[Kevin Daly]

I have two thoughts on this:

1)For all their faults Toshiba are an innovative company, and the market needs competition from them to keep the likes of HP on their toes

2)It would be a strange time for Toshiba to withdraw, because their headstart with VGA gives them an opportunity to gain some traction.

[Kevin Daly]

I have two thoughts on this:

1)For all their faults Toshiba are an innovative company, and the market needs competition from them to keep the likes of HP on their toes

2)It would be a strange time for Toshiba to withdraw, because their headstart with VGA gives them an opportunity to gain some traction.

[BTS]

I certainly have loved my Toshiba over the past year. When you think about it, it was Toshiba that ushered in the "thin" Pocket PC. They also were responsible for having one of the more affordable PPCs before Dell came along.

My only gripe with Toshiba has been the lack of support for older products. I bought my e750 in July 2003 (with WM 2003). By the late spring I could no longer buy accessories for this device from Toshiba.

Otherwise, they make fine units and, hopefully, this story is just a rumour.

[gorkon280]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

This tidbit of news has been flying around the 'Net, so while it's still a rumor, I guess it's worthwhile to mention it. Windows Mobile.ch reported (English translation link above) that, when they called Toshiba Switzerland and asked them for information on the e800, they were told that e800 production has been stopped and that that Toshiba would "not sell any more PDAs"... and that the press had yet to be notified of this fact.

If this happens, it'll certainly be quite sad -- first Sony, then Toshiba? However, I think we need to wait until we hear more official statements -- otherwise, why would Toshiba have gone to all the trouble of releasing WM2003SE updates for the e405 and e805? And why wouldn't they have officially announced it yet?

CompUSA has been out of e805's for a while now and the store manager here has said that they have been discontinued at CompUSA.

[gorkon280]

Originally Posted by ScottC

Care to point me to the WM2003SE upgrades from Dell or HP? I think Toshiba was one of the few that DID offer these upgrades to existing customers.

IMHO Toshibas problem was that they didn't really make any devices, at least Dell and HP design and manufacture (part) of their devices, the Toshibas were 100% outsourced and were pretty much like what the 1940 is to HP. Margins on products like that are pretty slim and it's a hell of a market to be working in.

I'm also assuming they have some MAJOR quality issues, for the scale of their market share there were simply too many refurbished devices out there, pretty much every retailer had refurb e405's in stock.

Toshiba has never released SE here in the US either. As far as I know, noone has.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Marcel_Proust

The major thing this little tidbit signifies is a slow news day.
Little morsels about Brittney would be just as good.

Yep, it's that time of year. But I think Britney is a little offtopic...

Originally Posted by gorkon280

Toshiba has never released SE here in the US either. As far as I know, noone has.

Well, the Axim X30 has it, but yes, no one has offered upgrades yet. If I remember correctly, Toshiba said it'll be sometime in July... :|

--janak

[epdm]

There are several reasons why Toshiba is unsuccesfull.

Although they exell in technical superiority with regards to PDA's, its clear that wrong marketing, lack of vision and unsuccesfull penetration in certain markets breaks this company. This is due to some factors

1) Brand visibiltiy is very important. This is measured by a strong presence in the computer retail chains. Small shops play an insignificant role in this. And in many retail chains the only brand that has a distinct vissibility factor is HP. They also have a tremendous productline to enhance this factor. While Toshiba is only recognised for their laptops. But the small selection of Toshiba cannot compete to the big vissibility of HP. Not that I like this, in fact I don't! Because in the end we get large multinationalistic mediocere products charged with premium prices and the deotriation of innovation.

2) Toshiba's lack of customer commitment. Toshiba is well-known for it's bad customer support. While this doesn't harm a company's repution too bad in the early stages of productcycles, it does become critical in later stages. In this case newer products will be neglected by potential customers due this reputation.

If this is true of Toshiba leaving the market too, then I'm in a big dillema. Since I got my E800 broken, recieved a voucher for that amount but can't find a decent replacement with the same or similar functionality :-(
This even makes the question whether I'd actually get that left-over E750 that I found or obtain the E400-GPS-packagedeal more important.

