"Pocket" Office: Why We May Never See a Full-featu [Archive]

Tycho Morgan

03-26-2002, 06:45 AM

<a href="http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column020325.htm">http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column020325.htm</a> Jeff is usually really great at picking catchy titles: I don't know what to say about this one. Don't judge a book by its cover, and don't pass over a column because the title is longer than your arm. "Don't get me wrong, I like Pocket Word. Pocket Office's general interoperability with the desktop version of Office without necessary conversions is one of the things that attracted me to the Pocket PC. And that might be the problem." "As much as I love my Pocket PC, I'm starting to wonder about Microsoft. I heard some speculation recently that got me thinking about why the Pocket Office apps are missing some of the core features that PalmOS apps like Documents To Go and WordSmith provide, and I don't like where that train of thought is taking me." I must say that I agree with what Jeff has said. Pocket Office is really great, until it isn't. Pocket Outlook is easily supplemented by Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion, but as of right now there isn't anything that can enrich our Pocket PC word processing and spreadsheet experiences. Given the main uses of my Jornada, a slightly more feature filled version of Pocket Word coupled with that thought-based-input system that I've had my eye on for a while, would make my Pocket PC writing experience complete.

QYV

03-26-2002, 07:55 AM

If they don't fix that friggin' round-tripping problem that hoses basic bulleted lists with Office XP, I may just go back to Palm. Word is at least 75% of what I use my iPAQ for, and bulleted lists are in 50% of my documents, particularly when I take notes. Inexcuseable how poorly this works.

heliod

03-26-2002, 07:58 AM

That's right, many things are missing there.

I would say the one that bothers me most is the inability of PocketWord to handle the full formatting that I get in MS-Word in the PC. For example, a document that includes a table is a recipy for disaster.

I wish Microsoft would do some basic work in these applications and transform them, from marketing gimmicks, into real working tools.

IpaqMan2

03-26-2002, 09:21 AM

I have speculated this for some times now.

I've always felt that it was never MS's intention to give pocket office the full compatibility with the desktop office software. MS could of easily add this if they wanted too, but have not. I've always had theimpression that the PPC was never a real serious project or concern for Gates. I personally don't think we will see the same compatbility with the pocket office as we see with third party apps for the Palm.

ppcsurfr

03-26-2002, 01:42 PM

What is really needed is a modular design for Pocket Office.

I posted this in another forum.

What is needed.

1. the basic Pocket Word as we have them in Pocket PCs.

2. Plug-in number one which allows for formatting retention... Create a Template in desktop Word... like a letter head and margins and have it make it readable in Pocket Word.

3. Plug-in number two. A WYSIWYG plug-in to show it in print preview mode... which also links up to PrintPocket CE. or any print software.

4. Plug-in number three. A formatting editing plug-in that allows you to manage plug-in number one.

What else can you add?

burmashave

03-26-2002, 02:11 PM

I've always felt that it was never MS's intention to give pocket office the full compatibility with the desktop office software.

I always thought the Pocket Office issue was an oversight by MS, but now I am beginning to come around. I realized early on that MS thought of PPC devices as PC peripherals, instead of computers in their own right. Now I am beginning to understand why this may have been intententional.

If MS wants to keep pocket PC's tethered to the desktop, they will lose this battle. A lot of people bought into the PPC platform specifically because they wanted a handheld device that would exist as a device on its own -- using a desktop only to move files or synchronize data. I am not alone in my disappointment that MS has not addressed the issue of Word and Excel compatibility in the two years since PPC was released.

I am getting ready to jump ship, despite the fact that I have a lot of money invested in my current PPC. The new Zaurus can do what its more powerful Linux desktops can do, and it runs most of the software available for Linux. I'd call that a true pocket pc.
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/zaurus-sl-5000d-review.html
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/screenshots.html

Nevertheless, I have been posting to all discussions I can find in the faint hope that MS might hear the wake up call. So far, it has been a tree falling in the forest.

Scott R

03-26-2002, 02:32 PM

I can imagine that MS may indeed have intentionally hobbled the Pocket Office products, but I'm not sure if I agree with Jeff's reasons why. First, keep in mind that MS (or anyone for that matter) doesn't like to give stuff away for free. When they do it, there's usually a specific reason. By bundling Pocket Word and Excel into a PDA they have a specific marketing advantage over Palm. It doesn't matter that the products are more limited than offerings available for the Palm OS. From a marketing perspective, they still have the advantage because they can stick it in their ads. But it's a difficult situation. If they make the products too good, they've pretty much resigned themselves to the fact that no one will upgrade and pay for a "better" version. I think that if the PPC OS ends up being here for the long haul, that's what we'll see: a Pocket Office Professional pack which has all of the features people here want, but for a price.

The situation isn't much different, IMO, than the situation with the "free" development tools. This, again, was a great marketing idea and some decent shareware apps may have even resulted from these tools. But most of all, it was marketing. The product itself (speaking specifically about eVB here, I don't know about embedded C or whatever it's called), was basically of beta-quality and I think this was intentional. Prior to these free development products, doing CE development meant buying VB6 and paying even more for the CE development add-on to VB6 (whatever that was called). When the PPC actually did reasonably well after its release, it's worth noting that the biggest market seemed to be with businesses. Little wonder then that the further development of a free eVB was shut down and the new development now requires (again) paying for the development tools. I'm still trying to make heads or tails of exactly what I need to buy to develop for PPC. Can someone just buy that $99 copy of VB.NET or do they need one of the much more expensive Visual Studio packages? If the former, I personally have no problem with this. I'd rather spend $99 for a more polished and robust development package which will be supported with bug fixes, etc. than a free beta-quality development package.

Getting back on topic...Again, I don't think that MS has intentionally hobbled the Pocket Office apps because they want to keep you tied to the desktop. First, the nature of the beast is that a PDA will not replace a laptop except for those with the most basic of needs (or very specific needs - like updating a web site article from the floor of CES and updating the site live right from there). I don't want to develop web sites or write applications on a PDA. I don't care how feature-rich the applications are or how powerful the processor is in the PDA. The screen will never compete with my laptop screen, nor will the keyboard or pointing mechanism. Again, I think their decision to hobble the Pocket Office apps (if there is any intentional decision) is more because they want to leave the options open to charge for a "Professional" version later on. That said, if the press (and web sites) keep bashing them over the head with the fact that Palm OS apps can do Word and Excel better, I think they'll at least take care of the minimum to remedy that so that, once again, they can use these apps as a marketing advantage.

Scott

JMountford

03-26-2002, 04:07 PM

I have to kind of agree with Scott R here. My take on the whole Pocket Office thing is that;
1. It is a small team working on Windows Pocket.
2. As far as I understand it is this team that makes Pocket Office.
3. The team that makes the desktop office is pretty big from what I understand.
In other words the simple man hours involved in porting an application of the magnitude of say word or Excel is probably a setback in it's self.

4. Microsoft may want to insure that Updates to the Pocket OS does include updates to Pocket Office.
5. When MS makes something too good they start charging for things.
In other words if they make pocket office the full fledged app it could and should be, then they no longer include Pocket Office with Pocket Windows and we have to pay extra to get Pocket Office on our MS powered device.

6. I think maybe MS does not want to tick off the developer community. Imagine if MS actually makes PO as well as they should. There is nothing for the 3rd party Developers to inprove and now MS has ticked off developers.

Jeff Kirvin

03-26-2002, 04:36 PM

6. I think maybe MS does not want to tick off the developer community. Imagine if MS actually makes PO as well as they should. There is nothing for the 3rd party Developers to inprove and now MS has ticked off developers.

There's just one problem with that. Every developer I've talked to has been scared off already from writing anything that would enhance or compete with Pocket Office. Why should they spend the time and money to develop a better word processor than Pocket Word if Microsoft can enhance Pocket Word later? So far, there is no developer community for Pocket PC office suites.

However, this reasoning would change if there was some reason Microsoft was deliberately staying away from enhancing Pocket Office to keep it from competing with Office XP.

djl

03-26-2002, 04:43 PM

Unfortunately, when it comes to MS implementation of software on the Pocket PC, I am pessimistic and suspicious. Much to my chagrin, I never viewed Pocket Word (or Excel or Outlook, for that matter) as much more than a mobile viewer of the desktop versions. I create documents on the desktop or laptop, transfer to the Pocket PC for viewing, reference, slight modifications. This is a defeatist attitude, and Pocket Word should be much more powerful than it is, but it isn't. I expect MS to dummy down these products, for whatever reasons. Not being able to do basic formatting in Pocket Word is inexcusable, and it's why when I have documents to create in the Pocket PC I often use something like HPC Notes for basic formatting (at least I can do bulleted lists). If MS ever decided to do software right, developers for great products like Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion would be out of business or concentrating on some other area where MS is woefully inadequate.

ironguy

03-26-2002, 04:58 PM

Last year I attended a Mobile Users Group meeting in San Francisco. Beth Goza, the MS mobile guru was there to show off the new PPC2002 stuff. During the question and answer time, someone asked about Pocket Office. Here's her answer:

The only reason that Pocket Excel and Pocket Word were even included in the OS was to allow the individual to open e-mail attachments. There was never any intent on MS's part to have them as fully functional replacements for the PC version.

That said, she went on to say that MS has now realized that people are really using these pieces of software and MS MAY update the functionality in the future.

