Tuesday, February 6, 2001
Winds of Change: The PDA Upgrade Cycle
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 08:42 PM
Steve Bush has a short column on the issue of PDA obsolescence, and while he doesn't actually come out and tell you what he thinks in the column, you get a hunch where he's going: consumers are getting hurt by the constant upgrade cycles in the PDA world.
Here's my take on it: PDA's are still largely a nascent industry, with few clear standards for consumers to rely on, and the rate of evolution is staggering because everyone wants smaller and faster, and they want it NOW. The Internet has helped to greatly compress the timeframe of concept to market - there's so much information about new products that consumers are far more informed than they used to be five years ago. Manufacturers used to be able to hide away, developing their products, and only come out to play at trade shows - few consumers would take the effort to call them up on the phone and ask about new products and features they were looking for. Now, with everyone having a web site, and every site having an email address, they face a whole new breed of customer: the "hungry consumer". We want the solutions, and we want them now! I'm not saying this is a bad thing, because I'm one of the loudest people asking the questions...
All the manufacturers face this pressure, and they all want to sell devices, so they're catering to the new customers rather than the current ones. Some people get burned along the way - but this is the nature of the beast. Three weeks after I ordered my AMD Thunderbird 1 Ghz "Dream Machine" from a local system builder, the 1.1 Ghz AMD chip was announced. Did AMD, or even my system builder (the unmatched Voodoo Computer) contact me and offer me a free upgrade to 1.1 Ghz? Nope. My machine is four months old and already there are larger, faster hard drives, faster CPU's, etc.
Now don't get me wrong: I'm a huge proponent of Pocket PC OEM's giving customers upgrades from generation to generation. I can imagine how angry I'd be if I bought this new computer and a month later a new version of Windows came out, but I was told I couldn't load it on my hard drive.
I was furious when HP offered a meagre $100 rebate for owners of Palm-size PC's who were interested in a Pocket PC (instead of offering a ROM upgrade like they should have). More than a year after the fact, I still encounter people at trade shows to want to upgrade their Casio E-100's to the Pocket PC OS and see the irritation on their faces when I explain that Casio offered an upgrade plan for about six weeks, and that they've missed it. Compaq was the only OEM to offer ROM upgrade chips for their previous devices, which is why I'm happy their seeing major success with their iPAQ Pocket PC - they were the only OEM to truly deliver an upgrade to their customers. There may have been technical reasons why HP didn't offer an upgrade (I know there were with Casio), but when the OEM's don't articulate why they didn't offer an upgrade, the consumers perceived this as, what's the term, "being screwed".
By having Flash ROM on the iPAQ, Compaq is making a pretty bold statement about what they believe the device should be: a real computer that can have it's software updated, not a VCR that can never change. Now whether or not the iPAQ can be fully upgraded to the next-generation Pocket PC OS is another matter, but they've certainly taken more pro-active steps towards this than any other OEM.
Software is one thing, but hardware is another - if Compaq comes out with a 400 mhz device, I wouldn't expect them to provide upgrades for current owners. It's a new device, new hardware - something we all knew would eventually come out. But if they can add an extra 32 megs of RAM into my iPAQ for a few bucks, I'm all for that! :-)
The root of the issue is this: there's always something better "coming soon", and unless you're willing to accept that you won't always have the "best" there is, and that having the latest technology requires constant investments, you probably shouldn't buy a PDA of any type. They haven't invented an upgrade to paper yet, so you're secure with that. :-)
Here's my take on it: PDA's are still largely a nascent industry, with few clear standards for consumers to rely on, and the rate of evolution is staggering because everyone wants smaller and faster, and they want it NOW. The Internet has helped to greatly compress the timeframe of concept to market - there's so much information about new products that consumers are far more informed than they used to be five years ago. Manufacturers used to be able to hide away, developing their products, and only come out to play at trade shows - few consumers would take the effort to call them up on the phone and ask about new products and features they were looking for. Now, with everyone having a web site, and every site having an email address, they face a whole new breed of customer: the "hungry consumer". We want the solutions, and we want them now! I'm not saying this is a bad thing, because I'm one of the loudest people asking the questions...
All the manufacturers face this pressure, and they all want to sell devices, so they're catering to the new customers rather than the current ones. Some people get burned along the way - but this is the nature of the beast. Three weeks after I ordered my AMD Thunderbird 1 Ghz "Dream Machine" from a local system builder, the 1.1 Ghz AMD chip was announced. Did AMD, or even my system builder (the unmatched Voodoo Computer) contact me and offer me a free upgrade to 1.1 Ghz? Nope. My machine is four months old and already there are larger, faster hard drives, faster CPU's, etc.
Now don't get me wrong: I'm a huge proponent of Pocket PC OEM's giving customers upgrades from generation to generation. I can imagine how angry I'd be if I bought this new computer and a month later a new version of Windows came out, but I was told I couldn't load it on my hard drive.
I was furious when HP offered a meagre $100 rebate for owners of Palm-size PC's who were interested in a Pocket PC (instead of offering a ROM upgrade like they should have). More than a year after the fact, I still encounter people at trade shows to want to upgrade their Casio E-100's to the Pocket PC OS and see the irritation on their faces when I explain that Casio offered an upgrade plan for about six weeks, and that they've missed it. Compaq was the only OEM to offer ROM upgrade chips for their previous devices, which is why I'm happy their seeing major success with their iPAQ Pocket PC - they were the only OEM to truly deliver an upgrade to their customers. There may have been technical reasons why HP didn't offer an upgrade (I know there were with Casio), but when the OEM's don't articulate why they didn't offer an upgrade, the consumers perceived this as, what's the term, "being screwed".
By having Flash ROM on the iPAQ, Compaq is making a pretty bold statement about what they believe the device should be: a real computer that can have it's software updated, not a VCR that can never change. Now whether or not the iPAQ can be fully upgraded to the next-generation Pocket PC OS is another matter, but they've certainly taken more pro-active steps towards this than any other OEM.
Software is one thing, but hardware is another - if Compaq comes out with a 400 mhz device, I wouldn't expect them to provide upgrades for current owners. It's a new device, new hardware - something we all knew would eventually come out. But if they can add an extra 32 megs of RAM into my iPAQ for a few bucks, I'm all for that! :-)
The root of the issue is this: there's always something better "coming soon", and unless you're willing to accept that you won't always have the "best" there is, and that having the latest technology requires constant investments, you probably shouldn't buy a PDA of any type. They haven't invented an upgrade to paper yet, so you're secure with that. :-)
