Insults Fly When Palm and Pocket PC Go Head to Head
Representatives from the Palm and Pocket PC (PPC) camps held a debate at Comdex yesterday to compare and contrast their respective operating systems. It started out friendly with Phil Holden, the director for mobile devices at Microsoft, complementing Palm for their pioneer work in the field. But then things turned ugly. Holden urged to PPC users to show off their high-definition color screens and "make these people jealous". Michael Mace, Chief Competition Officer for Palm, then pointed out how much smaller Palm devices are by holding up an iPaq and a Clié and saying, "One you can put in your pocket, the other you can put in your pocket and it will pull down your pants".
Ted Clark, a Compaq representative, said, "It's too bad he didn't turn on that 'klee'. If you saw the screen on that 'klee', you would rather use a Pocket PC even with your pants down," deliberately mispronouncing the name of the Sony device as he made fun of its black-and-white screen.
The PPC side pointed out several times that their devices have bigger screens with more pixels for a clearer picture. Joe Sipher, vice president for product marketing at Handspring, said, "Yeah, you have more pixels than we do. Congratulations. But there's a tradeoff when you have pixels. The screens cost more... and you have to pay for those pixels in terms of battery life."
Sipher also criticized how the Pocket PC tries to pack in too many functions, making the device heavier and more expensive. Pocket PC's Holden quickly countered that the Visor approach proves just as expensive by the time a user buys a few modules. "You can argue that we're putting in the kitchen sink, but our research shows that Handsping users buy two or three modules. That would prove that people want to do a lot of different things on the device."
Holden also said that Microsoft's experience working with large companies will give it an advantage in the future, as the battle for corporate customers begins. Palm pointed out that it has far more developers and applications.
In the end, both sides held strongly to their oft-stated positions. Palm supporters pushed simplicity and expandability while the Microsoft camp argued that it makes sense to build in support for features such as e-mail attachments, full Web surfing, and MP3 players.
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President?
For each his own...
Anyway, even though CE uses higher definition screens, I like Handspring's color screen better. It is my preference. Not to mention the fact that there is no Mac support for CE devices. I don't know why people always try to objectify a subjective experience. Maybe they just cant handle freedom.
RE: For each his own...
These are devices used to carry information and entertainment, not life and death philosophies.
People need to relax a bit and allow others to make their own choices.
there's a reason for the MS name
NEITHER of them "get it"
As powerful as the PocketPC is, it's all about LIMITING our choices. Mac user? Sorry. Linux user? Sorry. Eudora user? Sorry. And the list goes on. They don't want people to make their own choices on what software to use, on the PPC OR the desktop. They want it to all be THEIR software, not to mention Operating system (therfore their hardware). And to top it off, they STILL can't get it all to work together properly.
But I digress...
Instead of having these idiots (Palm execs included) getting up in front of a decidedly pro-MS crowd to tout their wares, they should be spending more time at the drawing board.
MS needs to take it's thumb out of it's ass and accpe the fact that OTHER OSes and handheld devices EXIST, and WILL EXIST (and be more popular, hehe ;-) for a long time to come, and build in some freaking communication support for other devices, instead of forcing people to install expensive applications that still only half do the job. Imagine a world where devices would be chosen based on their own merits and the needs of the user, and NOT simply because your friends or coworkers have one or the other.
Palm needs to realize that it's hitting the brick wall of it's own simplicity. They need to step out of their box for a few minutes, and realize that it IS possible to expand hardware and software functionality AND maintain backward compatibility with other hardware and software. I would love to have the hardware of an iPAQ with the simplicity and versatility of the PalmOS.
My point is, all this "debate" showed us is that neither side really understands things. All they want to do is "WIN WIN WIN!"
Go Palm. Feh.
RE: NEITHER of them
choices. In particular, I would like to be able to
use any desktop OS I like, choose the applications I
like on my device, and also have maximum freedom to
choose my next device.
With Palm OS there is serious competetion on the
applications, where different applications are
evaluated rigorously (see e.g. palmgear.com).
This increases competetion and quality. In addition,
my next device could be a device from at least 4
different vendors.
What I am missing a bit in the discussion is the
Epoc OS. It is only used right now, I believe, on these PSION devices and on some mobile phones, and they
don't have such a large market share now. But this could change with the introduction of new mobile phones
with organizing capabilities (e.g. Ericsson R380).
Wouldn't it also be a strategic move by Symbian to
port EPOC to Palm devices and to port Palm to
PSION devices. Then we really get some more competetion and we all know competition is good for
us - the customer. Couldn't Palm OS be ported to
a Pocket PC device? Then perhaps I will buy one!
Let's separate the hardware and the OS!
Strap a PPC to your @~&
The bottom line is that people who want a very effective, portable, expandable, affordable tool w/choose a Palm/Visor. If you want a toy that is basically a shrunken, bastard computer, a PPC is for you.
BTW, as far as the arguments that a PPC can do more, remember what they say about guys w/ big, expensive cars.....
Move On!
RE: Move On!
RE: Move On!
of PocketLinux (www.pocketlinux.com) on iPaq, and it looked interesting. Apps are Java+XML,
running on Linux 2.2 kernel. There were the usual apps like calendar etc. plus Mp3 player and
Mpeg2 video player. The best thing is, that after flashing the iPaq there is one WinCE less in
the world!
Palm for me
[ No Subject ]
400 lb gorilla
OS Still Ahead of the Game
RE: OS Still Ahead of the Game
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