Clearly, MS missed the boat about what people want their PPC to do. Then again, PPC users want their PPC to replace their desktop, and face it, that ain't gonna happen ... at least until we all have 100Mbps wireless connectivity everywhere, superfast reliable processors and software with thought control, and full size virtual holographic screens!

Jason Dunn

03-26-2002, 05:08 PM

DaleReeck

03-26-2002, 05:18 PM

I do have to wonder what MS is thinking. I can see a few reasons why the built in apps are thin on features. But I'm currently doing beta testing for a Office Suite Reader type program that gives you full features like embedded graphics and such in documents. One pet peeve of mine has been the inability of any app, built in or otherwise, to read password-protected docs. This company I'm helping wants to add the ability to read (but not change) passwords, yet MS is balking at giving out the necessary dll support to make this happen. No trade or security secrets involved here since the necessary dll's are already on the desktop. Just some support is needed to integrate them into PPC. But MS is dragging their feet. It seems like MS is determined to keep the Office Suites dumbed down for some reason.

Hans the Hedgehog

03-26-2002, 05:43 PM

Interesting thread guys. The one thing that no one seems to have considered is that the number of developers working on Pocket Office is extremely small, and there was no intention "hobbling" of the application - it's simply a port of the Word from HPC days with a bit of GUI reworking - and that's all they had time to do. And with the Pocket PC 2002 release, all they had time to do is add spell check and the other new features - but no major overhaul.

I have to chuckle when people say things like "Microsoft could have done this EASILY..." - how the heck would you know? :wink: There's a misconception that the Pocket PC team is made up of 1000 programmers with an unlimited budget. Anyone working at Microsoft would have a different opinion.

I think document round-tripping is one of the biggest weaknesses the Pocket PC has, and until Microsoft dedicates some serious resources to solving the problem, it will continue to be a feeble solution.

I have to chuckle when you come to the aid of Microsoft in that way. :P How can a company with something like $30billion on hand, that decided to get into the console market and in nearly record time created a whole platform, that just dropped at least $1/2 billion on advertising for the XBox, that could easily hire more programmers to add to the PPC if they actually thought it was a viable platform and not something "just for fun," not have the time or ability to add round-tripping. I bet that there would have been more people who would have preferred round-tripping than a spellchecker... just my guess, but I know I would have preferred it.

Maybe the problem isn't that Microsoft deliberately hobbled the Pocket Office, maybe the real problem is that Microsoft doesn't really care about the PPC market all that much... just trying to get people to move over to the tablet market. In all of Gates' speeches, he never seems to mention or care too much about PPC, but that damn tablet, that's all he ever seems to talk about.

Oh well, Jason, I refuse to believe that Microsoft couldn't do it. I have had a number of friends work for Microsoft over the last 15 years and to hear their stories of politics and dropped balls, I wouldn't be surprised if they did intentionally leave it crippled... especially if it is true what Beth said at the SF users' group. But you can go on ahead believing that Microsoft has limited funds and programming power all you want... reality tells a different story when they want to crush the competition, but go ahead. :P

Hans.

fmcpherson

03-26-2002, 05:45 PM

I don't think you can say that Microsoft has mislead people. The applications are called "Pocket" Word and Excel, implying that they are not the same thing as Word and Excel. Microsoft has never claimed that these were full applications. And, I am pretty sure Beth is right in what she said. Remember, Microsoft first referred to these devices in '96 as PC Companions. They have never viewed them as stand alone devices. You could think that they do that to protect the desktop versions of the applications, but just how much protection would that be anyway? It's not like Microsoft mobile devices have a dominant position in the market. No, I think the problem here is the same as the Exit Application problem. The architects behind the application/OS have their own vision for how these applications work that is not entirely consistent with what some people want.

Jeff Kirvin

03-26-2002, 05:59 PM

Brad Adrian

03-26-2002, 06:10 PM

What is it about our society these days that makes people so paranoid and pessimistic? Was it Watergate? The Clinton Scandals? X-Files?

I've often been accused of having an over-simplified point of view, but I think we're making this more complicated than it needs to be. I think it's entirely possible that Microsoft underestimated how we would eventually want to use these devices back when it was building the early incarnations of WinCE. I doubt that back in 1998 anybody would have thought so many of us would place a high value on MP3 streaming via our home WLANs or on remote network administration via VPN. Their path was to create a PC companion and that's what they did.

I also do not buy into the notion that Microsoft has deliberately hobbled the Pocket applications. If you look closely at Beth's comments, what she is saying is that the concept of a Pocket PC has evolved since its inception and early planning. Microsoft has nothing to gain by not creating a good product. Sure, Microsoft in total has more money than we can even understand, but those funds are not unlimited, especially for individual product lines. So, I can imagine some of the choices that have been made are along the lines of:

Do we support bullets for Word roundtripping or enhance wireless integration?
Do we spend money on creating macro support in Excel or do we try to push the Smart Phone along?
Do we spend money developing Access for the Pocket PC or do we build in sub-folder synchronization?

I most certainly want many of these capabilities addressed. But I also have to believe that when the total functionality of a Pocket PC is considered, it's still the best game in town. In other words, the glass isn't half empty, it's half full.

Tycho Morgan

03-26-2002, 06:22 PM

What is it about our society these days that makes people so paranoid and pessimistic?

For me it was the cold Russian winters, and the holocaust that ingrained pessimism into my family's genetic heritage.

Jeff Kirvin

03-26-2002, 06:22 PM

What is it about our society these days that makes people so paranoid and pessimistic? Was it Watergate? The Clinton Scandals? X-Files?

Yes.

I most certainly want many of these capabilities addressed. But I also have to believe that when the total functionality of a Pocket PC is considered, it's still the best game in town. In other words, the glass isn't half empty, it's half full.

Oh, I agree. I complain because I care. As frustrated as I am with the limited state of Pocket Word, especially compared to WordSmith on the Palm, I'm also not about to go running back to PalmOS either. PalmOS may have a better word processor, but the rest of the system is a royal mess, and I'd rather spend most of my time working with my PDA rather than working around it.

James Bond

03-26-2002, 06:29 PM

Do we support bullets for Word roundtripping or enhance wireless integration?
Do we spend money on creating macro support in Excel or do we try to push the Smart Phone along?
Do we spend money developing Access for the Pocket PC or do we build in sub-folder synchronization?

Precisely. As for the post above (prev page) about MS being able to hire tons of programmers with billions of $$$: MS wants to hire good programmers and doesn't need more people than what it can handle in the long run.

Pocket Office are obviously viewer applications, and that is how I like them. Outlook, on the other hand, is better featured at "document creation" (email, appointments and tasks) because the PPC is a PIM before anything else.

If you want better software just sit and write it, the tools are free. If you can't, pay someone to do it for you. Make sure you recruit someone good :)

JMountford

03-26-2002, 07:19 PM

Just Real quick to Jason. If you will look at my post I did Point out the size of the POcket PC team. Of course all we have word on in regards to that is MS people.

Mobile Bob

03-26-2002, 07:26 PM

I'm still trying to make heads or tails of exactly what I need to buy to develop for PPC. Can someone just buy that $99 copy of VB.NET or do they need one of the much more expensive Visual Studio packages?

In order to use the full-featured Visual Basic to develop for PPC, you need Smart Device Extensions for Visual Studio .NET. Thus, you will need to buy one of the Visual Studio .NET packages. :( The Smart Device Extensions (SDE) are an add-on to Visual Studio .NET, and will not be available until later this year. Eventually, SDE will be incorporated into all versions of Visual Studio .NET as a standard feature.

Fortunately, being a college student, I was able to purchase the Professional version of Visual Studio .NET for $91.00. Until SDE becomes available for download, however, I'll just have to use the very limited eMbedded Visual Tools.

Here are some links concerning PPC development tools:
http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/developer/default.asp (download whitepaper on rightmost column of webpage)
http://articles.pocketnow.com/content.cgi?db=articles&id=64
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/device/smartdev.asp

Much more can be found in the "Mobile and Embedded Development" section of MSDN.

Not the best news, but I hope this helps. :)

Scott R

03-26-2002, 07:51 PM

Bob, thanks for the info. I've heard rumblings about the possibility that the pieces necessary for PPC development using VS.NET were coming later, but nothing concrete. I realize I'm getting a bit off topic here, but I have to say that this has got to be a major issue for MS. MS has a good many PPCs in corporations now. These corporations have no doubt discovered that eVB is not being updated further and future development will need to be done via VS.NET. Problems:
1) This costs a lot more money than their eager programmers may have originally sold them on (no doubt telling their bosses, "Hey we can get the tools for free.").
2) Even assuming they don't mind paying for the tools, there's the issue that VS.NET is hot off of the presses. Many corporations have strict guidelines when it comes to installing software. They often want to run the software through its paces for several months (sometimes they do get early beta copies so that they won't be too far behind). Often they even make general policies like they won't use something until the first service pack comes out (often assuming the initial version will be buggy).
3) The add-on for PPC development isn't out yet. When it is out, add on additional time for what I discussed in #2.
4) The kicker: What do they do today? Develop using tools which are buggy and (perhaps more importantly) won't allow you to easily convert your code to .NET? It is my understanding that apps written in eVB cannot simply be imported into VB.NET. You pretty much have to do an awful lot of cut-and-pasting and a significant amount of code changes.

