cmonex - 2005-10-22 3:01 AM
clintonf3 - 2005-10-22 3:13 AM
The key word in your post is "basic".
I can see your point but I don't agree with you on it. Most people who use the "basic" office applications on their devices - P/PC
or H/PC - end up either really pissed off in a short period of time or end up buying something
(or both
).
I say just save the ROM space
(especially in Windows Mobile 5 devices where that is now golden territory
) and built a better mousetrap.
ok then i'm the exception.
i'm happy with hpc pocketword. works 90% of the time for me. i think that's decent from a 5 year old "pocket" application.
of course i don't expect it to always work and then textmaker or a ce.net viewer helps me out.
and really you can end up with a situation where you have only the device itself. i don't want to go palm's way where you can't have a built in office!
(or has it changed since then and docs to go is preinstalled in ROM?
)
of course, if i had to decide between a built-in pocket office and the separate full fledged mobile office, i would need to choose the later.
Isn't the fact of the matter that the Handheld PC is already at this point? OK, so the Core devices come with WordPad - which is sometimes renamed Pocket Word
(to Platform Builder it is Wordpad
), but aside from that, the device is handicapped to its Operating System, with no suite currently existing for the form factor.
Based on it being a core device, there is nothing to say OEM's have to even put Wordpad on it in the first place - and then you're at the point where we are with Palm OS and the old Palm-Size PC ideal.
Having a fully fledged Office release from Microsoft could revitalise the form factor - the thin client paradigm could shift further into the office space... but only if the price is right. £600 is plain too much on the desktop, but in a market where you can pick up a low end
(new
) WM device for sub £150 and a core device for sub £500, the numbers plain do not add up.
msafi - 2005-10-22 11:19 AM
i totally agree with the editorial. i also have used TextMaker on my Jornada 720 and it was a pleasure, especially being able to save formats and such.
the editorial makes perfect sense for Handheld PCs.
however, extensive text editing is really not the PocketPCs' specialty. i know some people probably still want to do it, but c'mon, there are only a handful of VGA PPCs. most are QVGA. do you really wanna do extensive text editing on a QVGA screen? i don't know...
regarding, cmonex and clintonf point of views. Can't companies create customizable ROMs?
like, before you run your handheld device for the first time, you insert the ROM dvd into the desktop/laptop, customize the ROM through a user-friendly program, then flash it into the handheld device? can't that be done? I’m not a technical person, but if the technology is not flexible enough to do that, they better invent something else!!
that way everything in the ROM would be optional and we wouldn't have to argue what should be in the ROM vs what shouldn't.
This is what I was thinking when I first read Clint's editorial, however this would not be feasible. You would be empowering end users with the ability to create ROM images - something that is the realm of the Platform Builder, and for WM devices, isn't even in the consumer space. Creating your own ROM image is a Linux dream almost, not something I could see Microsoft going in for. The entire point of a platform release is 'One size fits all - and what you bolt on top of it is down to you'. Microsoft would need a very fierce change in direction for it to happen.
If you could customise your own ROM, there is the beginners problem of removing required dependencies, plain not understanding what they are doing and the insurmountable support costs that would be connected to the flash process. Forget Microsoft, the OEM's simply wouldn't have it!
Having given it a little though I came to the conclusion that there may be a better approach. WM5 device have in Place-ROM patching capabilities. The idea being in this security centric world of ours, that MS can issue patches through the OEM, and these patches will be permanently applied. The OEM then has the freedom to issue their own perma-firmware to devices
(particularly useful for cell phone editions
).
If Microsoft continued to ship Office Mobile Basic Edition with devices, and offered Office Movile Standard / Professional Editions as a sideline. They could have the Office Installer swap out the Basic edition from ROM, and in its footprint place library resource files which would enhance loading, performance and system plug-in’
(new today bits, registry and file associations, PIE ActiveX etc etc
).
If you then hard reset your device, the OS level office bits are still able to talk to the system, alert you to the fact that the main file repository is unavailable and wait for an restoration upgrade. In the case of Outlook, one would hope it still able to connect to and make use of PIM functions irrespective of the installation state.
Anyway, that outlines my thinking here.
The cost of it is the largest consideration, as is the future proofing. Microsoft seems ever ready to aim for a new Platform release every 12-18 months. If they wish to charge using a desktop level pricing structure - or what is seen as a pricing comparatively exuberant, then it will never pay off.
The high price of HPCs is one reason they failed. 
). 
