Handspring Delays Treo, Plans To Drop Organizer Line 293
backlonthethird writes: "http://www.palminfocenter.com has the scoop on Handspring's triple announcements yesterday. CEO Donna Dubinsky says they're dropping "Organizers," (i.e. visors?), and most of their new Treos are going to Europe because of a parts shortage. At least their losses this past quarter aren't as bad as people were expecting--they claim profitability by this Summer. What the heck is going on over there?"
Has anyone used the TREO? (Score:3, Interesting)
Europe is a great market to move this to as folks appreciate the gadgets more than Americans do. Then again, maybe they like the design.
I have no idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
But some poster mentioned that the PDA market is collapsing, or the PocketPC is eating everyone's lunch.
Well I do not know. Here is what I do know. Companies are not allowing things like Blackberries anymore (PDA inclusive). I have owned about 5 PDA's in different form factors and the result is that I use none of them.
So I kept thinking why this is the case? The answer is that I have several notebooks and I find the problem with PDA's is that there is simply not enough space. I get quite a bit of email and documents. A PDA just sucks. However, notebooks have become small, work everywhere, etc, etc.
So I think the black knight is the notebook market.
Palm OS is better suited to phones anyway. (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, I've got a Samsung Palm OS phone right now and it's a truly wonderful hybrid device - perfect for my needs. I can't wait to see what these new Treo phones bring to the table, especially the color model (should Handspring hang around long enough to deliver it).
Re:What the heck is going on: (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, but Palm is most definitely not the choice of the tech savvy user. Its very limited hardware and OS are both way behind the times and Microsoft is increasing the gap more by the day. Here's a very accurate description of why Palm is in such trouble: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-201-8480246-0.htm l [cnet.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Burned Springboard Developers (Score:5, Interesting)
The quote was that the will be exiting the PDA market "but not today". That doesn't provide any kind of reassurance to any of the Springboard deleopers who have invested a great amount of time and effort into what is now a dead product line.
Yes, all product lines are finite. But you usually don't have the manufacturer announcing this fact prematurely. I don't see any reason for someone to buy a Visor or a Springboard module now that they know that the support will not be there sometime in the near future.
It sounds like Handspring is turning into a fancy cellphone company. I don't think that they will survive this move. The Visor and Springboard are a good product and would have carried them far into the future (just look at Palm).
Brian Lane
Lead Programmer
Shine Micro [shinemicro.com]
Maker of the SM2496 DSP module
Re:PocketPC (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Palm is making their move to the Strongarm processor, and BeOS was touted for having a great interface, cool filesystem, etc (and not having used BeOS before their demise, I can't comment on how good or bad it is), but it should be possible to imagine a Palm system which actually does some cool multimedia, and with the Metadata part of the filesystem, can make things like document editing/mp3 playing, etc a snap for developers and users.
Remember - Palm did well first because it takes one button to get to whatever you want. If they can use the BeOS pieces to their advantage with the more powerful processors (without sacrificing battery power), the game might still be an interesting one to watch.
I love competition.
Re:What the heck is going on: (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it amusing that you think that the OS with 80% marketshare is getting 'killed'. Right.
None of that "unfair bundling" crap to complain about.
No, I'll just complain about Microsoft using existing monopolies to create a new one in the PDA OS sector (which is illegal). Microsoft is leveraging Windows by virtue of developer lockin, and is leveraging Office by virtue of proprietary file formats ("view Word and Excel e-mail attachments right on your iPaq!"). I hope Microsoft gets slammed for it.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Why the early announcement? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PocketPC (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll just add something here.
I spose the depends on how you persive perfectly adequate.
My Vx is perfectly adequate, compared to the newer Palms or PocketPCs. But if Palm did something usefull like dump the graffiti area, use a higher res screen, made it even thinner than the Vx, bumped up the RAM, and fixed up some annoying thigs in PalmOS, I would no longer see the Vx as adequate. But have they? No. What am I missing today?
Re:PocketPC (Score:2, Interesting)
I won't argue which is better, Palm or Pocket PC, because I think they're both useful, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. But you're spreading FUD about Pocket PC, as most of your comments just aren't true.
Jenova_Six
Re:Makes sense. (Score:4, Interesting)
So, mostly they don't bother - they sell all their interesting models everywhere else, and sell a few models in the US that are most easily re-engineered to work here.
My friends at Nokia tell me the phones we have here are 2 or 3 years behind Europe.
Re:In the world of PDAs size is king (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, full circle - This is why I think that Handspring is smart by betting the farm on the Treo. I'm with you - I want my PDA to be small and extremely portable, just like my mobile phone. From what I've read and seen (and from what Handspring claims) the Treo is the smallest of all the Palm devices so far (smaller than a deck of cards) and it's a phone which means I can kill two birds with one credit card purchase. I think a lot of people will be just like me.
This is definitely the area where the PocketPC is going to have trouble following the PalmOS - to this small of a form factor and functionality, which I would venture is much more important than Color/Memory/MP3, etc. "Stinger" cuts too much out of the OS to be a PDA on a phone, I think. But that doesn't matter - it's considered a different platform anyways. I can't write a PocketPC/Stinger application that will work effortlessly like I can write a PalmOS app right now that will still work on the Treo.
The question in my mind is what's going to happen with PalmOS 5.0? Suddenly, the PalmOS is as power hungry as the PocketPC. Will there be a PalmOS 5.0 based Treo? It's a good question. Does this mean that PDAs will all progress to 32 bits, but "Communicators" will be stuck in 16 bit for the time being? Maybe not since there's Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola and the rest of the Symbian group to think about. The Symbian OS is 32 bits and runs on their phones. But when will their "Smartphones" move up to be more like PDAs? (Not counting the Nokia 9210 which is more PDA than mobile phone). And when are we going to see the first Linux based PDA/Phone?
-Russ
Re:PDAs are still more of a Geek Badge of Honor (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd have to disagree with this one.
I'm a high school student now in my second year, and got a Palm at the beginning of my freshman year. Originally, I had a m100, now I've got a m105. Many of my friend's parents (mostly lawers, and a few businessmen) all have Palms. I personally use mine with the Palm Keyboard to take notes, etc. in school. To date, I've never gotten more than a light-hearted "geek" comment from anyone (and when I do, it's usually friends bugging me). The important part of functionality isn't what you can use, it's what you do use. In this respect, a Palm is as useful as a iPaq or other WinCE machine for most users. I take typed notes,I have a spell check and email program, and I have loaded games, like the complete original Sim City. If the iPaq were the same price, as my m105, would I have bought an iPaq? In all honesty, probably. The color screen, ability to play MP3's and connect to broadband (with an adapter), as well as more expandability than my older m105 are all attractive features, in my mind, set off only by the minor annoyances of a Microsoft logo here and there (in all honesty, having used a Windows CE 1.0 machine for 3 years, WinCE's as stable as Palm), as well as lower (but still long enough for a day's use) battery life, are just too attractive to pass up. But would I use the extra features? Not often. My computing experience, in terms of the output that I sync to print out, and in terms of the things I can do in on my device, would be almost exactly the same. The prices aren't the same, and as long as people think of a PDA as an accessory and not a full PC, price will remain a (if not the) key selling point to the masses. Tim