Someone correct me where I've errored. It sure seems to me that PPC is going to get a big black eye for internal business application development here. If Palm, Inc. is smart they'd do well to try and market the RAD tools available during this period.

Scott

Gen-M

03-26-2002, 09:02 PM

I think the history of Pocket Word and Excel has been reasonably described above. The question is "What will Microsoft do going forward?"

I see a real possibility of a parallel with MS Works vs MS Office. Most consumer PCs come with Works. Users have to pay for Office. It would not be unreasonable for Microsoft to develop MS Pocket Office as an extra cost package for those who live and die by Office applications. With Xscale and, hopefully, the removal of real memory addressing limitations in CE.Net, the opportunity to develop a full featured Pocket Office is here.

I don't care how much money and resources Microsoft has. It does not make business sense to spend major dollars and resources on something that will not generate a return on investment. How many additional PPCs will be sold just because of a better Pocket Word? Is there a market for a full featured Pocket Office? How big is it? [How many game packs has MS sold? At what price point?]

Show Microsoft a business proposition, not just a wish list.

ppcsurfr

03-26-2002, 09:08 PM

Okay, any brave developer out there willing to add more features to Pocket Office?

James Bond

03-26-2002, 09:20 PM

Mobile Bob and Scott R, what is the point of developing .NET for PPC? I thought the .NET framework was not supported on those devices, or am I wrong? On the PC you need to download the .NET Framework SDK to be able to write AND run apps, no? Is it as simple as downloading something small on the PPC? Does PPC2002 have .NET support? By .NET I mean mostly CLR for running MSIL managed code in C# etc.

Scott R

03-26-2002, 09:44 PM

James, I've been accused of confusing Windows CE and the PPC OS. Even Steve Ballmer seems to have difficulty figuring what CE is and is not. That said, I believe that using the .NET development tools, you can develop applications for Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Note that there is no desktop OS with the name .NET attached to it. MS has made things more confusing by calling the newest version of CE CE.NET. In an earlier bout of speculation on my end, I predicted that older PPC (non-2002) devices would be useless as the new development tools would no longer support writing apps for them. At that time, Ed Hansberry stated that his inside sources informed him that with the new development tools you could, indeed, write apps for older non-2002 devices. So, the bottom line is that you should be able to compile standalone applications using the Visual Studio .NET tools for current (and older) PPC devices. You should not need CE.NET. What you will need is a development add-on to Visual Studio .NET which isn't out yet.

Scott

03-26-2002, 10:58 PM

This theory looks like pure speculation and has not even one grain of evidence to support it. The reason may be as simple as a resourcing/budgeting/priority problem (compare sales and market share of PPC and Windows, for example).

First, The basic assertion that if MS creates a full-fledged Word, it will forgo the need to buy and use Word on a PC is ridiculous. A pen-driven 3.6' screen with 64M storage will never replace even the cheapest PC running Word. It simply makes no sense. PPCs will always complement a real PC and there is no chance in hell that they will replace them in the near future.

Second, it goes against MS marketing strategy of PPC that you can take you docs with you and continue to edit it on the move. If your Pocket Word lacks so many features, you cannot make these claims. You'll turn off all the users once they realize that they lost the formatting they created on their PCs.

I think that the best way to solve this question is for one of the site admins, which surely have connections, to pose this question directly to the right channels at MS.

Jason Dunn

03-26-2002, 11:06 PM

I think that the best way to solve this question is for one of the site admins, which surely have connections, to pose this question directly to the right channels at MS.

I'll do what I can, but as you know, Microsoft is quite tight-lipped about unreleased Pocket PC stuff.

Jason Dunn

03-26-2002, 11:23 PM

Aceze

03-26-2002, 11:25 PM

Jeff, I've always found it ironic that you use a PocketPC, created and write for a website named "Writing on Your Palm", and have (until now) never made an article about how hard writing on the PocketPC really is! :)

This is (unfortunately) one of my favourite horse to beat concerning the PocketPCs - I bought both my PocketPC units in part to do serious writing (yes, some of us actually do), but have had zero patience with the braindead limitations the PocketPC Team (or Microsoft at large) decided to saddle PocketWord with (and to a large extent PocketExcel as well, although I obviously dont use PocketExcel to do serious writing...!).

Unfortunately, I dont care about how limited the PocketPC team was. I dont want to come off as being mean or to denigrate the PPC Teams efforts, but you must realize that the Pocket Office suite is a horrible kludge. If more time was spent on Outlook, why are there so many products out there that do it better? Either way, I dont care about the size of the PPC team like I dont care about the size of the PalmOS team - if the product doesnt work properly, I either look for alternatives or fixes. In the case of the PPC, there is no alternative and there certainly has been very little in the way of fixes!!

As has been mentioned before, e.g. roundtripping, limitations, performance (wrt to size of document), etc - the limitations of Pocket Office were extreme. However, it was quite something to screw it up for PPC2000 - and quite something else to leave it pretty much screwed up for PPC2002 after all the complaints and feedback. The GUI facelift was just that - a facelift. And as much as it's pretty to look at, pretty doesnt get work done. Does is matter very much that the PPC Team was small and time limited? It just shows how little Microsoft cares about this division - but it doesnt help me in anyway! In fact, it just makes me more worried about supporting this platform! If the PPC Team cant see the value of getting document creation on par with desktop Office, their vision is obviously not in step with me and other users like me that want to do this.

Regardless of whether or not MS wants to "fix" PocketOffice, I'll make my buying decision on PPC2003 (.NET) on whether or not the ESSENTIALS are useful rather than whether or not fancy extras (enhance wireless integration, etc) are thrown in.

Aceze

Hans the Hedgehog

03-27-2002, 12:22 AM

How can a company with something like $30billion on hand, that decided to get into the console market and in nearly record time created a whole platform, that just dropped at least $1/2 billion on advertising for the XBox...

Do the math yourself:

X-Box ad campaign: $100 million (saw this on CNET at one point)
Pocket PC ad campaign: $1 million (also on CNET)

It's not possible for a company to gun 100% after EVERY market. Yes, that means that Microsoft is putting more financial clout behind the X-Box than the Pocket PC. Does that surprise anyone? The market for console games is MUCH larger than the market for PDAs.

And I don't want to shock anyone, but Microsoft is a business who's goal is to make money. They'll bet the farm on things they know will make them money, and Pocket PCs are only a small part of that.

That's my point exactly. Microsoft CAN decide to pump millions and the necessary developer hours into a product to take on established giants. They CAN make something a priority and start to gun for the competition. With PPC, they CHOSE not to make it a priority once it became clear that Palm is not a significant threat. I have always believed that Microsoft never took the PPC platform seriously, and they haven't changed my mind yet.

Microsoft CHOSE to keep the PPC team limited. They included Pocket Office just to trump Palm and not to really be any lasting benefit to the user. It is clear, even from the Palm market, that people find a useful Office-type package appealing; it is also clear, that people do not want to lose their formatting, as that can render their docs useless. Also, I find it absurd to think that Pocket Office would kill the desktop Office market... what, I'm going to buy a PPC ($600) just to get office so I can write on a 320x240 screen? You've got to be kidding...

However, better round-tripping of documents is not too much to ask. When the most powerful company in business today, chooses not to support a product because they do not see it as a money maker, then why get into the market in the first place? They built the platform and now they have to stand behind the platform. Their choice of crippling Pocket Office, whether because of self-imposed funding and programming constraints, is what is at issue here.

The end-user doesn't care a twit about the internal politics of Microsoft and their plans for money making. When I buy a product from a company, I expect that company to attempt to make the best product possible; I expect them to stand behind their product, and to listen to users about what could make it better. Personally, I would have traded a spell-check for better round-tripping any day. I really do not think that Microsoft really cares about the usability of the PPC as a potential laptop replacement, mobile office. However, when someone else does decide to replace Pocket Office with a better app, they will now see the importance and crush or buy the competition... they've done it before (look a Visio) and they'll do it again.

I still think that the PPC team has done a fantastic job. But don't sit there and try to tell me that a company such as Microsoft with seemingly unlimited resources couldn't manage to get better round-tripping of documents into Pocket Word.

Microsoft is a company that loves to gun after every single market. What are they doing in the livingroom, on the phone, in the car, everywhere. It is not my fault that they think they should control the whole world!! So, what can we expect to see happen to the Smartphone if it proves to be a losing money proposition? If they continue to spread themselves thin, they will continue to produce products that are not ready for primetime. Too many bugs, too hard to use, lacking necessary features, and what... just reread your own thread on the bugs of PPC2002 and see what I mean.

Happy tapping,
Hans.

Mobile Bob

03-27-2002, 01:58 AM

Mobile Bob and Scott R, what is the point of developing .NET for PPC? I thought the .NET framework was not supported on those devices, or am I wrong?

This message supplements Scott R's reply to your post, referenced above. With Visual Studio.NET, and the yet to be released SDE, not only can you write for first generation PPCs (as Scott R indicated), but the applications that you develop for those devices can be moved to other devices that have different CPUs.

