This thread has become so long, I guess it won't hurt if I add my 0.02 EUR.
Palm vs Microsoft
It has been predicted for several years now that MS would take over the
handheld market "in the near future". Still, Palm OS devices have by far the
largest market share, and while the number of Pocket PC manufacturers is
diminishing, announcements of new Palm OS licensees are coming out every
month.
Still, I believe the Palm future is far from cloudless.
Business vs Consumer
Palm has tried to penetrate the business market for years, with very limited
success. They are very popular among consumers but business applications are
scarce. It's true that business users might not care as much about color as
consumers, but what they definitely need is more screen real-estate. You
can't display any non-trivial business applications on 160x160 pixels (I'd
love to see counter examples with good usability). Palm seems to have
ignored this fact for almost four years now. It's sad that it would need a
small company like HandEra to come up with the first innovative approach to
these limitations.
Ease of programming
The Windows API might be complex, but there are millions of programmers,
sophisticated frameworks and tools. The Palm OS API is still relatively
compact, but this also means there's little support for anything
non-trivial. Even routine tasks like using tables or implementing Find
require complex coding by the application programmer. Of course, ease of
programming is in the eye of the beholder, but tell me one single developer
who likes to think about 32 KB code boundaries or 64 KB record limits. Palm
OS development tools are developing :-), but they are still years away from
the state-of-the-art. Constructor has severe shortcomings and a remarkably
non-intuitive user interface. The CW user interface has improved, but it
doesn't implement context sensitive F1-help.
Hardware incompatiblity
The other day I met a long-term Palm evangelist who had just switched to an
iPaq and was very happy with it. Why? Because he had purchased a complete
travel solution, with GPS receiver and cell phone connection for real-time
updates of traffic data. Travel directions is an area where you absolutely
need a large color screen. He might have been able to find a similiar
solution with a 505, but since Palm has changed the connector once again in
their latest models, there's almost no hardware available yet. While
software compatibility is admittedly quite good, the continuous change of
hardware specs seems to contradict this effort. As a consequence, hardware
upgrades, i.e. selling into the existing huge customer base, is hindered by
rendering all previous accessories (even styli!) unusable. Ironically, the
new connector is termed "universal" while "unique" might have been more
appropriate. Again, HandEra has done it right, using the established Palm
III connector, and supporting both the CF industry standard and the less
popular MM/SD cards.
Let's hope that the upcoming reorganization of Palm Inc will address all
these issues. If they do, I have no doubt the Palm OS platform will continue
to dominate the handheld market for the next years.
Best regards,
Andreas Linke
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