Top 10 PDA Failures

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://mlagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=News&amp;file=article&amp;sid=133&amp;mode=thread&amp;order=0&amp;thold=0">http://mlagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=News&amp;file=article&amp;sid=133&amp;mode=thread&amp;order=0&amp;thold=0</a><br /><br />Number 4, the Palm PC (later renamed to Palm-sized PC): <i>"As Palm gained widespread acceptance, Microsoft was not content to cede an entire network over to the upstart company. Microsoft released a modified version of its Handheld PC shell that ran on top of Windows CE. The interface was similar to Windows 95's, but it used bigger and simpler widgets. It was far more powerful, offered an agenda view, was expandable and reasonably priced. The Palm's were cheaper, though, and Microsoft did not make gains in the PDA market until the release of the Pocket PC."</i><br /><br />They left the sentence off that said "and went after Palm's target audience with a vengence and in many market segements around the world, the newly named Windows Mobile brand has surpassed Palm's market share, which was at one point well above 80% worldwide." ;-)<br /><br />And just to make sure I or this article haven't left anyone out, number 11 is the OQO. :devilboy:

[PJE]

This is a stange article. The author is mixing products such as Magic Cap which didn't do anything in the market with devices which were hampored by the technology at the time - Newton - but were useful devices which deserved better.

[phillypocket]

This is a stange article. The author is mixing products such as Magic Cap which didn't do anything in the market with devices which were hampored by the technology at the time - Newton - but were useful devices which deserved better.

Why do you feel the article is strange? It's the authors opinion of the top ten commercial failures in a PDA form factor. Seemed pretty straightforward to me. I mean you could give all sorts of excuses for all of the products listed, but that doesn't change the fact that they failed.

[Jimmy Dodd]

This is a stange article. The author is mixing products such as Magic Cap which didn't do anything in the market with devices which were hampored by the technology at the time - Newton - but were useful devices which deserved better.

Why do you feel the article is strange? It's the authors opinion of the top ten commercial failures in a PDA form factor. Seemed pretty straightforward to me. I mean you could give all sorts of excuses for all of the products listed, but that doesn't change the fact that they failed.

This is why I think it's kind of odd.


I've made a top ten list of devices or initiatives that failed and shouldn't have.

It's the "failed and shouldn't have" that I find odd- especially with the Magic Cap entry.

[24va]

I only owned one of the ones listed: Rex

[macs4god]

My Dad had a Rex for a while, and I thought that thing was really cool, a very neat concept in my opinion. I'm sure someday in the future when foldable LCD screens become mass market that a standard credit card will do all that the Rex can do.

When the Newton was around I was still pretty young, but I remember going into a computer store and pining over it for a very long time, until my Mom figured out where I had run off to. They're still pretty prevalent on eBay, maybe I'll get one to supplement my PPC. :twisted:

[gregmills]

What no love for the TI Avigo (http://www.ti.com/avigo/)?

It had it all over it's contemporaries from Palm. User upgradable memory, cool integrated flip cover, larger screen, soft input, T9, LANDSCAPE MODE! It was my first PDA ::sigh:: I loved that thing.

It had a fairly active developer community for a while but was just dominated by Palm's market presence.

[Deslock]

They left the sentence off that said "and went after Palm's target audience with a vengence and in many market segements around the world, the newly named Windows Mobile brand has surpassed Palm's market share, which was at one point well above 80% worldwide." ;-)
They also left off "Because Microsoft based Windows CE/Palm PC on Win32, it was buggy and slow; as a result, Palm was able to maintain a lead in the market for 8 years." :mrgreen:

[snayar]

What no love for the TI Avigo (http://www.ti.com/avigo/)?

It had it all over it's contemporaries from Palm. User upgradable memory, cool integrated flip cover, larger screen, soft input, T9, LANDSCAPE MODE! It was my first PDA ::sigh:: I loved that thing.

It had a fairly active developer community for a while but was just dominated by Palm's market presence.

I can't belive they still host a site for the TI Avigo!!! 8O

I still have mine somewhere in my closet!

You forgot to mention that it was also firmware upgradeable!!! :wink:

Nice device indeed, at least on it's time... :D

[whydidnt]

And just to make sure I or this article haven't left anyone out, number 11 is the OQO. :devilboy:

Wait until JLP reads this. You will be a marked man, Ed. :lol:

Seriously, I have an OQO on order, but I think only the good lord knows when it will actually ship. The return rate on these things is huge from what I'm hearing. Every time I call and ask, it's "next week". :roll:

To add to this - #12 ought to be the Cobalt OS from Palm. It's such a failure, it drove Palm to find a new OS!!!

[dh]

I only owned one of the ones listed: Rex
I used my Rex for a long time. I still think it was a clever device. Obviously not a real PDA but it was hlepful to have my contact database with me 100% of the time.

Do you remember there was a version that clipped to the Startac phone and let you dial calls from the Rex? The first Smartphone??