In their whitepaper, which I referenced in my earlier post, Microsoft also discusses Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit (MMIT), which complements the SDE and the .NET Compact Framework. When applications are developed for PPC (or other mobile device) using the .NET Compact Framework, most of the code resides on the device itself. When developing with MMIT, most of the code lives on a server and is delivered to the device via a Web browser. MMIT allows Visual Studio.NET developers to write a single mobile Web application that automatically adapts its page rendering for a wide variety devices, like desktop PCs, PPCs, Smartphones, pagers, etc. I believe the MMIT add-on for Visual Studio.NET is available for download now.

I am not promoting Visual Studio.NET. I'm just passing on what I have learned recently. I want to begin learning how to develop applications for PPC 2002, so I researched the available tools. I don't even have a PPC yet. I was getting ready to pull the trigger on an IPAQ 3870 in early February when Intel announced their new XScale processors. I decided to sit on the sidelines for a few more months and wait for a device with better battery life, more features, and hopefully some resolved issues (dust, backlighting, slow SD card reads, etc).

Jason Dunn

03-27-2002, 02:17 AM

I still think that the PPC team has done a fantastic job. But don't sit there and try to tell me that a company such as Microsoft with seemingly unlimited resources couldn't manage to get better round-tripping of documents into Pocket Word.

I agree completely that they COULD have done it if they had more resources. I think the crux of this thread, and others lately, is that when a "failure" is seen, there are REASONS and EXCUSES as to why that failure occurred.

If I'm late for a meeting with a client because my car got a flat tire, I have a reason for being late. In the strictest sense, I have no excuse - I should have left with enough time to change the tire and still make it there right? In the same way, when someone asks why the reminder alerts don't show more text, I can say that the PM in charge of that liked my idea for making it better, had it on his spec list of things to be included, but in the end he was told there weren't enough development days to do everything on the list. So the PM has to go through that list, picking and choosing what he thinks are the best combinations of features available in the time they have. Does anyone really think that the visualiation features of 2002 took as long to code as document round tripping, and somehow a PM thought that visualizations were way cooler? Nope. :roll: Everything revolves around development days - if you don't have enough dev days, you can't include the feature. The dev days are based on the time to market cycles that the higher-ups decide: you set a product launch date, and work backwards. You'd be surprised how little time there really is to code when it's all said and done.

We're all discussing the failure of the Pocket PC 2002 to meet our expectations. I'm offering up reasons, not excuses, as to why this is (not enough resources to accomplish everything they want to do).

Ultimately though, you're right, as a consumer or enterprise user, there's no reason why you should care about the reasons. You want results, and there are no excuses. I agree with that.

The problem I have wholeheartedly agreeing with that sentiment is that I personally know some of the people that work on these products, and they're smart, committed people - so I can't simply dismiss their efforts as easily as everyone else is doing. I can't call them incompetent, nor can I say that they're not listening - I know they are (to some things at least - they're not flawless!). I also know they want the product to succeed, and they don't exactly beat their chest with pride when I shovel bugs their way. So I'm caught between a rock and a hard place: I want the product to get better, but I can't smash Microsoft the way some of you are doing.

<sigh> :?

Chubbergott

03-27-2002, 02:27 AM

This is a really fascinating subject and I've enjoyed reading the posts.

I just want to share some thoughts that came to me as I was reading the posts (no, not those thoughts, sigh!);

Software Matters?
Where is Microsoft when it comes to backing up this claim? Should the ferocity of the anger against Palm for suggesting that users want clipped web browsing be reflected in the opinions put to Microsoft that users want proper office applications?

And yet, the defence put up for Microsoft is astounding. Are we honestly supposed to feel sympathy for Microsoft when we're told that they don't have resources? Palm users are teased because Palm can't put the resources into development in certain areas, and yet we are expected to stand back when Microsoft fails to develop something because it can't be bothered? Forget the "we don't have enough people" argument, that holds water as well as my last car's coolant subsystem!

Dangerous Power
It also shows the worrying power that Microsoft has over us all. What am I talking about?

I am concerned at what would seem to be Microsoft's power to deprive users of software. No company has ever been able to do this before. But now, it would seem that developers are too scared to enhance the Pocket Office applications for fear of being bumped out of the way. If Microsft really cared about its customers, they should give assurances to developers that they are not going to give more welly to Pocket Word, or do it themselves.

How Much Faith?
How long will fanboys keep believing that Microsoft can do no wrong? Intellgent users of Microsoft products are complaining and the replies given from Microsoft approved personnel varies from "hang on in there, you don't understand the politics" to "well, nobody made you buy it!".

Many posts have here have been excellent in the way thay have expressed the viewpoint of the writer. One person wanted to know why, if he has to pay 100% of the cost for a PocketPC, does he not get a 100% fully functional PocketPC. Others make it clear that essential functionality has been removed. How can it be that while there are not enough people to enhance software, there are enough to cripple it?

What kind of company removes functionality in a product update? What could possibly be the reasoning? Are users supposed to 'just believe' and hope for a better day when they'll have to pay for the functionality that they once had but lost?

In a different topic, I was mocked for my ignorance of what goes on within Microsoft that results in these problems. Well, forgive me for breathing, but that is not good enough. Microsoft is robbing its users. Financially and morally, users are being fleeced and the attitude shown here by some is that Micorsoft is laughing at them.

You want a more powerful Pocket Word or an alternative Wordprocessor? You can't. Why? Is it because Microsoft can't provide it? No. It is because Microsoft doesn't want you to have it.

There'll be much rejoicing in when a suitible application is made available by Microsoft (and I believe it will), but waiting around for the nanny corporation to tell you what you want and when you want it deprives you of dignity...

... But that doesn't make me angry. What does makes me angry is that when Microsoft does deliver these goods, it will spin it in such a way as to suggest that it is the first to do so and that nobody else is innovative enough to have come up with the idea - and there are people here who will push that very line!

It's at times like this I'm glad I'm no longer a Microsoft customer (well, in my personal life anyway), and for the times when I have considered coming back (and I have), reading things like this puts me well off.

PS. In response to what has been written while I was writing this; I don't think anybody here is suggesting that the people who work on the PocketPC are in any way dull or incompetent. Experience teaches me that the dull and incompetent are the ones higher up the ladder, making the decisions that the developers have to follow.
I have utmost respect for the developers, even after considering who they work for. They are capable of far better coding than I can ever dream of (and I am capable of dreaming quite good dreams).

soulbarn

03-27-2002, 02:52 AM

Why doesn't MS offer a pay-to-play add on - Pocket Office Plus, maybe - for those who want better capabilities? They could tie it to owning a license for Office XP or whatever, if they want to ensure sales of the full-sized suite.

As messed up as the above sounds - since software does matter, sort of :wink: - I'd probably pay for such a product.

I own both a Palm device and a Pocket PC. It is a major bummer that I can't use bulleted text in Word without jumping through hoops (and losing formatting.) The way Wordsmith is implemented on Palm isn't great - especially in terms of synchronization - but it is a full-featured word processor. Pocket Word is more like Pocket WordPad.

- Dan

Hans the Hedgehog

03-27-2002, 02:53 AM

:roll: Everything revolves around development days - if you don't have enough dev days, you can't include the feature. The dev days are based on the time to market cycles that the higher-ups decide: you set a product launch date, and work backwards. You'd be surprised how little time there really is to code when it's all said and done.

We're all discussing the failure of the Pocket PC 2002 to meet our expectations. I'm offering up reasons, not excuses, as to why this is (not enough resources to accomplish everything they want to do).

Ultimately though, you're right, as a consumer or enterprise user, there's no reason why you should care about the reasons. You want results, and there are no excuses. I agree with that.

Trust me, I understand the problem with software. In my past I have been a developer of tax software, talk about having a deadline! :D And, now, as a web developer I am under the same form of pressures... sometimes the Flash anim gets done, sometimes the asp takes priority, sometimes just the straight HTML, etc... I truly understand the dev cycle. The thing is, I have to prioritize for each client, and try to meet their individual needs.

I never expected PocketWord to be a full version... yup, I would have loved it, but never expected it. But, then again, I'm still holding onto my E-125 and good ole PPC2000, mostly because of the "lack" of improvements I see. The same held true for WinME versus Win98SE-- nothing compelling, to much added instability.

Nonetheless, I love the PPC platform, and wish that it actually got the love it deserved from the inside. If it were given the same or even half the dev-power and cash that the X-Box was given, we would not be having this conversation at all! :wink:

Drink a Warthog for me, :P

Hans.

burmashave

03-27-2002, 06:15 AM

Two years ago, Microsoft released Pocket PC, and Pocket Word and Excel instantly became sore points with many users.

Two years after PPC was released, we still have not had a reasonable response on this issue. There are a ton of good theories in this NG; however, I know one fact: I've waited two years and not gotten a response.

Microsoft may be able to improve these two applications; however, I doubt there is a chance that they can change their attitudes toward their customers. Microsoft can choose to address whichever issues suit them, and I can choose not to buy their products.

jlp

03-27-2002, 06:20 AM

some very interesting things have been said here.

Microsoft doesn't really want/have the resources to enhance Pocket Office, yet we might see an enhanced version they would be selling (like they offer WordPad on the desktop but sell Word/Office).

Customers couldn't care less if MS has the resources or not, or if they are willing to put money/people on it.

What customers really want is products, and products that work as they expect, not what MS wrongfully assume people want (what about usability labs for the PocketPC devices and apps???). If people say they want it (round tripping, closing apps, etc.) and MS doesn't deliver that's the problem.

