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Handhelds Hardware

New Ultra-Mobile Smartphone Neonode N1 148

Posted by timothy from the smallness dept.
luigi writes "Swedish startup Neonode announced its Neonode N1 Smartphone. The touch screen phone runs Microsoft Windows CE.NET v4.1 with a custom user interface. The Neonode N1 includes a digital camera, MMS, eMail, mp3 player and games. The handset is only 52 x 88 x 21mm small and weighs 90 grams. It should be available on the market february 2003. I4U has hi-res images of the device."
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New Ultra-Mobile Smartphone Neonode N1 More

New Ultra-Mobile Smartphone Neonode N1

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  • This message was brought to you by the editors of Slashdot, who think the best way to keep their website running is by gradually and insidiously commercializing their content.
    • PR isn't always a bad thing. Would you have known about this phone if slashdot didn't tell you about it? Would you get to see all these "but it runs windoze, it suxors!" posts?

      Should we not discuss new products here?
  • MS actually found a cell phone provider willing to put thier os in a phone. Lets see how long they use it until they dump it like Nokia did.

    Didn't Nokia find it too unstable / restrictive?

    • Re:Wow. (Score:2, Informative)

      by haggar ( 72771 )
      Dump it like Nokia did? Nokia never used any of the Microsoft mobile software... I wonder why I am even explaining this: Nokia is a major force behind the Symbian initiative. None of the Nokia phones ever used any of the Microsoft software. Not only that: none of Nokia's terminals or wireless devices or routers (yep, Nokia now sells some interesting routers/firewalls, too) uses anything by Microsoft. They use Symbian, Linux or *BSD.
      • Hmm. must have been some other cell phone maker then. I read about some phone manufacturer that WAS going to use it and didn't. Anyone know who that was?
        • it was sendo, they claimed that microsoft didn't want to open enough their code nor did they provide good enough support. they are going to be using symbian now like most of the other mobile phone manufacturers (ericsson, nokia, siemens.....)

          • Re:Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by emir ( 111909 )
            forgot to mention that orange in uk & denmark and probably more countries where they exist have cell released under their name which is if i remember correctly manufactured by spv. it runs mobile phone version of microsoft pocket pc. during some tests in one newspapper it froze.... offcourse this is probably going to happen even in more advanced phones by ericsson, nokia and other big phone manufacturers as (usually)

            more advanced phone == more software == more bugs

            • more advanced phone == more software == more bugs

              Actually the equation is:

              more advanced phone == more software + poor choice of OS manufacturer == more bugs.
    • Sweden has worked hard to squander the technology lead they used to have in the 70's, 80's and even the early 90's. Press releases like this just rub salt in the wound. What's next? An ad for Bredbandbolaget or Framfab?

      Lets see how long they use it until they dump it like Nokia did.

      Not that long. In the late 1990's every Swede and his dog had a start up or two. The idea was rarely to get a product to market, but instead to float an image long enough to get bought out by a bigger fish.

  • Anyone know what sort of processing power this thing has? I checked all the sites besides the flash one, 'cause it doesn't work on my browser, and found nothing. With all that functionality, though, it would need a beefy CPU, no?

  • WHat?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:04PM (#4942460)
    It's hard to get details out of that silly flash site, but I did find this gem on the 'business' site;

    If you believe that 8-to-5 should be more than a black hole in your life, Neonode is the place where you should spend it. If you want to attack the average usual, kick it and stomp on it until it gives in and becomes something better, more useful, nicer and cooler than it was, then you are a friend of ours.

    What??

  • Screen size is still too small... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dagg ( 153577 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:04PM (#4942463) Journal
    Why do manufacturers think people want to run MS-Windows on a teeny-tiny screen? I think they'd be better off adding the cell-phone functionality to the Tablet-PC, then they are adding Microsoft-technology to a cell phone.
    • I agree, it is ridiculous. The screen is 220x176, the start button on windows XP is 99x32. That means about 10% of the screen is taken up by just [Start], I dread to think how much is left after you add the 'My Cellphone' icon, the clock, etc.
    • Since the vast majority of users use Windows, it's likely that they would feel more comfortable seeing a cell phone that uses an interface that they already comfortable with and used to.
    • Why do manufacturers think people want to run MS-Windows on a teeny-tiny screen?

