02-25-2003, 06:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Round Tripping - Oh The Shame Of It All, Part II
In early February I linked to a Wall Street Journal column about the exciting world of round-tripping and how it is an overall embarrassing experience compared to the world of Palm. Fixing this is not so simple and it goes beyond coding.
Ed Hardy at Brighthand has written an article discussing the ramifications of MS whipping up a top notch Pocket Office suite on the third party market, the ramifications of the Pocket PC community of MS doing nothing and a few things in between. We discussed much of this at the MVP Summit two weeks ago. I don't recall seeing Ed in the room but he seems to have covered just about everything we talked about.
A perfect example of Microsoft doing nothing has given us superb apps like TextMaker, SpreadCE and Pocket Slides, but those all cost money and to avoid round tripping problems, require custom configurations in ActiveSync. Microsoft is indeed in a tough position here. What do you think?
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02-25-2003, 06:04 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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I sincerely hope Microsoft does improve the built-in Office apps, or existing third party apps continue to improve. Because judging from the rabid Anti-Microsoft attitude of DataViz it will be a cold day in hell before they offer Documents To Go for Pocket PC. :roll:
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02-25-2003, 06:11 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 58
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Well, there's the Microsoft way:
1. Do nothing.
2. Wait for a market leader to emerge (e.g. PowerPoint or Visio).
3. Snap the company up.
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02-25-2003, 06:14 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Foo Fighter
I sincerely hope Microsoft does improve the built-in Office apps, or existing third party apps continue to improve. Because judging from the rabid Anti-Microsoft attitude of DataViz it will be a cold day in hell before they offer Documents To Go for Pocket PC. :roll:
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Don't be so sure that the reason they're not doing it is from being anti-Microsoft...it could be they don't want to get crushed when Microsoft decides to invest resources into making it work right. :!:
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02-25-2003, 06:20 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Don't be so sure that the reason they're not doing it is from being anti-Microsoft...it could be they don't want to get crushed when Microsoft decides to invest resources into making it work right. :!:
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You're right, that is part of it, but DataViz does have an anti-MS attitude. I've read many postings by DV reps in message boards...they hate MS...hate PPC. Iambic is another good example of this.
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02-25-2003, 06:25 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Foo Fighter
You're right, that is part of it, but DataViz does have an anti-MS attitude. I've read many postings by DV reps in message boards...they hate MS...hate PPC. Iambic is another good example of this.
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From everything I've heard, SpreadCE and TextMaker mop the floor with DataViz, so why do you even want them on the Pocket PC?
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02-25-2003, 06:26 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,468
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It is possible that this:
Quote:
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You're right, that is part of it, but DataViz does have an anti-MS attitude. I've read many postings by DV reps in message boards...they hate MS...hate PPC. Iambic is another good example of this.
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May be because of this:
Quote:
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they don't want to get crushed when Microsoft decides to invest resources into making it work right.
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02-25-2003, 06:27 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 405
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They really should do something with the built in office apps, as it (IMO) only adds to the anti-PPC perception that PPC is feature disabled purposely to not compete with laptop licences.
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02-25-2003, 06:37 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Duncan
May be because of this:
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Why, the same problem exists in the PalmOS platform as well. Palm and Sony each bundle DataViz's Doc to Go office suite with with many of their products. So where does this leave Cutting Edge (QuickOffice)...or Wordsmith? Aren't they getting "crushed" in the same manner?
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02-25-2003, 06:37 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 11
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I can't figure out what MS is thinking here. I'll use my case for example -- I do M&A work, so around 80-90% of my emails use MS Outlook encryption. But hey.. you can't read them on my iPAQ... *Huh?*
Probably 60-70% of the documents I see are powerpoint presentations. You'd think that something that is heavily graphics oriented and designed to put the maximum message in as few words as possible would be *perfect* for the Pocket PC. But hey... you can't read them on my iPAQ. *Huh?*
Now, MS isn't stupid. So what the *$$## are they thinking?
The most charitable answer is that they either thought they were going to be constrained by hardware or software coding time limits -- but given the success of PocketPC in the market and the new hardware coming out they'd be working to fix these holes as fast as possible. But it appears they aren't... ????
The next most charitable answer is they don't expect PDAs to remain in the market, and their entry with PPCs was just counter Palm. Then as the market moves to Tablets and the like, they clean up that market and let the PDA market wither on the vine. But this doesn't seem to ring true as well, since the tablet market is unproven and highly speculative whereas the installed base of PDAs is very large. Not a good business decision to leave it alone and not be competitive..
All in all, I'm quite puzzled by MS not working as fast as they can to fill the holes in the PPC Pocket Office solutions.
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