Some say developers are afraid that MS will come up with their own version and ruin their development efforts.

Yet we have 3 products that are powerful enhancements to Pocket Outlook.

Also we have 2 spreadsheets, at least one of which suports most if not all XL functions as well as does graphics. And it has earned top awards. I haven't extensively tested it, but from what I see it would keep formatting, i.e. it reads and writes directy to XL formats, and doesn't use a crippled pxl format (tho it does support it for compatibility purpose)

And there are quite many database apps, one of which has been on the bestseller's list for many months and 2 I think are PalmOS apps ports.

Plus you have 4 or 5 apps that manage Powerpoint slideshows, and at least one of which allows for some modifications.

During the Palm-sized PC days, we had at least 3 web browsers and MS came with PIE (I won't cover again on the fact PIE 2k2 is a few steps back from PIE 2k, that's a whole different story).

But where are word processors? This is THE most used feature on the desktop, many more people who have a PkPC use Word files on their PDA than Access, PP or XL files.

And yet, to date nobody has made a better mousetrap in this case.

Why? Especially knowing that PocketWord is so lousy at round tripping, etc. Heck I can use strike thru format, but I can't even use basic indice/exponent format as in m2 and H2O.

Probably because third-party developpers were persuaded that, since word processor is such a big thing on the desktop, and since we all know that MS rushed PPC 2k on the market they overlooked the capabilities of Pocket Word (laughable round tripping) and were hectically busy correcting this.

I have no other explanation...

Jason Dunn

03-27-2002, 06:58 AM

Where is Microsoft when it comes to backing up this claim? Should the ferocity of the anger against Palm for suggesting that users want clipped web browsing be reflected in the opinions put to Microsoft that users want proper office applications?

Everything that the Palm has over the Pocket PC (like Office document manipulation) was created by 3rd party companies - Palm hasn't put out an innovative piece of software - ever. The bought the OS from another company, they bought their "new" browser from another company (it's Blaze, right?). Everyone here is focusing on the negative, but it's niave to forget about all the software on the device out of the box that DOES do cool stuff.

But now, it would seem that developers are too scared to enhance the Pocket Office applications for fear of being bumped out of the way. If Microsft really cared about its customers, they should give assurances to developers that they are not going to give more welly to Pocket Word, or do it themselves.

This is a classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, and you're showing a remarkably ignorant understanding of the complexities of the issue (which doesn't surprise me). :roll:

On one hand, you have people screaming about the lack of "Pocket Word" back in the Palm-size PC days. Forget the fact that there WERE 3rd party tools that had the same capabilities that Pocket Word has now. People want a Microsoft branded tool out of the box. Don't believe me? Do a newsgroup search on "Pocket Access". People keep asking, over and over, "Where is Pocket Access"? There are over a DOZEN killer 3rd party database tools, many of them far more capable than the version of Pocket Access that ships on HPC devices. No matter how many times we point people to BETTER solutions, every new user wants to have "Pocket Access" - ditto for Pocket Word. So Microsoft goes ahead and creates Pocket Word (more of a port from the HPC version actually), and imbues it with a few minor improvements. It satisfies some people, but many are not satisfied because there aren't enough features. Worse, no 3rd party developers are going to step up to the plate and create their own word processor to "do it right" because they're afraid Microsoft will suddenly devote resources to Pocket Word and dramatically improve it.

Still don't believe me? Ask the people who made "Pocket Powerpoint" solutions - one developer in particular was hesitating for over a year for fear of Microsoft coming out with their own version of Pocket Powerpoint. People still clamour for "Pocket Powerpoint" - it takes a great deal of education to convince people to look for 3rd party solutions.

So what does Microsoft do? Not release "Pocket" apps and hope that a 3rd party will step in? Or create the apps and kill the development market? It's not as easy of a decision as some of you may think it is.

Others make it clear that essential functionality has been removed. How can it be that while there are not enough people to enhance software, there are enough to cripple it?

Nice rhetoric - show me the proof. Bugs not included, I can't think of a single feature that was REMOVED or crippled in a purposeful fashion.

You want a more powerful Pocket Word or an alternative Wordprocessor? You can't. Why? Is it because Microsoft can't provide it? No. It is because Microsoft doesn't want you to have it.

Do you have one shred of evidence to support your claim? Why exactly would Microsoft purposefully cripple their platform? They're already worse off than Palm with Office solutions, and they know it.

You have your anti-Microsoft rhetoric down pat Chubster, but very little in the way of clear statements that offer any proof to back up what you're saying. :roll:

Jason Dunn

03-27-2002, 07:05 AM

Microsoft doesn't really want/have the resources to enhance Pocket Office, yet we might see an enhanced version they would be selling (like they offer WordPad on the desktop but sell Word/Office).

This is just a rumour that has zero basis in fact. I've never heard a single peep on any level, fact or rumour, that has related in any way to a "Pro" version of Office. This type of rumour only serves to reinforce the false opinion that Microsoft is somehow "screwing" their users and holding out for more money.

Closer to the real reason is that no developer has the cojones to step up and create a version of Pocket Word that really cooks. It took a lot of my personal persuation for a certain company to create a certain "Pocket Powerpoint" solution. Maybe they would have done it without encouragement, but I do know that fear of a Microsoft solution coming down the pike was the single biggest factor in them not wanting to do it initially.

Often the simplest explanation is the correct one: we have no great Pocket Word solution because no one, Microsoft included, has put the resources together to create it.

Does that really sound so odd when you stop and think about it? :-)

AhuhX

03-27-2002, 08:11 AM

What you will need is a development add-on to Visual Studio .NET which isn't out yet.

Scott

I just found some more info on this interesting side topic to this thread. LOL.

Anyway, just digging through MSDN and the "Two for the Road" topics and found this little nugget.

"The bad news was that the Visual Studio .NET requirement meant that unlike the eMbedded Visual Toolkit, there was some expense involved in developing on this platform. The good news that I just discovered is that it may by much more of a bargain than I though. Microsoft have produced versions of Visual Studio .NET that focus on individual languages—the Visual C#® .NET Standard release, and the Visual Basic .NET Standard release. These versions cost about $100 each, and according to the people I've spoken to, they will work with the SDE plug-in. At that price, the tools are a bargain. "

So it looks like you won't need the full Visual Studio package afterall to do .Net stuff on PPC.

Ed Hansberry

03-27-2002, 02:40 PM

There's just one problem with that. Every developer I've talked to has been scared off already from writing anything that would enhance or compete with Pocket Office. Why should they spend the time and money to develop a better word processor than Pocket Word if Microsoft can enhance Pocket Word later? So far, there is no developer community for Pocket PC office suites.

And yet third party "Pocket Access" and "Pocket Powerpoint" solutions abound, and MS isn't going to touch them. The questoin is how many people would really buy a Pocket Word Pro app? And people on this board don't count - bunch of geeks. ;-) I would buy it just to get outlining and better bullet points, but how many average people would care? Everyone here is trying to use their PPC as a laptop substitute, but we are in the minority when it comes to the PPC world.

burmashave

03-27-2002, 05:20 PM

Often the simplest explanation is the correct one: we have no great Pocket Word solution because no one, Microsoft included, has put the resources together to create it.

Does that really sound so odd when you stop and think about it? :-)

Nope, Jason, that does not sound odd. PPC customers have been asking for better Word and Excel round tripping since PPC was released. Microsoft has ignored us. That's par for Microsoft.

Yet, Microsoft did have the resources to give us themes. Hooray. And they were able to make Inbox worse than it was before, while removing a key feature -- reminder alarms -- that many of us had come to rely on. The today screen looks a little different, and memory management is still a major kludge. Let's talk about development effort there. MS invested the time to change it, but not in any way that customers wanted.

Yes, we have gotten good products from third party vendors.

But you know what, Jason. PPC users would have been better off if Microsoft had bundled neither Word, Excel, Inbox nor PIE with PPC. The reason why we have decent slide show and database applications is that Microsoft bundled none with PPC.

It is true that Palm did not develop good software, although they did develop a good OS. By not bundling software, they gave developers a great incentive, and at the same time ensured developers that Palm was not going to trump developed software somewhere down the line.

You walk a fine line bordering on hypocrisy. On the one hand, you tell us that you and the other MVP's are repeatedly telling MS that we want better Pocket Word and Excel functionality. On the other, you tell us not to hope for anything because Microsoft will do its own choosing as to development effort, all the while hinting that Microsoft may have some secret products or improvements that would be announced only on the day they are released. Then, you claim that it is up to third party vendors to do this development, and that they have no disincentive to do so.

I still do not see this issue as strictly one of Pocket Word and Excel features. To me, this discussion is about the level of response users can expect from Microsoft after investing about $500 to $600 in a Microsoft powered platform. The level of response over the last two years has been zero, zilch, nada -- with the exception of a veritable catalog of workarounds that users must glean from the Microsoft newsgroup. This is not so much my opinion as it has been my experience with owning a Pocket PC.

So the net is, if a user is considering buying into the PPC platform, he or she should recognize that the platform will continue to exist in much the same form as the day the device was purchased -- with all of its annoyances and bugs. That is a simple purchasing decision, not an emotional matter. If this suits the customer, that is fine; however, the potential for PPC will always be limited by the effort Microsoft is willing to put forth in response to customer desires.

