02-13-2002, 05:55 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,177
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What if...
Ed just said in the previous post: "How things change in just two short years.". Well, let me take that for another spin!
What if Palm OS 5 takes off with brand new hardware, including phone combos, from Palm and other licensees?
What if Palm gets a great new user interface, multimedia, multitasking?
What if all old Palm apps just work on these new machines?
What if Palm continues to exclusively hold on to what the Pocket PC doesn't have: brand recognition, decent battery life, price and form factor?
What if the "Pocket PC camp" goes as stale as the first page of PocketPC.com?
What if Nokia releases a super smart Symbian-phone with great connectivity and multimedia features?
What if Motorola and Sony/Ericsson follow shortly thereafter and release even smarter Symbian-phones?
What if Sun REALLY succeeds in bringing a decent Java VM down to these phones?
In two short years, from now, what looked to be off to a great start can be left in the dust, unless...
� Microsoft increases the speed of Pocket PC innovation.
� Pocket PC OEMs get their act together, and make even better hardware.
� Microsoft gets at least two of the top five cell phone manufacturers making the Smartphone 2002.
� Microsoft can convince mobile operators that Internet is really not a threat, and why this is so.
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02-13-2002, 06:02 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Excellent point. Lots of "if's" though.
IMHO, Palm won't have rich multimedia in OS5. I've seen various posts around the internet that multitasking won't really be there in OS5 at the user level. It is there, but hidden. OS6 is where it gets exposes, but that also breaks about 100% of current Palm apps, so OS5 is the transitional OS to allow dev's to get their stuff modified.
I don't see much Palm innovation in hardware, though Sony does seem to get it.
"if" everything you said comes to pass, Palm is ready for a rebirth. Judging from what has been reported at PalmSource, I don't think that is going to happen, not in 2002 anyway.
I think you make a great point RE: the carriers though. I have a feeling they are going to ruin the US PocketPC PHone/Stinger experience for a yaer or so until they do get it.
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02-13-2002, 06:50 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 260
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But that isthe whole point...
Microsoft and their vendors need to do a little more innovationto seperate themselves apart and ahead of the Palm community. Even though PPCs are years ahead of current Palms, PPCs are still the underdog and need to show the world, that, "oh yeah PPCs can do that too (referring to what Palms cando ) and a heck of a whole lot more.
By virtual of their name only Palm has more acceptence to the world than PPCs. Next because of their pricing alone, Palm attracts more people to them than PPCs, (though most all are ignorant to technology) the figures still scream, CHEAPER than any PPCs. And last, Palm reminds me of a little school girl with every breeze of the wind they are poking out and pointing to the world showing what they can do, no matter how great or small their accomplishments are they are gaining the and rubbing their success into the public. Face it...even after al the marketshare Palm has lost, they still have bragging rights. They are still number 1 in sales.
Maybe because Palm has more to loose..like their business all together, I just don't see MS trying to push the PPCs as hard as Palm.
Anyway.. as many IFs as was discussed, I would love to see PPCs do some of what is mentioned abouve.
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02-13-2002, 06:57 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 14
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Catch up
"What if Nokia releases a super smart Symbian-phone with great connectivity and multimedia features?"
Since I got my 9210 (and before you say it, I know it's got limited internal RAM, but at least someone is trying to release smartphones :lol: ), I've been able to
Type word document (with spell checker and thesaurus)
Work on spreadsheets
Make notes
Send and receive e-mail
Send and receive SMS
Send and receive FAXes
Browse the web
Browse WAP (though don't ask why I would want to :wink: )
Use a calendar with Month, Week, Day, Task list, Weekly time schedule, Year schedule and Anniversay views
The best contacts app I've ever seen
View Powerpoint presentations
Run JAVA applications
Play Games
Play RealVideo
Play RealAudio
Record ringtones
Make a telephone call 
All with the included software. Then, with additional registered software I can;
Play more games
Manage archives
Run MIDLETs
Customize the GUI (though even better is on the way)
Plan projects
View PDF files ( :!: and the software was not at all expensive)
Send/receive picture messages via SMS
Send/receive ringtones via SMS
Edit ringtones as .rng
Edit WAV files with special effects and use them as ringtones
Run a VNC client
Manage databases
Ok, so it's not a PocketPC but please, you must be a very insecure person if you feel you have to blow out other people's candles just to make yours look brighter.