      Where the hell did that come from? WHat do you mean? I didn't see any windows or a start button, or any other GUI element that you usaly find on a desktop PCs GUI.

      Horray I say, now you can have more than 2 words a line, and have it look much smoother. It's not like you sit far away from your cellphone or anything.

    • I have agree too, Palm decided to take their own route, hasn't harmed their profits!

  • Touchscreen Phones (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MeanMF ( 631837 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:06PM (#4942470) Homepage
    When will phone manufacturers learn that using a touchscreen to dial a phone is incredibly annoying?

  • Hrm nothing about real world battery life (Score:3, Informative)

    by silas_moeckel ( 234313 ) <silas.dsminc-corp@com> on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:06PM (#4942471) Homepage
    OK it's running WinCE.net 4. something can do all these fun things and hrm it's running windows CE it's tiny CE is still a pig so the proc must run this thing down in what a few hours of use. I'm sorry I'm waiting for something that I can talk on etc for at least a normal 9 hour work day before recharging and not under a tower. I have a Nextel now 180 minutes of talk time not to bad but if your in a bad spot for range for a long time 48 hours of batter life on standby turns to 10.

    • I have a Nokia 6310i and a Palm Tungsten. The Nokia and the palm are connected using Bluetooth so they behave as if they are one and the same.


      I need to charge the phone about once a week unless it is a very busy week. The Palm needs charging about once per week also but since I sync it more often than that it is hard to tell the exact battery life.


      I talk at least 1 hour/day on my phone and I am a light Palm user.


      I think that charging your Phone/PDA once or twice a week is OK and I would never go back to the bad old days when you had to charge your phone every night.

      /Thomas

  • Weird SMS conversation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Malfourmed ( 633699 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:06PM (#4942472) Homepage
    Has anyone noticed the SMS conversation here [i4u.com] (last picture)? It appears to go something like this:

    Hello. Are you going to school today? Mom

    NO! I am going to John's place

    OK. See you later :)

    Wish my mom was that understanding...

  • Copycat! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:08PM (#4942477)
    A Handspring Treo using Windows CE!
    • No, it's a Treo with a smaller screen, a digicam and much shorter battery life...

      If WinCE devices would run longer than half a day, it would be quite useful, but a phone that doesn't even run a day is pretty useless.

      • Qouth the forums:

        "Operating parameters:
        Operating up to 10 hours for games/mp3 (Radio in standby), Talk time 4 hours and standby time up to 250 hours. "

        Useful time on the Trio is about 6 hours.
        • Useful time on the Trio is about 6 hours.

          Yeah, if your watch runs really fast. I own a Treo 180, and don't get me wrong... I like it. But if you get more than two or three hours of talk time, you're not using a Treo. Standby time varies depending on signal strength, but I figure that I'd get about 40-50 hours if I didn't recharge it daily.

      • Sure, it's just like a Treo. Except for the operating system, the screen, the UI, the battery life, the MP3 player, the camera, the SD slot, the lack of a keyboard or flip cover... should I go on?

        It's as much like a Treo as a Porche is like a bicycle. By your logic anything handheld with both PDA and phone functions is a Treo clone.

        I own a Treo. It's a little early to tell, but my initial impression is that I'd much rather own one of these things.

  • Cell phones are great and all (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:10PM (#4942483) Journal
    It's great that they keep adding all these cool features to cell phones... But when are they going to start working as phones?

    Here is a typical cell phone conversation:

    (Ring, Ring)
    Hello. Hello? Can you hear me now? I said can you here me now? Hang on.

    Or maybe the service is just crapy where I live.

    • You forgot...

      "Hello? I'm on the train."

      Seriously though, signal strength where I live seems to be declining rather than improving. I blame the "mobile phone masts give cancer" idiots.

      Of course, anyone who understands the inverse square law realises that more masts = less max power (if the minimun signal strength required is constant, more masts means the maximum distance to the nearest mast decreases), but you try explaining that to the man/woman on the street...

    • (Ring, Ring)

      Hello. Hello? Can you hear me now? I said can you here me now? Hang on.

      maybe it's just time that even the american phone companies figured out that GSM is the way to go?

      i've travled around Europe for a long time (ch, it, fr, be, de, nl, uk, dk, se and no), and i don't think i've ever lost my connection once. now, with GPRS, it even gives you a decent data link (40 ~kbit/s).

