CE beat Palm OS :(

Well let me take on heck of a guess Snappy, are you a gamer? Anyways, Microsoft? HAVE I GOT ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT MICROSOFT?!

"This post has been banned in the US and UK. If you would like to read this message, you will have to get through the authorities first."

-If, by any chance anyone has seen the homestarrunner animation with strongbad stating his thoughts about the British, they would understand this post a bit better.

Gosh .... you are psychic! Been gaming since Karateka and Rescue Raiders ...
Of cos if you include pong, that as well, though I frankly dun really look at pong with such fondness ... hehe

... ... but I've been off games for the past two years. Kinda personal thingie ... Afterall, I gave up my PC last year and notebook this year. Now am left with my (arriving) HPC MP790 ... talking about which, it might just arrive early, since my wifi card is arriving one day earlier than previously scheduled!

But to get (games) your hpc to its maximum potential, you need a pc to get the cab files on there. Though there is always the advantage of a friends computer...You got rid of you pc?!

Interesting thread - I'm new to the site, so pardon my dredging up a thread that's a couple weeks old.

I'm a pretty avid CE user - started with a 300LX, moved to a 360LX, then to a z50 (currently DOA, trying to fix it myself), and finally to an iPAQ 1945. At work, I replaced my desktop PC with a CE-based thin client (as a network admin, I was doing all my work on our terminal servers, anyway), and when my work laptop finally bites the dust (Thinkpad T23, showing its age), I'll probably put in for the new Clie, or NEC.

Anyway, my thoughts on the many issues being discussed in the thread:

First, I don't think it was competition with the desktop market, per se, that killed the HPC form factor, but the laptop/notebook PC market that did it.

Prior to the first CE devices, the HPC form factor had been pretty-well established, with the Psions, and HP's line of DOS-based palmtops. While they certainly had their followers, they were really in no danger of stealing away the laptop market.

While the first CE-based HPCs out the door weren't much better, they certainly pointed the way towards being able to compete full-on with the current laptops. I remember when three of us at the Radioshack I worked at had picked up CE devices: I had a 300LX, a coworker had a Casio A11, and another coworker had picked up a MobilePro 450. We'd all commented on how CE really didn't need a whole lot more to be able to replace low-end laptops.

What happened next? The same thing, really, you see today. The more powerful and flexible an HPC becomes, the more it becomes like a laptop, in terms of price, battery life, and size. At the same time, more conventional Windows-based laptops were getting smaller. The trend was there at the time with machines like Toshiba's Libretto line, and it's around today, too.

For example, a NEC MobilePro 900 or 900C, new, will cost you around $1000. That's actually more expensive than a lot of notebook PCs, and ultra-slim notebook PCs can be found for only $200-300 more. The same thing, in reverse, has put a damper on Tablet PC - they feel too much like oversized PDAs, and run quite a bit more.

These are all issues that are, really, OS independent. Try to put to much into your PDA/HPC device, and feature creep will pretty much guarantee your device will get bigger and begin to behave more like a laptop, and start to cost as much as one. Meanwhile, the smaller and lighter your laptop PC becomes, the more it starts to resemble your PDA, and price hasn't necessarily skyrocketed in the process.

As for integration of devices, I normally carry a 360LX, an iPAQ 1945, and a Nokia camera phone. When I travel for work, I also carry a notebook PC. People are trying to get more out of their PDA/SmartPhone, simply so they don't have to carry as much crap around.

I tend to think we're going to see an increasing move towards PDAs becoming more like SmartPhones, while ultra-portable notebook PCs begin to resemble our HPCs or high end PPCs more and more. It's a convergence that we've seen on and off for years now, when you think about it, that's been pretty OS-independent, as it's all based on what hardware at the time is capable of.

Lastly, on the OS note, I'd like to point out a little side note on Windows CE. Back when Windows ME first came out, Microsoft had intended ME to be the very last of x86/DOS legacy operating systems to hit the consumer market. Their goal, at the time, was to continue to push the NT kernel as the OS for the corporate/enterprise, and the new Windows kernel for the home market was supposed to become Windows CE. What prevented that? I'm not really sure, actually. Part of it, undoubtedly, has been the explosion in the hardware market - performance increased so much, and costs dropped so much, that it seemed kind of pointless - the NT kernel would work fine on the new hardware for consumers (ie. XP Home).

End result? CE started to seem increasingly irrelevant to Microsoft. In their thin client market, XP Embedded is starting to co-opt CE, while I'm pretty sure they expected Tablet PC to eventually take over for the high-powered PDAs. Seems to me Microsoft is betting on the SmartPhone market to take off in the US, like it is overseas, and is trying to move the CE platform in that direction.

