have the user base as an incentive to give it a shot. But the OS port would only work if the Palm developers stay on board. MS is making a big push for them to jump ship. There is tons of help being cooked up in order to make that happen since the Palm community would make a nice meal and I'm sure they don't want to share it with anyone especially with Linux.
While I don't do too much PPC work aside from some small integration issues I do see quite a few of my clients that have Palm connectivity to their enterprise starting to even ask me earnestly about the PPC. Since most of them are already acquainted with Outlook it should not be too much of a hassle to bring them over to the PPC world. And I think that this is where the Palm developer will also go. Whether the developer community likes the current situation or not there does not seem to be much of a future in development for Palm OS.
I think at this point MS will slice and dice this meal any way it can in order to make it a very fast and filling meal with no leftovers.
Well - once the disputes and difficulties that have plagued WUSB have been resolved, and enough products have appeared to give the WUSB market some impetus, and assuming that BT 2.x hasn't remained compelling to the literally thousands of licencees the standard has now, and assuming that future 802.11 standards don't pull the rug out from under the purpose of WUSB - then WUSB has a potential future as a literal USB cable replacement - frankly though - the jury is firmly out.
As yet there is precious little evidence WUSB won't bring its own 'issues' and incompatibilities (except for massive wishful thinking on some people's parts) and little about the standard that is compelling to the countless people who use BT daily without problems and will see no need to replace all BT enabled devices for an untried and untested new form of wireless.
Well - once the disputes and difficulties that have plagued WUSB have been resolved, and enough products have appeared to give the WUSB market some impetus, and assuming that BT 2.x hasn't remained compelling to the literally thousands of licencees the standard has now, and assuming that future 802.11 standards don't pull the rug out from under the purpose of WUSB - then WUSB has a potential future as a literal USB cable replacement - frankly though - the jury is firmly out.
As yet there is precious little evidence WUSB won't bring its own 'issues' and incompatibilities (except for massive wishful thinking on some people's parts) and little about the standard that is compelling to the countless people who use BT daily without problems and will see no need to replace all BT enabled devices for an untried and untested new form of wireless.
Nolo contendo.
I simply want to be able to do things as quickly and as efficiently as possible. BT is nice and I do use it.... with mixed results. Perhaps I need to re-read a manual or get practice.
I like the current USB 2.0 plug in and it works.
I'm just hoping that WUSB would be the same only... on/off.
Imagine. You plug in a device once, the devices are auto paired then unplug and still they work. Wishful thinking? You betcha! :lol:
Nolo contendo.
I simply want to be able to do things as quickly and as efficiently as possible. BT is nice and I do use it.... with mixed results. Perhaps I need to re-read a manual or get practice.
I like the current USB 2.0 plug in and it works.
I'm just hoping that WUSB would be the same only... on/off.
Imagine. You plug in a device once, the devices are auto paired then unplug and still they work. Wishful thinking? You betcha! :lol:
The thing is - even the CEO of Intel thinks a) BT will continue to domintae for another 5 - 10 years even with WUSB making its debut and b) that BT will likely run alongside (or even on top) of WUSB - in time.
BT, in the end, does connect very simply. Any 'complexity' comes from two things - 1) security - the need to have a security feature like pairing/a pin will continue with any future standard such as WUSB. You can't have an unsecured wireless connection; 2) the need to define what happens once a connection is made. BT does this with profiles that are the same for every implementation (even if not all implementations have all profiles). WUSB is likely to need its own profiles - so that when you connect a printer, whatever make, it will simply connect.
Frankly though - I don't understand what people find complicated about BT. Pairing is a simple two part process - and once you are paired all that needs to happen is for two devices to be in range and for you to tap or click to say you want to connect. I never even have to think about it - and to date even the most technophobic people I have started on BT have grasped it easily.
Obviously there are issues when profiles are not implemented, or the physical radios aren't terribly good, or simply when wireless contact is interrupted by external factors - these, however, will be exactly the same issues that WUSB will face.
I was at a Microsoft function (four years ago I think) when Pocket PC 200? was introduced. After the program, I told the presenter I thought the emphasis was on fun and games, evidently leaving businesspeople to buy Palms. The feature set emphasized games, music and video, but Pocket Word is a horrible little program, and there was no Pocket Access or Pocket PowerPoint. I was told that this would be addressed in the next version. Well, we're just now seeing improvements in Pocket Office that should have been there years ago.
Microsoft has taken their eyes off the ball before.
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