      • it's not a technology issue, just wait until some moron tries to tell you that, in fact, CDMA is technically superior blah blah blah. I have gsm in the states, and the coverage is far worse than CDMA coverage. it's just a matter of antenna density and such, from what I understand
        • I have GSM in the States and I have better coverage than anyone I know - with the exception of corporate Nextel customers. For regular voice calls, I'd never leave T-Mobile (unless Nextel prices dropped by 50%).

          I realized a while back that things are radically different between regions. For example, I live in New Jersey, and SPRINT COVERAGE SUCKS. Yet I hear all these wonderful reports from the West Coast that Sprint has nearly flawless coverage.

          So don't jump to conclusions about a carrier's entire network based on your experience in what may be a limited area.

      • It's not really due to GSM, but more due to the state intervention taking place in Europe (which is a good thing in this case): a telecom operator only can get a GSM licence if they promise to give good coverage to all of the population (such as at least 95%). If they don't keep their promise, they get a large fine.

        This prevents operators to "only pick out the raisins", that is to only cover the most lucrative areas and forget about the rest.

        I don't even think the operators are unhappy with this obligation, since it provides a level playing field. Without obligation, noone would cover more rural areas since their competitors wouldn't either. With the obligation, they all have to loose some money to invest in not yet profitable regions, but at least everyone looses the same. After some time, the critical mass is reached even in those rural areas so everyone wins in the end.

        For me the telecom market shows that state intervention is not always bad, but sometimes it is necessary for the state to help/force companies to remove barriers that a totally unregulated market cannot overcome.
  • Let me check my list. I promised myself I wouldnt' buy any portable device until it was all the following in one.

    Cell-Phone
    Pager
    mp3 player
    digital camera
    PDA
    wireless networking enabled
    touch-lcd screen interface w/color

    Does it have wireless networking? If you look back I'm sure you can find the slashdot story where I asked for this and everyone said it would never happen. Sure it's got Windows on it, but who cares?

    I'm poor now though, but I'll definitely be buying the second generation of these things no matter what. Holy crap!
    • For a phone that beats this and will be available in the US in 60 days, check out the SonyEricsson P800 [sonyericsson.com]. A REAL cell phone, with REAL PDA functionality (including size-reduced HTML rendering cia Opera browser). Already tested and getting rave reviews, too.
  • Like an adult Gameboy, but with the excuse that it is also a phone and notepad. Great but does it have an IR or wireless port for head to head deathmatches during buget meetings.

    /nev/dull/ [hazardfactory.org]

    • It's like a gameboy advance on steroids. The GBA only runs at 16Mhz.

      I think the phone, pda and gaming appliances will merge sooner than most people think.

      The way things usually work out, we will all have Nintendo phones running "XP Wireless".

  • SonyEricsson P800 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thefinite ( 563510 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @10:25PM (#4942522)
    This is strikingly similar to the P800 [sonyericsson.com]. I am not sure how they compare spec for spec, but the P800 is Microsoft free!. (It uses Symbian instead.) I was holding out for the P800 until I was able to get the T68i [sonyericsson.com] on Amazon for $25 [amazon.com]. Comparing just the looks, the P800 wins. Plus, it has a pad to flip over the screen so you can both protect it and dial with real buttons.
    • Is Symbian OS Open Source?

      I have been behind on the mobile news lately.
    • I've played with one of these a bit, and I must say that the physical design needed a lot of work. The mounting for the stylus is nothing short of awful. Shaped roughly like a wooden coffee stirrer, it fits flush into the side of the device. To remove it, you push up on it with your thumb. Then, with it pinched precariously against the side of the device, you have to shift your grip to grab it. Since it's flat, this may be difficult for the less dexterous. To make things interesting, it's translucent blue, and nearly transparent. Should you drop it on the floor, you'll need a good bit of luck finding it again.
    • > I was holding out for the P800 until I was able to get the T68i on Amazon for $25

      How come we don't get deals like that in Canada? :-(

  • no bluetooth, no dice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @11:42PM (#4942657) Journal
    My next phone is either going to have bluetooth, or I'm not going to bother with a GPRS phone plan.

    I don't see the use of having internet service and not being able to browse using my laptop or pda via the cellphone. Why buy another GSM PC or CF card for every device I potentially would like to connect to the net?

