[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I'll be interested to see what they come up with on the GUI. I'm also curious whether developing with the .NET tools will enable you to create apps which will run on both Pocket PC and this device. Or, if not, if the changes needed to make multi-platform applications easy. Any inside info on this, EdH?

The Mobile Devices group doesn't have much to do with the Windows CE .NET team. Mobile Devices is really a customer of the CE team and they take CE and build Pocket PC on top of that, then sell it to HP, Compaq, etc.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say the PPC team doesn't care about CE .NET devices, be they elevator programs, gas pumps, museum guides or OEM PDA's. If Hitachi and Casio (BE-300) cared about compatability, they would buy the Pocket PC product, not the CE/CE.NET product and grow their own UI.

There are some developers compiling their apps for both platforms. www.developerone.com has some, but most aren't. It isn't like compiling for MIPS and ARM. It is like compiling for Windows 95 then recompiling for 16bit Windows 3.1. It is close, but different enough that coding and UI changes have to be made.

Obviously Hitachi thinks they have a pure corporate device here. You can still use the Visual Studio .NET to do your stuff - so all of your VB, VC++, VC# knowledge carries over, PIM is there and you don't have to worry about your employees loading up Doom or Chopper Alley, because they won't work.

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I'll be interested to see what they come up with on the GUI. I'm also curious whether developing with the .NET tools will enable you to create apps which will run on both Pocket PC and this device. Or, if not, if the changes needed to make multi-platform applications easy. Any inside info on this, EdH?

The Mobile Devices group doesn't have much to do with the Windows CE .NET team. Mobile Devices is really a customer of the CE team and they take CE and build Pocket PC on top of that, then sell it to HP, Compaq, etc.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say the PPC team doesn't care about CE .NET devices, be they elevator programs, gas pumps, museum guides or OEM PDA's. If Hitachi and Casio (BE-300) cared about compatability, they would buy the Pocket PC product, not the CE/CE.NET product and grow their own UI.

There are some developers compiling their apps for both platforms. www.developerone.com has some, but most aren't. It isn't like compiling for MIPS and ARM. It is like compiling for Windows 95 then recompiling for 16bit Windows 3.1. It is close, but different enough that coding and UI changes have to be made.

Obviously Hitachi thinks they have a pure corporate device here. You can still use the Visual Studio .NET to do your stuff - so all of your VB, VC++, VC# knowledge carries over, PIM is there and you don't have to worry about your employees loading up Doom or Chopper Alley, because they won't work.

[Venturello]

Darn RAM being so cheap this days...

Remember when I paid 25 dollars for each 8k CHIP on my XT...

[Kirk Stephens]

We have yet another player in the niche pocket pc market. All for the better I suppose, competition lowers prices and creates superior produts.

The specs of this new PDA looks nice, but two things are troubling me. First, 32MB is not enough. Second, it has no buttons on the front face of the device.

[Teddy]

I agree with Kirk that no Dpad and buttons could be a drawback...how are we supposed to play games???

[st63z]

Soo, how long before the Mobile Devices group releases Pocket PC.Net? I assume they've had some time to work on it already since Hitachi's ready to roll out their custom build in April...?

I thought PPC.Net is quite far off, but I might be in for a pleasant surprise Maybe we should wait until PPC.Net catches up to XScale so we can buy a new PPC with next-gen hardware *and* software... maybe this summer??

BTW, from the first pics I had thought the Hitachi uses some flip screen cover or something (that may be covering up the buttons on the bottom) but there's no mention of a cover... Also, the linked article says:

"It has slots for a Multimedia Card and Secure Digital expansion cards"

Does that mean it has *2* SD/MMC slots (in addition to 802.11)? That would be sum'thin'

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by st63z

Soo, how long before the Mobile Devices group releases Pocket PC.Net? I assume they've had some time to work on it already since Hitachi's ready to roll out their custom build in April...?

THey just released PPC 2002 a few months ago. They were busy working on that. I don't know how far a .NET based PPC is. I would hazard a guess it is at least 12 months off since there seems to be an approximate 18 month cycle between PPC's that you can track back to the original WinCE 2.11 based Palm-sized PC's, but that is obviously no guarantee.