It may possible that Microsoft may actually start listening to its customers and make changes to the OS and installed applications; however, two years is enough to convince me that the chances of this happening are slim.

I would not invest my time in developing a product after being informed that the MS MVP's had made that product a number one priority with Microsoft. No doubt other developers feel the same way. So we wait for Microsoft to move, and that will be a long wait. Worse, the issue of Pocket Word and Excel is only the tip of the iceberg. What about ActiveSync, Inbox and PIE to name a few areas that need serious attention? If Word and Excel functionality has been a top issue with consumers for two years, what hope do we have that Microsoft will address any important issues?

ppcsurfr

03-27-2002, 05:49 PM

All that is needed is a group of software developers who are ready to strike while the iron is hot.

C'mon.

Do something.

Hans the Hedgehog

03-27-2002, 06:02 PM

Often the simplest explanation is the correct one: we have no great Pocket Word solution because no one, Microsoft included, has put the resources together to create it.

Does that really sound so odd when you stop and think about it? :-)

I do think it is odd, really, when you think about Microsoft's want to be in the enterprise so badly. I could not imagine an enterprise embracing the poor round-tripping, which could very easily lead them to choose a different platform. The consumer may be fine with the current Pocket Word and Excel options, but the enterprise requires more, and, quite honestly, demands it.

MS has already stated that it does not care too much for the consumer-- quite a laugh, if you ask me, just like the 386, Pentium, Pentim Pro, etc... were for servers only :P -- so, it does surprise me that they don't have a more enterprise-level solution available, even at an additional cost.

Here's hoping,
Hans.

Jason Dunn

03-27-2002, 07:53 PM

Yet, Microsoft did have the resources to give us themes. Hooray. And they were able to make Inbox worse than it was before, while removing a key feature -- reminder alarms -- that many of us had come to rely on.

This is your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but I don't agree. On Pocket PC 2000, Inbox took FOREVER to start up when it had more than a few dozen messages in it. It's now incredibly fast - I count that as a major improvement. I personally haven't had any problems checking my email with it - I know there are some issues with some users, but I consider Inbox 2002 far superior than previous versions. As far as reminder alarms go, I don't have any problems there either - I've heard of people saying they don't work or are erratic, so I'm sure there are some bugs there, but they always seem to work for me. You're making it sound like 2002 is 100% useless and broken, and that's simply not true. If it was as bad as you say, the product would be a horrible flop and would get very poor reviews by the media. I think that experienced Pocket PC users tend to fixate on the problems and act like that's all there is...

But you know what, Jason. PPC users would have been better off if Microsoft had bundled neither Word, Excel, Inbox nor PIE with PPC. The reason why we have decent slide show and database applications is that Microsoft bundled none with PPC.

Do you really think so? Would someone buy a PDA without the ability to read/open Word & Excel files, no ability to do email, or browse the web? They'd be buying a Palm then, right? (although even the Palm comes with an Inbox client). I understand why you're saying this, you want more 3rd party development, but who would develop applications for a failed platform that no one was buying because it didn't come with any software out of the box? Think it through.

You walk a fine line bordering on hypocrisy. On the one hand, you tell us that you and the other MVP's are repeatedly telling MS that we want better Pocket Word and Excel functionality. On the other, you tell us not to hope for anything because Microsoft will do its own choosing as to development effort

I'm sorry that you see it that way, but that's basically what it boils down to. As MVPs we can rant and rave about the things that we want, but guess what? People like you and I are power users and are not the bulk of the target market - Microsoft only takes our input so far. I wish I could make product decisions for them, but I don't work for Microsoft. :-) There's nothing hypocritical about what I'm saying - it's reality. If you'd prefer that I act ignorant and fill your head with empty promises, that's fine...

The level of response over the last two years has been zero, zilch, nada --with the exception of a veritable catalog of workarounds that users must glean from the Microsoft newsgroup.

So you're saying that from Pocket PC 2000 to Pocket PC 2002, there were ZERO improvements? Are you serious? I think you're really off the mark with these wild statements...take a step back and look at what you're saying. I understand you're frustrated, but come on...

Jason Dunn

03-27-2002, 07:54 PM

I do think it is odd, really, when you think about Microsoft's want to be in the enterprise so badly. I could not imagine an enterprise embracing the poor round-tripping, which could very easily lead them to choose a different platform. The consumer may be fine with the current Pocket Word and Excel options, but the enterprise requires more, and, quite honestly, demands it.

You won't see me disagreeing! I think it's sad, so very sad, that Palm has a better Microsoft Office solution than Microsoft. Microsoft knows this. Will they fix it? I really hope so! Will it get fixed next week? No. :roll:

Chubbergott

03-27-2002, 10:36 PM

I just hope that Micorosoft's way of making their solution better than Palm's isn't by making Palm's worse (ie breaking it).

I know some of you will call me paranoid, ignorant and full of loathe for Microsoft (which I'm not), but Bill Gates himself has considered this an option while discussing Nokia (so what does he want to do to Palm who is a bigger threat?).

Don't disregard this outright, Microsoft could do it and the man who cannot accept this simple and proven fact, who is truly ignorant.

Ed Hansberry

03-27-2002, 10:50 PM

I just hope that Micorosoft's way of making their solution better than Palm's isn't by making Palm's worse (ie breaking it).

How could Microsoft break a Palm PDA connected to your desktop via the Hotsync conduit on a third party app, a variety of third party apps actually?

The only thing I have heard in the news is BG talking about making the Outlook sync more difficult for Palm, which has NOTHING to do with third party document sync's, and doesn't affect a huge chunk of Palm users that use Palm Desktop anyway.

:?:

burmashave

03-28-2002, 01:41 AM

The level of response over the last two years has been zero, zilch, nada --with the exception of a veritable catalog of workarounds that users must glean from the Microsoft newsgroup.

So you're saying that from Pocket PC 2000 to Pocket PC 2002, there were ZERO improvements? Are you serious? I think you're really off the mark with these wild statements...take a step back and look at what you're saying. I understand you're frustrated, but come on...

What I am saying is that Microsoft has expended development effort. They have added new features. However, very little of this effort was actually directied at features for which PPC users had been loudly clamoring. That is why I use the word "response."

Microsoft is free to set its priorities in a vacuum, yet the company ignores consumers at its own risk. The vacuum they create will be filled by another vendor. By this, I am not implying that Pocket PC will not live on; however, I strongly believe that Microsoft must resolve a number of issues before Pocket PC can reach a wider audience -- beyond the people who are willing to spend time posting messages about a handheld operating system. ;-)

Ed Hansberry

03-28-2002, 02:10 AM

What I am saying is that Microsoft has expended development effort. They have added new features. However, very little of this effort was actually directied at features for which PPC users had been loudly clamoring. That is why I use the word "response."

You forget that MS's numero uno target with Pocket PC's is the enterprise. Not consumers.

Hence VPN, Terminal Server, network file shares & Connection Manager (yes, the UI could use lots of work, but the capabilities to connect to multiple internal and external sources is great - just needs more usability testing) were made for the enterprise.

THey improved Excel with tap-and-hold, added spell checking to Inbox and Word and added themes. Yes, themes. YOu'd be surprised how many companies are "branding" their PDA's with their logo's.

Your crowd that "clamors" is typically the geeks (self included!) posting here, other web sites and in the news groups. Not the IT guy in the back room. That was who MS listened to for PPC 2002.

jlp

03-28-2002, 03:26 AM

On one hand, you have people screaming about the lack of "Pocket Word" back in the Palm-size PC days. Forget the fact that there WERE 3rd party tools that had the same capabilities that Pocket Word has now.

What was it? I've never heared of such a product, yet I don't claim to know every app ever developed. But if that truely existed then let's all contact these great folks and let's have them release it for the PkPC platform. Such an app would sell like hot cakes, if it could handle desktop Word files well that is.

Still don't believe me? Ask the people who made "Pocket Powerpoint" solutions - one developer in particular was hesitating for over a year for fear of Microsoft coming out with their own version of Pocket Powerpoint.

That's EXACTLY what others have beenpointing out

If/when you'll convince MS to clearly state that they will never release a satisfying version of Pocket Word, you'll have developers busy with coding it.

Well, can people really trust MS's words (pun intended :D) anyway? I doubt it!!!

Others make it clear that essential functionality has been removed. How can it be that while there are not enough people to enhance software, there are enough to cripple it?

Nice rhetoric - show me the proof. Bugs not included, I can't think of a single feature that was REMOVED or crippled in a purposeful fashion.

Well I can think of many:
- for one the repeat feature in alarms
- for 2 the shrink feature in PIE, crippled not enhanced
- drag'n'drop text from NoteTaker: very useful to reorder lists. Now it's 1) tap-hold, 2) choose cut from drop down menu, 3) tap targeted location and hold 4) choose paste from drop down menu. Dang it!!!
- in files lists, the possibility to sort by dates descending (most recent first), there is a control somewhere to do this in some apps but not in the note taking app anymore
- in files lists, the possibility to adjust columns sizes (same remark)
- well you can search for them, they all came out when PkPC 2k came out as I don't have time to list them all here from memory and write them down here

You want a more powerful Pocket Word or an alternative Wordprocessor? You can't. Why? Is it because Microsoft can't provide it? No. It is because Microsoft doesn't want you to have it.