    Like most people, I want a small cell phone. This is directly at odds with a screen of the size needed to surf the web reasonably. The phone's own screen would be great for proofing pics before sending and getting emergency directions I guess, but not for browsing.

  • The flash site is just so cool... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nathdot ( 465087 ) on Sunday December 22, 2002 @11:56PM (#4942695)
    ... it makes me wanna own one of these things, drink a new coke, drive a compact car-du-jour, and do all my clothes shopping at the gap.

    Of course, following this I may need to upgrade my friends with some fresh-faced young dance-party hipsters but, hey, clearly sacrifices have to be made.

    Shit, I wonder if they're going after a demographic?
  • Someone port Doom to one of these!

  • Great (Score:2, Funny)

    by Izanagi ( 466436 )
    Now when you encounter that annoying cell user they can have a photo reminder of where you had them shove their phone.

  • Unit conversions... (Score:4, Informative)

    by bedessen ( 411686 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @12:34AM (#4942787) Journal
    For all of us lazy US folks, the phone is approx 3.5" by 2" by about 13/16" thick, and weighs around 3.2oz (for reference, an alkaline AA battery weighs about 0.85oz, so this thing weighs less than four AA batteries, 3.75 or so.)

  • Pretty But... (Score:3, Informative)

    by IHateEverybody ( 75727 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @12:39AM (#4942800) Homepage Journal
    Infosync [infosync.no] has a pretty picture of this phone.

    The small size is very tempting but I'm afraid that this is a case where small is too small. There is no physical keyboard or keypad -- one or the other is necessary for a real phone. The phone is also running Windows CE with a proprietary shell which means that it won't run PocketPC applications. In fact, little or no third-party applications are likely to be available unless it becomes very popular. It's storage (16MB with an SD slot) and battery life are nice.

    I think I'll keep my Treo [handspring.com] for now. But the Kyocera 7135 [palminfocenter.com] is a very nice alternative with a more traditional form factor.

  • Phones require keypads (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @01:24AM (#4942911) Homepage Journal
    I thought a Treo would be cat's pajamas, but when
    I got it I realized that I was unconsciously
    depending on tactile feedback to dial in a suprising
    number of situations, driving, etc... I gave it
    away and got a P800 instead.

    Phones need keypads.

    What is this WinCE crap? The thought of BSODs
    on my phone does not amuse me.

  • I disagree about the need for a physical keyboard/keypad. I find those tiny keys clunky and aesthetically unappealing--in fact they're the main reason why I refuse to invest in a PDA. The touchscreen makes for a bigger screen, and an economy and purity of design. And it offers more possibilities as a software feature than it would by being tied down to a specific hardware configuration. I think we've reached a kind of milestone as far as miniaturization/integration are concerned. With a bit of luck Apple is concocting something similar to this for its updated version of the Ipod or Digital Lifestyle Device.
  • In the windows world, .net signifies having to DL 12MB+ runtimes, and slow interpreted code instead of compiled.

    so r they selling this device based on it using more of your ram for the OS and running slower than PPC2002?
  • They're small enough please work on one of the following:

    1) Increase durability - using the unit as a hockey puck with no worries would be nice. Waterproofing would be nice too.
    2) Increase battery life - I know this isn't directly under your control, but invest in some startup battery companies or something
    3) I really, really don't care for a camera, web browser, or even a color display. Just make it cheaper and watch as I buy myself and grandma one.

    • 1) Increase durability:

      Robust usually means, not using the flimsiest components anywhere, it assumes some over-engineering. This would lead again to not so small (and light) phones again. The current crop of robust phones (that are somewhat waterproof too) are about as big as the phones from 3 or 4 years ago.

      And then, durability is totally against the interest of any phone manufactuere, who want to sell as many phones as possible. The ideal woul dbe, that they phone survives just long enough until the next model comes out.

      2) Increase battery life.

      Part of the reduction in size and weight came from smaller batteries, that hold a shorter time. To be honest, I prefer my small phone that comfortably fits into a pocket, even if I have to recharge it every other day.

      3) Less gimmicks, make them cheaper

      I agree with you: Camera, mp-3 player, color display and stereo ring-tones are just useless gimmicks.

      But I don't see the need to make phones cheaper. If you sign up with any mobile phone operator here in Austria, you usually get a basic phone for 1 Euro. And if it doesn't have to be the latest model, on the second hand market phones are dirt cheap too.

