04-18-2003, 09:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Something Sad, Something Funny
There are two things happening in the PDA world today that doesn't involve the Pocket PC - one is sad to see happen, the other just blows my mind. :roll:
First, Handera is getting out of the PDA manufacturing business. Handera was originally named TRG and they were the official hot-rodders of Palm PDAs. They took the Palm III, crammed 8MB of RAM into it then threw in a Compact Flash slot for good measure. This was when Palm was still saying external storage cards were too complex. Their most recent innovation, if you can call the summer of 2001 recent, was the Handera 330. It was still based on the Palm III formfactor but added some features you still can't find on a Palm OS device. It had a 320X240 screen (sounds familiar, huh?), dual expansion slots - one CF and one SD, soft input panel, swappable rechargable batteries and a voice recorder. I always thought the TRG/Handera devices were a killer hardware platform in search of an OS. I hate to see any power user's device like this go. There were rumors of a color 330 last year, but it wasn't meant to be. Handera PDA division couldn't survive on the low sales in a niche market. They will continue to do consulting work, which is where they got their start. It wouldn't bother me in the least to hear Handera had a hand in designing a future Pocket PC with one of the big Pocket PC OEMs.
Now, for the headline that just stunned me. "Palm Solutions Group Announces Memory Innovation." Wow! What have they done now? Will Pocket PCs be forced to play catch up in the memory game? Well, no, not really. They have modified the PalmOS to address up to 128MB of RAM. Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet, but mods are available and the Pocket PC OS itself is quite capable of seeing all of this RAM and has been since its release in 2000. How this qualifies as an innovation three years after it was done in another PDA is beyond me. It just smacks of "you don't need it until we have it" again.
Now for the really funny stuff. Look at the bottom of that Palm press release.
� "...the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, which was condensed from a desktop OS..." - well, it sure sounds good in a press release despite having absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.
� "A Palm handheld uses about one-fifth the storage to manage text or voice memos vs. a Pocket PC handheld" - Well, when your memos only hold 4k, it is easier to use less storage.
� "A Palm handheld owner can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven steps required of a Pocket PC device owner." - Oh my, I never thought I'd see tap counts in a press release. Hey Palm, you check out this article before putting this kind of thing in press releases. :lol:
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04-18-2003, 09:07 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 157
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Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet
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The Toshiba e550C in Japan ships with 128 MB of RAM.
I agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up. I can just read the headlines in the NYT now.
"Innovative Palm CEO passes wind, company stocks soar!"
While Microsoft releases an OS that supports all sorts of cool technology and the press says nothing. I just don't get it. Maybe Palm employs a voodoo sorceress.
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Charles Pickrell
Sacramento Mobiole Computing SIG
A chapter of the NorCal Mobile Computing SIG
www.mobilecomputingsig.com |
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04-18-2003, 09:16 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Originally Posted by Charles Pickrell
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Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet
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The Toshiba e550C in Japan ships with 128 MB of RAM. |
Really? I didn't know that. I knew it was just an OEM issue and not OS related. Thanks Charles.
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I agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up.
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ROTFLMBO!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I want a bumper sticker with that slogan!
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04-18-2003, 09:53 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,468
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This has got to rank as one of the stupidest moves Palm has made for a while. Not only are they opening themselves up for widespread ridicule (even the Palm loving press are going to notice this 'innovation' is anything but!) but by effectively misrepresenting Microsoft's product in order to harm it they have broken the law (please tell me this is illegal in the US as well...). MS is hardly going to let Palm get away with brazen lies about their OS!
Where do they get a seven step process from anyway? Click - Calendar opens - enter appointment - tap OK. That's two steps for any Pocket PC?!
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04-18-2003, 10:42 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 64
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. I always thought the TRG/Handera devices were a killer hardware platform in search of an OS.
Killer hardware? compared to Sony and Garming palm os devices with their 320x320 and 320 x 480.
I don't get the memory breaktrough news... The garming uses OS 5.0 and has 32 megs, is palm crazy???
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04-18-2003, 10:52 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Originally Posted by roberto_torres
. I always thought the TRG/Handera devices were a killer hardware platform in search of an OS.
Killer hardware? compared to Sony and Garming palm os devices with their 320x320 and 320 x 480.
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Remember Sony didn't do Hi-res until 2002, or maybe late 2001. Handera Had it in mid-2001 with a SIP and did more than just pixel doubling. Even after Sony's hi-res mode came out, it was months before there were any real apps to use it.
Handera was a pioneer in the PalmOS side. Of course, they didn't do anything that the 1997 Palm-sized PC hardware didn't do, but that is a whole 'nuther story.
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04-19-2003, 12:43 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 215
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If handera works on a pocketpc that is as innovative as the 330 was, I would buy it in a minute.