Do you have one shred of evidence to support your claim? Why exactly would Microsoft purposefully cripple their platform? They're already worse off than Palm with Office solutions, and they know it.

That's why they are worse than Palm, BECAUSE they crippled their apps. And they've known that since 2 years ago and haven't done anything to correct this. And that's what people here and elsewhere have been pointing out !

And all in all it looks like some useful features get dropped between every iteration, as I pointed out the downhill slope started even from the Palm-sized PC days. I've been there and I've seen people complain about that then too.

And don't tell me they had to delete features to get ROM space to add more needed features. Back in the Palm-sized PCs, standard ROM size was 8-12 MB I think, Cassiopeia E-100 series being the exception with 16MB because they had extra stuff there, like the drivers and supporting apps for their CF camera card and possibly other drivers/apps as well.

PocketPC came along and every PDA had 16 MB and Casio maded their CF camera drivers and apps downloadable software.

PkPC 2k2 devices have DOUBLE that amount and it's not filled up too.

Also seing the great success of the very expensive Stowaway keyboard (they sold 1 million of them in the first 10 months) and the many competing devices on the market today, it looks like long text input into pocketable devices is a killer app. Heck there's even a version of the Stowaway for a Motorola phone !

So to summerize, why not contact these Office apps makers on the Palm OS platform to convince them to port their suite -or at least the wordprocessor- to PocketPC, shall we?

jlp

03-28-2002, 03:31 AM

What I am saying is that Microsoft has expended development effort. They have added new features. However, very little of this effort was actually directied at features for which PPC users had been loudly clamoring. That is why I use the word "response."

You forget that MS's numero uno target with Pocket PC's is the enterprise. Not consumers.

(snip)

Not the IT guy in the back room. That was who MS listened to for PPC 2002.

I bet my shirt that the IT guy gets LOTS of complains by corporate users about most of the removed/crippled "features" mentionned here, like very poor round-tripping and lack of repeating alarms, even the crippled PIE Shrink to fit (dys)functionality !

You see, it's NOT so much that P.Word is NOT able to display tables, headers/footers and the like, the horrible matter is that it zaps these from the saved files; and when you edit files you therefore have to save them and bye bye all those formattings !

People would most certainly not complain that loudly if tho P.Word couldn't handle (display/edit) these formatting, but worse just didn't zap 'em out!!!

burmashave

03-28-2002, 03:35 AM

Your crowd that "clamors" is typically the geeks (self included!) posting here, other web sites and in the news groups. Not the IT guy in the back room. That was who MS listened to for PPC 2002.

O. K., fair enough. Microsoft may be listening to its enterprise customers. If that is the case, I would think that improving stability and application usability should be high priorities. IT departments do not want to spend their time troubleshooting their users' ActiveSync woes. Reliability issues affect corporate and personal customers alike.

Please understand that I, an admitted geek, clamor not so much on my own behalf, as it is in hope that the PPC platform can achieve wider potential -- now that I have invested in it. I have found and implemented workarounds for most of my issues. I know that most new users will face the same issues; however, we geeks are pretty much the only ones willing to spend the time and effort to get something to work that does not come that way out of the box.

Jason Dunn

03-28-2002, 06:19 AM

What was it? I've never heared of such a product...

There were some apps that opened text files and did basic RTF - nothing special. Not the people you want carrying your torch. :-)

If/when you'll convince MS to clearly state that they will never release a satisfying version of Pocket Word, you'll have developers busy with coding it.

Come on, we're talking about Microsoft here - if they were to make a public statement of "We won't improve Pocket Word to give developers a chance to make a better solution", The Register would write a story entitled "Microsoft abandons Pocket Office suite" faster than you could blink. Businesses don't work that way (as much as I wish they could/would).

- for one the repeat feature in alarms
- for 2 the shrink feature in PIE, crippled not enhanced
- drag'n'drop text from NoteTaker: very useful to reorder lists. Now it's 1) tap-hold, 2) choose cut from drop down menu, 3) tap targeted location and hold 4) choose paste from drop down menu. Dang it!!!
- in files lists, the possibility to sort by dates descending (most recent first), there is a control somewhere to do this in some apps but not in the note taking app anymore
- in files lists, the possibility to adjust columns sizes (same remark)

Although I haven't confirmed all of these with people at Microsoft, AFAIK they're all bugs - not features or design implementations. The one exception might be the repeat alarms, but I think it got screwed up when they were re-working alarms into the new notifications system.

What's next? The Pocket PC team shot Kennedy? :roll:

CoffeeKid

03-28-2002, 09:58 AM

But you know what, Jason. PPC users would have been better off if Microsoft had bundled neither Word, Excel, Inbox nor PIE with PPC. The reason why we have decent slide show and database applications is that Microsoft bundled none with PPC.

Oh man, do I agree with the above. Does anyone think for a second that Microsoft would come out with an app even remotely close to what PocketSlides does for Powerpoint?

Not I.

In fact, since Sony is now bringing that new amazing Clie to these shores, once again, I am actually considering a Palm device... I'll miss some PPC features, but not the Pocket Office and Pocket Outlook ones.

One side note. Jason, you said in another post "palm has never released a single piece of innovative software - ever".

Beg to disagree. Palm OS was significant and innovative. Then it was all downhill from there.

Mark

Jason Dunn

03-28-2002, 04:24 PM

Beg to disagree. Palm OS was significant and innovative. Then it was all downhill from there.

But they didn't even develop the whole thing - they bought the core off Kadak! That's why their struggle to make OS 5.0 is so interesting - they're never truly created anything from the ground up before.

Doug Raeburn

03-28-2002, 07:04 PM

First, The basic assertion that if MS creates a full-fledged Word, it will forgo the need to buy and use Word on a PC is ridiculous. A pen-driven 3.6' screen with 64M storage will never replace even the cheapest PC running Word. It simply makes no sense. PPCs will always complement a real PC and there is no chance in hell that they will replace them in the near future.

I'm not yet convinced that this is a real threat at this point, since the requisite technology is so new, but the potential is not as outlandish as you seem to think. I'm currently reviewing Pocket Controller with Nyditot Virtual Display (bundled by SOTI as Virtual Desktop Controller) and you can work in Pocket Word/Pocket Excel/Pocket Informant/Agenda Fusion etc. at a resolution of up to 1024 X 768, displayed in that resolution on your desktop monitor, using your keyboard and mouse for input. When I was working in Pocket Word with this setup, I was amazed at how similar the experience was to working in Word XP on the desktop (beyond the obvious huge difference in features). Clearly, if Pocket Word was closer feature-wise to desktop Word, Pocket Word could indeed be a very reasonable alternative.

There was an extensive thread on this topic on Brighthand a few months ago, and my position was (and still is) that Microsoft doesn't care about the Pocket Office market beyond its ability to extend the desktop Office reach. The success of such products as Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion (and aren't such apps the "killer" apps on a PDA?), as well as the proliferation of Pocket Access alternatives, indicates to me that as long as any third party "Pocket Office" app is tied to the desktop Office cash cow, MS doesn't perceive it as a threat. IMO, Word is no different. And the levels of functionality that we'd be likely to see on this platform would not make such an app a real threat to desktop Word. WordSmith and QuickWord on the Palm are nice apps with some great features, but they're not exactly orders of magnitude closer to desktop Word than is Pocket Word.

03-28-2002, 08:38 PM

I'm not yet convinced that this is a real threat at this point, since the requisite technology is so new, but the potential is not as outlandish as you seem to think. I'm currently reviewing Pocket Controller with Nyditot Virtual Display (bundled by SOTI as Virtual Desktop Controller) and you can work in Pocket Word/Pocket Excel/Pocket Informant/Agenda Fusion etc. at a resolution of up to 1024 X 768, displayed in that resolution on your desktop monitor, using your keyboard and mouse for input. When I was working in Pocket Word with this setup, I was amazed at how similar the experience was to working in Word XP on the desktop (beyond the obvious huge difference in features). Clearly, if Pocket Word was closer feature-wise to desktop Word, Pocket Word could indeed be a very reasonable alternative.
In principle you are right. But, I don't foresee PDAs displacing PCs anytime soon. Sure technology improves, but time and adoption is another matter. In addition, we have no proof that virtual displays would the preferred solution. 10 years from now we may discover that another technology that we never foresaw becoming the ubiquitous technology of the day

jlp

03-29-2002, 02:58 AM

Doug Raeburn

03-29-2002, 02:59 AM

In principle you are right. But, I don't foresee PDAs displacing PCs anytime soon. Sure technology improves, but time and adoption is another matter. In addition, we have no proof that virtual displays would the preferred solution. 10 years from now we may discover that another technology that we never foresaw becoming the ubiquitous technology of the day

I don't recall saying that virtual displays were any kind of "preferred" solution, but they are a solution nonetheless. They do break through some of the limitations of PDAs that you cite in support of your position. They certainly are an alternative that has the potential of expanding the capabilities of a PDA to something far beyond the traditional use on which your position is based. In fact, it's already beyond the "potential" and into reality... check the SOTI site for some inventive uses of Pocket PC's that go far beyond setting up an appointment for lunch with Aunt Betty or playing Cubicle Chaos. Even if this specific technology doesn't stand the test of time, it demonstrates what a PDA is capable of. Sure, there's no proof that virtual displays would be the preferred solution, but by the same token there's no proof that they wouldn't be, either.

