The previous responses dealt with the very important topic of
compatibility - it's important to look at how the hand held devices will
need to interact with your existing software. But just to give you a
more general, developer point of view to your question:
Here's my take: you need to look from both a development side and a
user side. First the development side:
If you had been a Visual C++ programmer, I would say there would be less
of a curve going initially to the Pocket PC, bt more of a curve for the
rest of your life, as Microsoft would keep updating their high level
APIs which you would have to adapt to. As someone who has used Visual
Studio since 1994, I feel that Metrowerks' Codewarrior 7 (the "other
studio" which supports the palm) is significantly more advanced and
nicer to use, except that under windows it is less stable than Visual
Studio (you may need to relaunch it from time to time).
But since you are a Visual Basic programmer, both ways would have big
learning curves. Also, Palm has MUCH better developer support than MS,
and I've been a developer for many platforms.
Of course, for the simple stuff you're doing, high level design tools
will be fine. Palm even supports visual basic development for the
desktop side conduit.
That's the development side - as for the user side, there were two
reasons I choose Palm as an enterprise target - but that applies to MY
environment - yours may differ...
(1) I've dealt with picky employees that want somthing small and light
to carry around like a beeper, and they refer to the Pocket PC as "the
brick in my pocket". They demand Palm V/Vx's as a result. Your
employees may not care, especially if they aren't going to carry the
devices around.
(2) I'm ashamed of this, because it makes me no better than all the
people who supported MS in the first place, but it's always more
comfortable going where the most software is. There is so little
support or software at this time for the PocketPC, whereas on the Palm,
if you can think of it, someone's probably written it. In two years,
this may be a bit different, but currently, that IS Palm's strength -
it's where the hand held software is.
OK, I'm obviously a Palm developer in the Palm forum - why might someone
(a developer) choose a Pocket PC?
-> They have years of investment in Microsoft SDK code, and find it
easier to port to the PocketPC
-> They are very "high level" programmers, and they don't want to have
to think about whether or not they are writing code in an efficient way
- since the PocketPCs currently have more CPU power, they can write
inefficient code and get away with it.
-> They hope to be pioneers and cash in as the first software in the
PocketPC market, trying to get a loyal following from the early iPaq
users.
As a user, based on what you're doing, I can't see any solid difference
besides the form factor. Many users I know were disgusted with Pocket
PCs because software ran so slowly on them and they crashed a lot. But
for form entry I don't see that as a big deal.
Pick up an iPaq - you decide. I personally tried out an iPaq and
couldn't even get it to recognize my handwriting! I spent hours trying
to write some test words.
Hope this was some help.
- Jeff
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