There is an undeniable economy of scale that hangs at the core of the Handheld PC. Devices originally were not quite as inflated as they are today. In the time of the Consumer era H/PC device the manufacturing process was far more cost effective as volumes were higher. Holding both the interest of the specialist market to which such devices are now soley orientated and curcially for this site, the consumer / business market.
Throughbred notebook devices are in strong demand. With the hybridisation in the reversable tablet-notebook device it has had something of a spurt of growth. The change is once again - as you said - infringing on the realm of the PDA.

I do believe that there are a lot of people out there who hold Windows CE in too high a regard. Believing it to be a rival for what was the 9x kernel and of course now the NT kernel.
Once Microsoft got their footing in the market, after the successful release of 2, they had themselves a truly usable product. Thir choice of direction with CE was to make it a scalable, adpative operating system, diverging the ultimate consumer front that we see into a picture perfect happy family division. While Windows CE itself has since undergone a rapid, perhaps violent transformation into a the nearest thing Microsoft have to the linux style 'nuts and bolts' system.
This is what Windows CE truly is today. Not what we regard as a 'modern Handheld PC'.

It may surprise some people to know that what we deem a modern CE4.x or the new 5.x H/PC or T/PC device is in fact a prim and proper, develper targeted and bundled - example shell application.
The real vision with CE4 on a end user productivity device was to be along the lines of what bSquare achieved with their Power Handheld, which they partnered off to Vodaphone.
Windows Mobile was spawned on the same lines as bSquares efforts were. It has kept the consumer front end of the device alive. However crucially what PPC and WM have done is maintain the differentiation between what is a Companion device and what is a PC. People aren't confused by the device and don't tend to try and relate a PPC against the functionality of a PC.

Rembember. Microsoft never targeted the H/PC as a laptop replacement. This is something that has come about from a group of hard core users, and kudos to them, one and all for having that vision.
All original H/PC marketing from all OEM's, right up until after the HPC2000 hype faded was as a companion device.



I do remember once hearing somethign banded around with the idea. However if it was a firm internal idea it didn't last long. We were never informed on any change proposals, I would deem it highly unlikley.
What would have prevented it is simple. An x86 i386 application will not run on a x86 based CE device. All applications would have to be rewritten by all developers. Legacy would no longer work, you woul dhave to bin all your software.
Then there is the heavily restricted developer API, remember CE is a scaled down OS, not a full blown replacement for Windows.

Lastly it would not be in Microsoft's best interest. Throught the 9x run Microsoft were steadily trying to consolidate the NT and 9x runs. Through updates and reviews MFC and API libraries they succeeded in this. Look back to 95 and a CD supporting both 95 and NT would have had two builds on it.
Jump to 2000 at the end of the 9x run and the end of the NT4 run and applications at a high brow level are for the most part the same build.
If you want an Example look at MS Office or lead Anti-virus apps.

Microsoft supercharged the NT kernel with the release of 2000. It was late, undoubtedly they should have done the 'XP' merger at the 2000 release. Millennium should never have happened and all of the subsequent advances that Millennium carried (arguably) should have been in 2000.
They couldn't or didn't as they had to be sure that DOS was a memory. Microsoft still saw the hardware market as not affordable enough for the more demanding NT subset, and frankly. Placing a Millenified 2000 in front of a consumer would have scared most people. It took the 'fluff' of the new XP UI to give Microsoft the courage to make the plunge.
"Consumers will accept the lerning curve as a necesary for the pretty look, we'll use the updated UI to smooth it out. Technically apt users will have something else to pull apart, and corporations wont care so long as it works"

What was that about nuts and bolts? Perhaps you haven't checked out Slackware and the new kernel recently . SirThoreth, I sure hope that you meant Clio and not Clie, as the Clie was a pitiful, unsupported pda and Sony leaving the Palm OS field makes it worse. (Examining my soon-to-be-sold clie at the moment...)

Two things that really separates laptops from hpc's, 1. Peace. You can format the thing in 5 minutes and not even have to reinstall anything. Stuff works. Usually. The thing is awesome. And since no developers give a hoot about it anymore, and the average consumer does not know that it exists, no viruses! 2. The hpc is all in rom. Almost everything you need is already there. It's really great. I do not know of a laptop on the market that has not only such a great battery life while being as small and light, but one that can restart within 3 seconds also. And you can't open 50 apps on a pc without problems. While I have run 34 tabbed browsing windows and 2 other apps today, at the same time, with no problems or even lag.