That being said, I don't disagree that PDAs are not likely to displace PCs anytime soon. My point was that the technology exists now to utilize a PDA much like a PC, so the possibility of desktop class software on a Pocket PC is not hard to imagine. It may not represent your ideal solution, and perhaps not mine either. But even if it isn't your "preferred" solution, you can't discount the fact that the potential is there, and some companies and developers are already beginning to leverage it.

jlp

03-29-2002, 03:15 AM

check the SOTI site for some inventive uses of Pocket PC's that go far beyond ...

What's the link? Doesn't seem to be soti.com

jlp

03-29-2002, 03:37 AM

- for one the repeat feature in alarms
- for 2 the shrink feature in PIE, crippled not enhanced
- drag'n'drop text from NoteTaker: very useful to reorder lists. Now it's 1) tap-hold, 2) choose cut from drop down menu, 3) tap targeted location and hold 4) choose paste from drop down menu. Dang it!!!
- in files lists, the possibility to sort by dates descending (most recent first), there is a control somewhere to do this in some apps but not in the note taking app anymore
- in files lists, the possibility to adjust columns sizes (same remark)

Although I haven't confirmed all of these with people at Microsoft, AFAIK they're all bugs - not features or design implementations. The one exception might be the repeat alarms, but I think it got screwed up when they were re-working alarms into the new notifications system.

What's next? The Pocket PC team shot Kennedy? :roll:

Jason, I hate to say it but your post here is bad faith and here is why:

1) you say there were some word processing programs out at the time of the Palm-sized PC that could do, I quote you: "there WERE 3rd party tools that had the same capabilities that Pocket Word has now" and when I ask which one you say: "There were some apps that opened text files and did basic RTF - nothing special." (emphasis added by me)

That's REALLY bad faith!!!

Then you go on, trying to excuse why Microsoft didn't do what people have been asking since 2 years now and for which the overall less capable Palm devices can do since, what, close to a year now.

If somebody can do round-tripping correctly between Microsoft desktop Word and Microsoft Pocket Word, then who else than Microsoft can?!

Then you say that removing functionalities like drag'n'drop is a bug, that's REALLY bad faith!!!

When you say that removing the columns and sorting capabilities while accessing files from integrated apps is a bug, that's REALLY bad faith as well!!! Especially since that control still exists: create a new mail message and press on the attachment icon and Bingo, there it is!!! But you can't use it from most MS PocketPC apps, even some third party apps (like ListPro), just to comform to Microsoft's newer practice.

So all in all it's just the opposite of what you say, all of these and probably more (I don't have the time to research for more), are features that were removed and not bugs like you pretend they are, tho you acknowledge that dropping repeat alarm is a screw up, the least we could say.

I tell you what the REAL problem is:

It's what I can call the "we'll fix WHAT we want, IF and WHEN we want it" bad attitude that plagues software companies!!!

Let me explain it with a real world example(*): Let's say you have a physical machine (fridge, washing machine, computer, etc.) that has a problem, you call the company and they quickly send a repairman to fix it, usually within a few hours. If it can be repaired right away he does it; if he can't, he hauls the machine and send it to a repair center.

Not so in the software world, tho it's easier in the sense that nobody has to come to your place to fix something.

And yet all they do when you call them is say "thank you for bringing this problem to our attention", or "we already know about this problem, but there is no fix for this now". Or "buy the newer version that [may] fix this problem [and add thousand others]." (extra text between [] added by me)

It would be so easy to put "software repairmen" on this and post a fix to it within hours or a few days or even weeks for the less serious ones and have an automatic mail sent to all the registered users to imform them about the fix so they can downlod it. Or use the automatic update capability of later OSs.

Repairmen in the hardware world have to individually repair ALL the defective units/parts, while in the software world it's so much easier because it has to be done once and everybody downloads the fix.

In the hardware world companies have had to collectively recall a series to replace a defective part that was installed in the partial or whole series. And the manufacturer bears all the costs involved.

Not so in the computer world: what did Microsoft do to repair the defective DOS 4.0? nothing!!! they made DOS 5 and YOU had to pay for it to avoid the bugs. And it's been so ever since.

I'm not saying that all bugs are easy to track down or that they never issue fixes, called Service packs (sounds much better than "Fixes to correct our screwups"), that correct gross errors and potentially serious bugs.

But do they really care? Have you taken a look at the EULA lately, where they basically say that if there's a bug, "support engineers will make commercially reasonnable efforts to solve any problem issue." They prefer put their programers on coding newer versions of their programs than fix the tens of thousands of bugs. The former brings much money, the latter NONE.

While the purpose of companies is to make money, they are morally entitled to make their software usable.

And you think your hardware company could get away with such an attitude? "Yes we know your washing machine doesn't work right, but there's nothing we can do now. Just buy the newest model". Think you'd be happy this way?

What I'm saying is that software companies fix WHAT, WHEN and IF they want it, whereas hardware is repaired AS it is needed.

As long as the software companies will be able to legally get away with this, we'll have that kind of problems and that kind of discussions.

It's up to users in the United States, (which leads the software world, and were such things are possible to do) to contact your representatives or any empowered person that could do this and complain about such irresponsible behaviours so they do something about it.

And with enough lobbying weight things will start to change for the better.

Jean-Louis

(*) after writing a few lines I noticed that I was writing about special circumstances like small devices that are usually brought in the shop to repair, etc. And that was taking more time to explain than the main point thus dilluting the whole explanation. We all know about these so I acknowledge it here and removed it from the main subject to keep it simple.

Doug Raeburn

03-29-2002, 04:35 AM

check the SOTI site for some inventive uses of Pocket PC's that go far beyond ...

What's the link? Doesn't seem to be soti.com

It's www.soti.net

jlp

03-29-2002, 07:46 AM

check the SOTI site for some inventive uses of Pocket PC's that go far beyond ...

What's the link? Doesn't seem to be soti.com

It's www.soti.net

thanks

Doug Raeburn

03-29-2002, 12:29 PM

WordSmith and QuickWord on the Palm are nice apps with some great features, but they're not exactly orders of magnitude closer to desktop Word than is Pocket Word.

It's not so much the functionalities (that are indeed superior to Pocket Word), but more the now famous round-tripping capabilities that these apps seem to preserve.

True... however, my point was how suitable (or more correctly, not really suitable) such a PDA app would be as a replacement for desktop Word, not as a companion. So the round-tripping is irrelevant in that context.

Jason Dunn

03-29-2002, 06:28 PM

If somebody can do round-tripping correctly between Microsoft desktop Word and Microsoft Pocket Word, then who else than Microsoft can?!

Any software development company that can code faster, think ahead better, and be more nimble than Microsoft in the marketplace. Want me to start naming names? Conduits, DeveloperOne, Ilium, Applian...I think any of those companies could do a better Pocket Word much faster than Microsoft can. :D

So all in all it's just the opposite of what you say, all of these and probably more (I don't have the time to research for more), are features that were removed and not bugs like you pretend they are, tho you acknowledge that dropping repeat alarm is a screw up, the least we could say.

Unless you can prove this, it's really just my word against yours right? I talked to the program manager for PIM yesterday, and he didn't know if removing the repeating alarms was a bug or a purposeful design decision. Now if he doesn't know and has to look into it, what hope do you have of knowing the truth? :roll:

Let me explain it with a real world example(*): Let's say you have a physical machine (fridge, washing machine, computer, etc.) that has a problem, you call the company and they quickly send a repairman to fix it, usually within a few hours. If it can be repaired right away he does it; if he can't, he hauls the machine and send it to a repair center.

Good example. Let me use the same one: if that fridge has something stupid on it, like the door doesn't open all the way. Something that worked fine on the previous model, but somewhere along the way the manufacturing process got messed up and every single new model fridge has the problem. Now if you went to that fridge company and said "How long will it take you to alter your manufacturing process to fix this problem?". Do you think they'll say "1 week?". No - unless it's a serious problem (like the fridge catches on fire by itself), they'll add that fix to their next round of modifications to the design, which likely means you'll see a fixed model next year. That's the way businesses work - they're not going to turn on a dime and correct something unless it's a show-stopper: something that makes their product simply not work. I don't believe the Pocket PC 2002 has any show stoppers - I've been using my HP 565 for months and I don't find it seriously less functional than my 2000 device. Some things aren't quite as good as before - I find the alarm doesn't wake me up properly now - but that doesn't stop me from using it.

In the physical world where real harm is involved with bad products, consumers have the protection of a recall. I think it would be nice if we had the same thing in the software world, but if Word crashes on you, are you in mortal danger? No. :twisted:

It would be so easy to put "software repairmen" on this and post a fix to it within hours or a few days or even weeks for the less serious ones and have an automatic mail sent to all the registered users to imform them about the fix so they can downlod it. Or use the automatic update capability of later OSs.

I think this stance is a little niave. In the physical world, if you're going to replace a bolt on a fridge, you do some testing to make sure it works, and you replace that bolt in your manufacturing process. The software world is a lot more complex - even the smallest patch or upgrade has weeks/months of testing behind it to make sure it doesn't screw everything else up.

And I honestly don't understand all this "bad faith" stuff you're accusing me of - I don't get the reference.