On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 10:21:34AM -0700, Michael S. Davis wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Tom Zerucha wrote:
>
> > When you compare the two technologically, they must be pushing it to
> > sell them at $500, while Palm has various devices starting at 1/3 the
> > price.
>
> You cannot compare a $500 PocketPC with a 1/3 price b/w machine.
Yes I can. If I am using them to take notes, manage contacts,
etc. the substance may be silicon, but the effect is still one of
gold-plating. And profit margins do matter. The market is bigger at
$250 than at $500, and how much profit could palm make with the IIIc
at $250 v.s. how much loss the PocketPC at $250? All those extra
pixels and memory chips add to the cost.
> > Remembering back to the late '80s, the Amiga was more advance than the
> > Atari, which was arguably better than the Mac, and all used the 68000
> > chip which blew away the silly 286 on the IBM PC.
>
> > Which chip won?
>
> Again, you are making a flase comparrison. The IBM chipset did not win
> because of the processor. It won because of compainies like
> MicroSoft. And consider who developed the PocketPC OS (MicroSoft).
Exactly. Microsoft was more open back then, promoting lots of
developers and lots of products for all the x86 machines out there.
There was no hardware, but they were content to make a little on each
OS.
(Curiously, Palm already has a huge proportion of the market, and is
integrating the browser as part of the OS...).
> Everyone is making a serious mistake if the discount MicroSoft and the
> PocketPC.
They shouldn't discount either. But that doesn't make them a viable
platform.
> I don't care what you say or think but users are demanding Color and
> Sound. Sooner or later the prices of these PocketPCs will drop to where
> they are easily affordable to all. At $150 Palm is already at rock
> bottom pricing. The PocketPC is at $500 and will drop.
Guffaw!!! The $150 palm is hardly at rock bottom. You can get some
idea of the chips and prices and I assume you can use pocket excel.
By the time the PocketPC is at $300, Palms (m100 level) will be given
away as premiums. Any technological advance making the Pocket PCs
reasonable will make Palms dirt cheap. Then competition will be on
the price of the OS license. If MicroSoft wants to lose money...
[Don't discount this. When hardware is $20, and an OS license is $30,
it makes a huge difference - so how do you build a $250 unit if the
hardware costs $225 and you have to pay $30 to Microsoft? - Eric
Raymond mentioned in his MacHack keynote - as to why there isn't any
$350 or below platform that runs a Microsoft OS]
They aren't demanding color and sound as much as they are asking for
multimedia. The Pocket PC isn't killing the MP3 player market, and I
can't play DVDs or any other hard media in a pocket PC.
And as I pointed out, Palm could do this by adding incremental
hardware - a dsp - just like they added color. And Palm has the
margins to do that and more.
> Palm developers (read PDA developers) are starting to realize that there
> is a market waiting to be tapped and beginning to develope apps for
> WinCE also (not instead of). It's just another market. That being the
> case, more and more applications will start to appear.
There are a lot of programs for Apple Macintoshes too. But you can't
easily do both a Win and Mac app. And most people code for where the
market is. And a CE app is still a windows app.
And I've heard the "If Microsoft builds it they will come" before, at
each prior CE revision. Maybe this time, but they are the ones who
will have to catch up to Palm.
But as you say, it is another market. Not the same market. There may
be some overlap which I expect Microsoft will try to leverage. But
bloatware and portability don't go together. I don't know the current
statistics but a while ago most 8Mb palms were 95% empty. That is
still a lot of room to fill.
Conversely, Palm apps are appearing "going the other way".
> If palm does not realize this, they are doomed the fate of Atari.
Atari? Not Apple?
And Palm realizes this. I don't know exactly what their plans are,
but their users and developers seem to be as loyal and evangelistic as
Apple.
Microsoft has too much "Were the only game in town" mentality. I'd be
suprised if they can create enough good will. I don't see Philips
reversing and doing a NeoNino. Maybe they will. But what about the
developers and users who were burned by the CE Completely Empty
promises about viability for the first revisions?
Underestimating them would be a bad idea. Overestimating them and
trying to play on their field would be worse. And I don't see Palm
doing either.
Microsoft can keep CE alive by infusing cash into it indefinitely.
But that is and will not be a victory.
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