I never thought of these devices as a direct competitor to laptops, but if consumers see these things now, it sure could be.

Nope. Looked at NetBSD for my z50, and Debian, which people have loaded on the 620LX - that bodes well for getting it to run on the 360LX.



I meant the Clio, yes. The Clie would work rather poorly as a notebook replacement & as a thin client for maintaining 14 servers.



All quite true. OTOH, resuming from suspend/hibernate under XP mitigates that to some degree, and the full OS is more powerful still.



And it could to some degree at the time, which helped contribute to the demise of the HPC platform - laptops are higher markup than PDAs.

A pda is a personal digital assistant. A laptop is a laptop.

And, yet, the market is expecting more and more out of devices like the PDA - full color, multimedia (in the form of mp3s and video), wireless web browsing, telecommunications, etc. Whether they initially drove the change or not, consumers are driving it now.

Those just looking for a PIM (Personal Information Manager) aren't dropping $250+ on a PDA. Instead, they're paying $100 for the entry-level Palm, or buying true PIMs for even less, or using the PIM features of the ubiquitous cell phone.

Perhaps you should go back and read my posts on page 1

Didn't need to. I remembered that you commented on the HPC/PDA/PIM difference before.

The thing is, though, is that you're clearly coming from the perspective that the HPC should be more full featured, and that the PDA should really be more of a PIM. What I'm saying, though, is that the market is looking for more features and more functionality out of whatever devices they're buying, which is pushing the trends we're seeing now.

Case in point: even those dirt cheap PIMs on the market now are not the same as the PIMs that were on the market 5 years ago - $30-50 Sharp organizers are looking more and more like the Win CE 2.0 PSPCs that first hit the market, in terms of features and functionality.

Obviousely you need to read the posts on page 1

You see, my perspective is that hpc's should not be more fully featured than they already are. I want laptops and hpc's to remain seperate, although in my personal use my Jornada 720 is used as a laptop, as it is my only means of mobile computing and I prefer its 3 second startup to a heavy laptop . As far as the cellphones, my cellphone was made before ringtones and has a nice 3-color organing lcd display. (I also have a mini pda that straps onto the back of it - it was made before you could hold contacts on cellphones)

If the hpc's and laptops merged, what fun would that be? I happen to like old outdated devices that are generally better than new ones. (Perhaps we should have a moment of silence for these: http://www.palmtoppaper.com/default.asp although they seem to be doing better than us) (please don't hurt me ) I prefer my old Mac SE's to Windows XP. And before I got my j720, I was planning to get an outdated 400mhz 9lb Toshiba. (Should I start using the metric system?)

My profile, my outdated site (text html oh yeah) and my earlier posts show how I like older technology more because there was a time when computer companies were actually making products that had never been made before, and would work more for the community (Velo 500 - please donate!). Technology, to me, has changed from pure functionality and state-of-the-art to screwing over the technology-doubling-every-18-months plan. (When they get 64bit and pci express mainstream, it will be a quadruple in a week)

Things are not the same, and it saddens me. For example, what ever happened to sites that had just text and maybe a few pictures? Now they are all scripted and many browsers can not read them properly. (No offense admins! -After all, this site compared to others scripted heavily works pretty well in a lot of outdated browsers...but text works better ) Ugh shall I repeat it again? Technology used to be beautiful. Now it turns our refrigerators into media players.

-By the way, I don't go with trends - I find them as adding stupidity to the human race.

Stuck in the early 90's

Andrew

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2005-01-01 5:51 PM

Come on! Our best thread! Opinions please!

Well ... I've officially retired my T3 (and now seeking new owners for its accessories ... *adverts*) ...

So I'm comfortably settled into my NEC MP790 ... yippee ... almost do not have to use my PC at all ... except for those times when friends send me an ecard and I just have to see it on the big screen or when some site just dun display on my PIE4.01!!!

oops ... sorry, got carried away ... so CE does beat Palm OS quite hands down ... at this moment at least ... peripherals and all is so easily and readily available with the open platform and multi-vendor approach for CE. PalmSource currently has only PalmOne, Sony (in Japan) and Zodiac (is this the company or model name?) as h/w pda vendor. Whereas CE has like HP/Compaq, Acer, NEC, .... too many to remember (actually I just do not know them all hahahaha )

So on the long run, I think Palm (PalmOne/Source) is really left alone on the stage with MS on the other end, backed by multiple partners. For once, no one can really say that MS is a closed platform, can we?

I don't think it ever was. Microsoft seems to always have been on a quest to take everything over.