WiFi: PDAs Dirty Little Secret

wtf is with everyones gripe about stereo? It adds LITTLE to music on the whole. GET over it all ready :)

To quote many IBMers, "I disconcur."

I think "Microsoft will kill Palm in two years." has been going on for at least six years. From your post, I can tell you are new to PalmOS devices and have bought into that mindset of Microsoft is actually competent in the PDA space like they are with PCs. The sad fact is Microsoft's Mobile Systems division (or whatever it is called this year) is the red-headed stepchild of their corporate culture and thus the best people don't work there.

Spend some time on the Microsoft Redmond campus and you will actually see Microsoft employees using PalmOS devices they paid for over Pocket PCs they can get for almost nothing. Once you get over your "desktop mindset" you will see how much of a folly most of the Pocket PC is -- epically the big mistake of emulating a flat file system on internal PDA memory.

Donna Dubinsky said it best. "PC companies going into PDAs is like seeing a professional basketball team play golf." In summary, it is not their game. No matter how Gartner cooks their market "research", the PalmOS is going to stay on top for a long time.

It is an interesting mindset change but you will adjust well I'm sure.

Drw, are you talking about the same Micro$oft that started giving away Internet Explorer to destroy Netscape's market?

If you sell your lemonade for less than it costs to make, eventually you have no money to buy lemons.

Unless you're sitting atop of a HEFTY heap of (blood-stained) cash. In that case, you just have to wait for the competitors to surrender. :P

And so, how bad they must be doing it to still be behind Palm*. Now, if only Billy got (finally!) ashamed to death... :>

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epically the big mistake of emulating a flat file system on internal PDA memory.

RhinoSteve: would you explain that?
(why "epically"? how do you mean "emulate"? it ISN'T a FLAT file system, is it? ...and, do you have any reason to think it is a mistake???)

The problem with the "Microsoft can lose money forever" argument is that in point of fact, they can't.

Very clever. The problem is, who said "Microsoft can lose money forever"?

Did they "lose money forever" with the Netscape affair?

Furthermore, after the Netscape affair, do you think M$ investors will resent if Billy repeats the move? ('cause, you know, Netscape simply is no more... so looks like the technique worked)

And, anyway, I don't think they ever got into the red. :P

Whether M$ kills Palm or not has little to do with reality. It has everything to do with perception.

I stood in one of the large retail chains recently drooling over the T3, playing with a few other Palms. New buyer comes in, asks me a few questions. I give as honest answers as I know how to the PPC vs. Palm questoins. Salesperson butts in and does nothing but tell the buyer how much better the PPC is because it is Windows and all the programs will synchronize better. Says Palm doesn't handle M$ Office files as well, blah, blah, blah.

It was very clear from what he was saying that he had no idea what a Palm OS machine is capable of doing. But that matters little to the ignorant consumer, who will promptly make a purchase decision based on fallacy and then go out and propogate those fallacies to who knows how many of his friends.

Perception is everything. So if M$ is willing to lose millions of dollars to assure that people perceive their product to be superior, they do have a good shot at winning. I certainly hope they don't, but history shows they are quite good at playing this game.

I am not a troll. My purchase history has been Palm IIIe, Kyocera 6035, Treo 300, Tungsten C. Have two requirements of a pda: it must be wearable and have a decent thumbpad. I try all the pda's at the counter just like everyone else, and view the big sony clamshells to be too big to comfortably wear for 8 hours. And the spacing on the thumbpad has to be right like the treo 180/270/300 and tungsten C/W had the spacing right. The treo 600 has the keys too close and the ux clie has them farther apart than they need to be. But these are just my opinions.

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David

The Bluetooth and WiFi argument has to be different for everyone. It really comes down to what is available as a connection to the world you wish your handheld to connect to. For me, I have 802.11 available connections to networks and the internet for free at work, at home, and all around town so that makes most sense for my world. The expense of connecting to the internet via bluetooth to my Sony/Ericsson ATT phone costs way too much per meg of data transfered. But to someone else who doesn't have 802.11 everywhere and less expensive cell/data connection they can argue that is the only way to go.

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My wife has to sell a lot of candles (www.ccandles.com) to buy her new Palm.

Too bad Rogers in Canada doesn't allow you to use your own ISP to dial in with a bluetooth connection .... when using GPRS you have to use rogers.com as your ISP .... this sucks but then again so does Rogers

Well, I guess we can Sony out of the wireless comparison...at least int he US. Pretty shocking news!