To add to this - #12 ought to be the Cobalt OS from Palm. It's such a failure, it drove Palm to find a new OS!!!
Yes, Palm have wasted a ton of time and money on this OS that might never see the light of day.

The new Palm/Linux could be a success though, something I might well buy, especially if there is a Treo version. Qtopia based Linux devices work very well, but it would be great to have access to all the Palm apps.

[Stephen Beesley]

This is a stange article. The author is mixing products such as Magic Cap which didn't do anything in the market with devices which were hampored by the technology at the time - Newton - but were useful devices which deserved better.

I know it is just one person's opinion, but I certainly find some pretty odd choices in the list.

Obviously I disagree that the Newton was a failure (after all it still has a very strong user/developer community nearly 10 years after it was canned by Apple) and the HP 200LX line may not have sold in the millions but it was certainly a very popular and successful item in the business world for quite some time.

Still I guess everybody is going to have different ideas of what is a success and what is not. Hey, maybe when people look back in 30 years time they will be saying that the Palm - despite its early dominance of the market - was ultimately an unsuccesful product... :devilboy:

[Jason Lee]

hehe my brother is still using my palm sized pc, the jornada 430se. I loved that thing.. it was soo cool! He's hooked and now wants a pocket pc. I still have my ce 1.0 handheld pc.... just have to dig around and find that Y2K patch for it if i ever want to use it.. :lol:

[Felix Torres]

This is a stange article. The author is mixing products such as Magic Cap which didn't do anything in the market with devices which were hampored by the technology at the time - Newton - but were useful devices which deserved better.

The biggest problem I see is that the author doesn't seem to understand the concept of a niche product and unfairly labels successful niche prodcts like the Rex and Hp LX series as failures; these were products that found a welcoming market, made money (albeit less than their producers hoped for) and were mourned when they were withdrawn. None of those things are traits of a failure (for real failures, look to stuff like the Apple III--100% component failure--or the Audrey--3com bought them back--or the Mac portable--a transportable monster in an age of battery-powered clamshells. Or look to products like the early tablet computers from 1990 or the Fujitsu poqet, all of which were good ideas ahead of their time.

The biggest example of this failure of the author lies in his unfair branding of the Newton as a failure; the Newton was (eventually) a success at what it set out to do (Doonesbury notwithstanding) and the only reason it was killed was that its success and the success of its emate derivative offended Steve Jobs.
The newton is no more a failure than the Rocket ebook, which is now in its third generation despite having been sold twice and given for dead three times.

A product doesn't need to take over the world to be a success--think of the first gen PocketPC--nor does massive early sales guarantee long-term success--Colecovision, anyone?

Very odd article indeed.

Anybody game for compiling a list of true failures?
Stuff that simply didn't work, was released too early, answered a question nobody needed answered, or was simply released at a singularly bad point in time? (Vaporware doesn't count, okay?)

As an obvious candidate, I nominate the first-gen HPC (but not the latter iterations, which were successful niche products aimed at a niche and thus still very much alive) for being released as a Psion killer just as Palm took off and sucked the whole market away from checkbook-sized computers. Which is to say, MS zigged just as the market zagged...
That is a clear failure.

Next?

[KimVette]

Magic Cap
Not unlike Microsoft's goal to use a rooms metaphor, Magic Cap used an office metaphor. All of the users items were arranged on a desk, in the form of desk accessories, documents and folders. Magic Cap was slow, was installed on very large devices (larger than the Newton), and was priced out of its league. A device that was meant to be a beginners PC was priced to appeal only to early adopters or experienced computer users.

A clone of Magic Desk from the Commodore 64 era? It was a miserable failure in 1982, and that retarded GUI idea did not improve with age.

The Newton Messagepad? Its character recognition was excellent - in fact everyone here who owns a PocketPC (I'm sorry, Windows Mobile, er, wait, what are they calling it now? :D) uses a direct descendant of the newton's character recognition engine. The Newton recognized my handwriting just fine, and my penmanship is HORRIBLE. To call my handwriting hen scratch would be an insult to chickens, and yet the Newton recognized it just fine! :D The failure is on the part of Apple, not the device - they killed off the Newton just as they got it right.

Right now I'd call HP the biggest failure in the PDA market. Here's why:

1. They explicitly advertised their PocketPCs as software-upgradable, then refused to ship upgrades
2. They bought Compaq and access to the best innovations in the PDA market (Biometric security, unlimited expansion potential through sleeves/sleds, 128MB platform) and quickly killed off all three industry-leading features
3. They killed off CIR in their flagship models - and bundle it with the crappy models no one wants
4. They shipped off all development, support, sales, and manufacturing overseas, firing tens of thousands in the process, and wonder why no one will buy from them now (guess what? They fired a good portion of their customer base, and pissed off millions of other Americans who will no longer buy anything associated with HP)

[Fishie]

They included CiR with the 2210/2215.
Not exactly a crap model no one wanted.

[Typhoon]

I thought that current low model HP Pocket PC would make the list.