      What lead here in Austria to a big mobile phone boom was the fact, that people calling a mobile pay a long distance, but for the owner of the phone getting called is always free. Add to that pre-paid card phones, without any monthly fees and we had here drowes of grannies and kids getting a phone, just in case when they needed it.

      The operators make their cash from the interconnect fees and the high rates for outgoing calls.
  • I don't know... a touch screen in my pocket, together with the car keys... It must be a tough touch screen to survive that!
  • I went to the company's website and searched as much as I could, and I
    could not find one lick of technical info. Their flash doesn't load up on
    Mozilla and when I used a winders box, the flash was very unpolished. If you
    go to the corp HTML part of the site they have a zip file with 3 press photos,
    Infosync posted one.

    The photos all have retouched screens and it's clear that the phone in the
    pictures is simply a mockup. The hole for the USB jack at the bottom is empty
    and there is no SD port on the side. Also, there is an interesting texture
    to the case, almost like it was hand made and painted.

    The major issues for me are no detailed specs and the fact that they list no
    pricing and the featureset is too unrealistic. If you go and actually look
    at all the phones with which they are comparing, they are all significantly
    larger. The reason is due to functionality. The spec they released for the
    battery was 1100mah, this is 50% more than the competing phones which are
    larger; how did they magically increase the power density? Why would Nokia
    settle for 750mah if these people can make a 1100mah battery?

    For a company that is supposed to release a major telephone product, they are
    conspicously unrefined on the website, lacking in details, and rather ambitious
    with specs. Hell, they said they were only making 1000 units! That is a
    paltry number of units when you take into account that an importer in the UK
    has 40,000 Nokia 7650 phones (comparable) sitting in stock ready to ship
    to somewhere else in the world!

    I smell vaporware and a BS job, they don't even have a press release on their
    website!
  • Nokia is the one of the few companies that have always had usable phones that never crash.

  • The specifications (Score:2, Informative)

    by Torbjörn ( 1956 )
    The hardware spec below was posted in Neonodes forum FAQ section. It has a 1100mAh battery that will get you 10h of MP3 time which sounds great but the talktime is only 4h. My fully charged T68 claims 11h talktime whit it's 700mAh battery so the radio part is probably not the most efficient in the word. A couple of other interesting flaws has come up in the forum. It has no vibrator function and apparently the touch screen is more like a glidepad, it has no per pixel sensitivity so handwriting recognition is probably out of the question.

    All in all it looks like an almost perfect phone that will be out in limited release in february (only about 1000 units!). After that the plan is that the phone will be marketed by the service providers since Neonode is a very small company (only 15 people) that don't have the resources themselves.

    We probably have not seen the real camera phones from the big manufaturers yet, just communicator models like the Nokia 7650 and SonyEricsson P800. I'm expecting something like the N1 from all of them. They at least has to compete with the Panasonic GD87 and similar.

    But I would be extatic if the little guy would suceed, it's allways fun with new competition to shake things up.

    GSM features:
    GSM dual band mode 900/1800 MHz or 900/1900 MHz (US). GPRS Class 10. SIM card can be accessed without removing the battery.

    Operating system:
    Windows CE.NET version 4.1 running our own shell called "neoshell". We do not use Pocket PC or Smartphone 2002. Pocket PC use a minimum 240x320 pixel resolution and Smartphone 2002 requires a numerical keypad.

    CPU:
    96 MHz ARM 7

    Display:
    2.2" TFT LCD with 262140 colors (18 bit mode), 65535 colors (16 bit mode), 70 Hz frame rate, 176 (H)x 220 (V) pixels, 96 kb video ram. Touch screen with 4 navigation keys + YES and NO (Power on/off) buttons.

    Memory:
    16 Mb SDRAM, 73 MHz, 64 MB SD-Card included in price. Avaliable today: 512 MB.

    Camera:
    Built in camera with 640 x 480 pixels and 16M colors. QQVGA(160x120)/QVGA(320x240) and VGA mode(640x480). Continous recording 160x120 pixels at 15 frames per second to SDCard.

    Audio:
    Built in 1W speaker (for ring tones, conference calls etc) and receiver and microphone (for GSM talk). Built in connector for a stereo headset and microphone.

    Audio Codec:
    48/44/22/11 or 8 Khz, sampling rate, 8 or 16 bit stereo or mono. Mixer for GSM audio(input and output) and internal audio stream(input and output).