Any ideas? E750-wifi for 399 euro's or E400+GPS mouse and software for 399 euro's? The former has a faster clocked cpu but older video subsystem (and I don't know how good the E750's screen is compared to the E400 except that it's 3,8"instead of 3,5" while the E400 can be upgraded to WM 2003SE and is simply a newer model)

regards,

Manu T

[MacBriar]

This certainly is a shame as Toshiba's machines are solidly built and generally they do innovate. However as a former E330 owner who couldn't upgrade to 2003 from 2002 and was left with a non-SDIO compliant SD card slot I wouldn't say I am altogether suprised. Even when looking at Toshiba laptops there always seems to be an accelerated product cycle.

Just my 2 pence (maybe someday 2 cents - Euros and all)

Ewan

[corphack]

no loss, except that I won't have Toshiba to kick around anymore.

I think I'll be able to suffer their absence...

[jlp]

Originally Posted by dean_shan

Noooooooooooooo

Let's hope this is just a rumour. I love Toshiba PDAs. I don't care if Sony left but Toshiba is my baby.

Well according to PDA enthusiasts from France a few weeks ago and this Swiss PDA site now, they got this information from their respective Toshiba local branch.

So this is not a rumor, it's a confirmed fact; the message that a Wiondows-Mobile.ch user got was signed "TOSHIBA Europe GmbH, Swiss Sales Branch". (FWIW, GmbH means LLC in German).

Remember, Casio also left the US and European markets about a year ago to concentrate on the Japanese market as well. Their newest model the Cassiopeia E-3000 is manufactured by a Taiwanese company, Asus I think.

NEC also stopped manufacturing PPCs and HPCs

Sharp stopped making their Mobilon line to concentrate on their nice but discreet Zaurus line.

Also 4-5 years ago European company Philips left the PDA market they helped develop.

And Sony quit as well (except for their local market, so they say :?: :!.

Handspring was bought by Palm and other PalmOS licensees quit or are very discreet at best.

Now Toshiba is slowly giving up, waiting for their stocks to clear out before the official announcement.

There were some persistant rumors about Dell going to do the same, they haven't released something significantly new in many months (after the X5, the X3 was a new device; the X30 is only an update to the latter; the rumored X7 is so since about a full year ago).

OTOH do you remember my various comments in different threads about my feeling that the PDA as we know it yet would disappear within 2-3 years?

Many factors account for this. Shrinking margins is one, plumetting sales is another, while some of you invoked other various reasons.

All are true.

And Toshiba has been working for many years on their Dynapad and other prototypes of pocketable PCs à la OQO or Flipstart.

Intel has been working on a reference platforms for such devices.

NEC has shown advanced prototypes as well.

IBM too and Antelope Tech has licenced their design and is manufacturing something very closely based on IBM's work.

OQO (est. by former Apple and IBM top notebook engineers, amongst others) and Vulcan (est. by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen) have shown evolving prototypes, while the first is promising actual release this Fall and everything shows they are on schedule.

OTOH MS seems to be lethargic at best regarding PPC advances.

WM03 is essentially the same as PPC2000; the WinCE core changed to 4.2 probably because PPC programers at MS didn't want to/couldn't (policy?!) work on older 3.0 code; PPC layer apps like P.Word, P.XL P.IE, etc. are 99% the same. New code essentially supports newer technologies that came on the market since 2000: BT, Wi-Fi, VGA, etc.

Important bugs and irritating "features" don't get squashed or fixed.

MS acts like they have the minimal interest in the platform.

OTOH, there is much more money to be made for manufacturers and MS in building pocketable PCs than (very low margins) Pocket PCs :wink:

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by jlp

Well according to PDA enthusiasts from France a few weeks ago and this Swiss PDA site now, they got this information from their respective Toshiba local branch.

So this is not a rumor, it's a confirmed fact; the message that a Wiondows-Mobile.ch user got was signed "TOSHIBA Europe GmbH, Swiss Sales Branch". (FWIW, GmbH means LLC in German).

How does the same rumor appearing on a French and Swiss site with the supposed official letterhead from the Swiss division make this a confirmed fact?

I am not saying the rumor isn't true, I don't know if it is or isn't. It still seems a rumor to me though, nothing more. When I see a press release from Toshiba or an interview on a news site with someone really in the know, not a branch salesman on the other side of the world, then it becomes a confirmed fact for me.