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04-19-2003, 01:52 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 51
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The loss of Handera is sad and foreboding news to the PalmOS platform. Many people are going to argue that this isn't a big deal or that Handera was a niche player anyway. But aren't many of PalmSource's licensees niche players (i.e Handspring, Garmin, Sybmol?) The fact that Handera had every intention of releasing an OS 5 device but could not b/c of lisencing costs is very annoying. Palmsource should have been flexible enough to allow one of its earliest licensees to continue as an OEM in the industry (especially if market demand however small justified it). Sadly they didn't and now PalmSource has yet another licensee exit the main stand alone pda market (joining Handspring which decided earlier to abandaon its visor line). That leaves just PalmSG and Sony as the major OEM's (at least in NA) to lead the mantle for PalmOS. :? This becomes even more disconcerting when the likes of Toshiba and Fujitsu , once spurned from Palm, now turn out various PPC devices. I think PalmSource needs to add another major licensee to compete with PalmSG and Sony FAST. It could be Dell or Apple or whoever, but they need to get another big boy in the game badly IMO...
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agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up. I can just read the headlines in the NYT now.
"Innovative Palm CEO passes wind, company stocks soar!"
While Microsoft releases an OS that supports all sorts of cool technology and the press says nothing. I just don't get it. Maybe Palm employs a voodoo sorceress.
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This is simply b/c the media still identifies Palm with the pda industry. I dunno if this a leftover from the tech bubble days or what, but it's fact and quite frankly the market share still proves it. Also, if you're an analyst who covers M$, how high on the list is PPC in your opinion of priorites? The truth is that M$ itself doesn't promote or focus PPC as much b/c its only ancillary to their much larger business. Heck, its questionalble if even Bill cares too much for the pda segment. In the end its perception that often counts...
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This has got to rank as one of the stupidest moves Palm has made for a while. Not only are they opening themselves up for widespread ridicule (even the Palm loving press are going to notice this 'innovation' is anything but!) but by effectively misrepresenting Microsoft's product in order to harm it they have broken the law (please tell me this is illegal in the US as well...). MS is hardly going to let Palm get away with brazen lies about their OS!
Where do they get a seven step process from anyway? Click - Calendar opens - enter appointment - tap OK. That's two steps for any Pocket PC?!
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C'mon this is just marketing!! Again its all about perception and the perception is that PalmOS is much easier to use than PPC's. You can disagree with this (as most here obviously do) or not, but its still widely accepted among average consumers. In fact, the marketing of PalmOS's simplicity over PPC is one the consistant victories Palm/PalmSource has had IMO...
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04-19-2003, 03:07 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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I find it really hard to take anyone seriously if they can't find the "S" key and use a $ sign instead. :lol:
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04-19-2003, 03:19 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 418
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Re: Something Sad, Something Funny
Man you guys need to get a grip. When WinCE first came out, Microsoft's marketing trashed Palm as being underpowered due to WinCE's superior hardware (40 MHz CPU, 4 MB memory). Microsoft totally ignored the OS overhead differences and the reality was those CE devices were so sluggish, they were unusable. So when I see PPC-zealots slamming Palm's marketing tactics, I just shake my head... for better or worse, all marketing departments do it.
Additionally, and as usual, the story presented here at PPCThoughts is filled with half-truths.
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"...the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, which was condensed from a desktop OS..." - well, it sure sounds good in a press release despite having absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.
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How revisionist of you. Time for a reality check... calling PPC a condensed desktop OS is more accurate than saying it was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld (which is how it's referred to here). PPC is based on and uses the same basic architecture as NT. DLLs, registry, same directory structure, similar APIs, and initially CE even had the same GUI. Microsoft rewrote much of the code, tweaking it so they could squeeze it into a handheld. There were advantages and disadvantages of that approach, which I can understand people debating... but being in denial about it serves no purpose.
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"A Palm handheld owner can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven steps required of a Pocket PC device owner." - Oh my, I never thought I'd see tap counts in a press release. Hey Palm, you check out this article before putting this kind of thing in press releases.
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Citing 7/2 ratio is certainly misleading because not all tasks take *that* much longer on PPC. But the fact is that many common tasks do take longer. In some cases, much longer. And the "Which is simple again" article is filled with many inaccuracies that were pointed out in the forums, but never corrected in the online or printed article. Honestly, I'm happy for you Ed... it's very exciting to have something published. But I would've included the corrections (many of which were made in the forum immediately after the article was posted here) when editing the article for the mag. Some of the corrections might of been posted too late to refer to during your editing, but surely not all of them were posted after you edited the article?
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Remember Sony didn't do Hi-res until 2002, or maybe late 2001. Handera Had it in mid-2001 with a SIP and did more than just pixel doubling. Even after Sony's hi-res mode came out, it was months before there were any real apps to use it.
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More revisionist history and time for another reality check: Sony had 320x320 in the first half of 2001, and there were several high-res apps immediately after it came out. Almost all existing apps looked better due to graphics and fonts being able to take advantage of the higher resolution. Saying Sony only double-pixelated makes both Microsoft's and Palm's marketing departments look honest. And, on a related note, here were are a full two years after PalmOS hit 320x320 and PPC is still stuck at 320x240.
I'm a big fan of PPCthoughts... it's always amusing and often informative. But sometimes this site makes me embarrassed to be a PPC user. :lol:
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HP 48s, 200lx, USR Pilot 1k, Palm 3, V, M100, Handspring Visor, Sony N610c, T615c, T655c, HP iPAQ 1910, 2215, Palm T3, HP hx4705, Dell X50v, HP rx1955, Apple iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4, Samsung Galaxy Nexus
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