    Communication:

    12 Mbit USB Host function capable of 100mA/5V output to low power devices such as mouses, keyboards, joysticks..

    12 Mbit USB Function communicating with PC or other Host simulating a serial port up to 12 MBit/sec (appears as a COM10 on PC). This port can also be used for Microsoft Acivesync 3.6.

    115k, 1,1M and 4 Mbit multi mode IRDA port (This port can be used for Microsoft Activesync 3.6)

    Remote Control Ir function for 36-44 KHz modulation mode simulating a TV Remote control up to 10 m.

    Battery: 1100 mAh, 3.7V. Charge-time 2.5 hrs

    Operating parameters:
    Operating up to 10 hours for games/mp3 (Radio in standby), Talk time 4 hours and standby time up to 250 hours.

    Size:
    88x52x21 Weight: 93 g

    Software:
    Camera, Mediaplayer, File Manager, Address book, notepad, SMS, MMS, WAP-Browser, E-mail, Internet Explorer

  • Am I the only one who thinks this looks a little suspicious? First of all, the perspective on the "photos" is different. For example, the three white buttons on the bottom of the screen are various sizes among the three photos. Secondly, there is a distinct drop shadow on the left hand side of the screen on the first one. Not to mention the cheesy depth of field blur.

    How about the red glow on the "metal" around the screen, even where there is no red? Also, the device looks like it has some underlighting in the first photo, and taking the other lighting angles into account this would have to be floating.

    Now let's move on to the obviously pasted in UI screens. Overlay some POV lines, and they clearly don't even fit into the angles of the device. I think the third one is the most blatant. Look on the right side of the screen. On the bottom of the device, the screen goes all the way to the edge, but closer to the top there is a noticeable gap.

    Now, the device is supposed to have a 220 pixel tall screen. The SMS text on the last one is about 1/3 of the total height. So, 6 lines of text (plus padding) leaves you roughly 7-8 pixels for each character. That doesn't look like a 7-8 pixel font.

    Not bad for 3DS Max. Isn't Wired still taking submissions for 2002 vaporware?

  • ...does that sound like a manga title or what? ;-)
  • Palm is dying on the PDA front as companys are convenced that Windows is better.
    But on the cell phone Palm is growing in popularity.
    This is a repeate of history.
    Pen tops come in Microsoft pushes out the Pen Windows os on a 'tablet pc' that is entirely too expensive and nowhere near what people wanted.
    It never makes it into the mass market.
    Of all the pentop failures PenWin was the biggest.

    Palm is successful in transforming the idea into todays pda and succesdfully captures the market.
    Microsoft eventually creates WinCe to have it trampled. But at lest they got it out.
    Still it takes years of stagnation of Palm and FUD from Microsoft plus an ecconomic down turn before users actually consider Pocket PCs. The drop in price was key to making this happen.
    And Linux PDAs are also making a hit.
    But the road to mass introduction is a long rough one.
    Palm smartly recognises Palm os must move to the cell phone to survive.
    Smart cell phones still need to be cheap. After all the hardware the computer needs to be less than $100. Palm os can go there Windows can not.
    Eventually Microsoft will offer a number of poor designed cell phone oses giving WinCellphones the image of 'expensive defective brick'. People will depict the 1980's brick cell phones as 2003 Win Cells even thow Win phones will be in the ounces vs the bricks pounds.
    Still all this makes Microsoft look trite to the manager who might not know enough to see WinNT defects but will recognise Win Cell defects and can see for himself that palm os is better.
    Then Microsoft will forge a high end market where they can sell cellphones. Thats when Linux enters the market and scoops it up. Evetually palm os will die or move into the next big thing. Moving on is the most likely.
    Then Linux will have a number of sereous compeditors who eventually push windows cell phoned off the market and punch a hole in Linux.
    Linux and Windows move on to the next big thing. Palm os (or someone else) dose it right. Linux will be off but not by much. Windows in the market will be a joke.
    Then comes the FUD... and the rebuttles from Slashdot, Business week and many other Tech or business related news entitys.
    Each new statement by Balmer becomes a mem like 'all your base' to laugh at.
    "Supper cell delux is the best thing we ever made" - Steve B
    'I belive it' - annon Biz week poster.
  • Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed
    from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds.
    -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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