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02-13-2002, 06:57 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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Thank you Andy for bringing some sanity back to this topic! 
Palm Inc. may be suffering, but the PalmOS is still a widely revered platform that millions of users put to work every day. Many PocketPC fans act under the assumption that consumers are waiting for Microsoft to rescue us from the shackles of our Palm handhelds, but in reality...most people LOVE their PalmOS device. And Palm is about to move into other devices as well (as I predicted they would)...Digital Cameras...MP3 players...gaming devices. The only thing really lacking is RESOURCES.
Palm faces a difficult road ahead. But to write the platform off so early in the game is very short-sighted. We have only begun to see what PDAs are capable of. And why do some of you WANT the Palm platform to go away? In what way would this benefit anyone? Fewer choices...more expensive devices. I don't get it?
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02-13-2002, 07:04 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 53
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MS legitimizes the market, but their size and strength doesn't give them that much of an advantage, at least in the mobile phone market. Why:
1. Unlike PCs, phones are easily swapped (but not providers, at leat not in the US - if you want to keep your number), which means if something new comes along, users can quickly upgrade; because,
2. there is very little learning curve or existing investment in softwrae/data that ties one to an OS, especially since a converter can move contacts/emails/etc. to a new unit; finally,
3. the moneys in the service contract, not the phone, for providers. If someone comes out with a neat new phone that's hot, providers will offer it, if only to keep selling contracts.
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02-13-2002, 07:11 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 2
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What is happening is this: competition in the PDA market is going to continue to be fierce. Competition tends to be a good thing for us consumers.
Just think, if Pocket PC didn't exist, I highly doubt Palm would be coming out with a Palm OS 5 that moves to higher-power processors, and adds other features previously present in the Pocket PC os but on in the PalmOS.
MS obviously has to do something to respond, which I fully expect to mean better (and who knows, maybe even lower priced) Pocket PC devices in the coming years.
I for one, as a die-hard Pocket PC user, am glad to see Palm OS 5 on the way.
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02-13-2002, 07:56 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 95
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Ferdinand has a point here.
Where is the smartphone 2002 ??? It's almost vaporware..
If Nokia or Ericsson beats the smartphone 2002 (I hate that name) release date with a device that is capable of doing the same, I'm sure gonna buy it.
You have to admit that the Nokia 7650 really comes close...
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02-13-2002, 08:45 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 556
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What if...
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Andy Sjostrom
What if Sun REALLY succeeds in bringing a decent Java VM down to these phones?
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Believe me: Sun has really very little to do with putting Java to phones. In fact Sun is a very INEFFECTIVE, arrogant and ignorant company. I know personally Nicolas Lorain ( [email protected] ), wireless Java manager in Sun, and he sucks: incompetent and his inability is slowing down whole process of popularization of mobile Java. I know personally people from various countries who participate in Java standarization forums and Sun is there very very slow.
Sun, shortly speaking sucks. And it is thanks to industry and vendors that they put Java on mobile phones and it succeds, but it has nothing to do with Sun. In Korea there are even "clean room JVM implementations" which are produced totally without any connection to Sun, and they rock! (no wonder Samsung is already number 2 vendor of mobile phones in the world)
And Java on phones is not a competition for PocketPC, these Java applications are too simple, see for example http://www.midlet.org how simple those applications are...
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02-13-2002, 09:02 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 14
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Ooooho!
Something tells me that you don't like Sun. I can't tell what gives me that impression, it's almost not there, but..... hmmmmmm, yes, I'm definately thinking that you don't like sun.
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