Friday, June 4, 2004
Brighthand: There Can Be Only One (Of Each)
Posted by Pat Logsdon in "ARTICLE" @ 05:00 AM
Steve Bush has written an interesting article that predicts the death of everyone in the PDA market but HP and palmOne:
"Twenty years ago a small group of engineers at Apple began dreaming up the next revolutionary device. It wasn't the first time they'd embarked on a mission such as that. They'd done it nearly a decade before with the Macintosh, a device that made it easy for the common man to harness the power of a computer. [So the Macintosh came out in 1974? ;) -PL] But Mac sales were quickly drying up, thanks in part to competition from a host of new PCs running a competing operating system from Microsoft called Windows, and they needed something new, something futuristic to eventually replace it as Apple's breadwinner. Something no one had considered. What they came up with was the Newton. Although Casio and Tandy would eventually beat it to market with a device of their own, called the Zoomer, Apple, and its Newton, is credited with pioneering the PDA industry. [Actually, the Zoomer was created by Jeff Hawkins of Palm Computing, and it was manufactured by Casio and distributed by Tandy. -PL]
As the Newton floundered, a much less ambitious device from another California-based company, tiny Palm Computing, Inc., was flourishing. Less-expensive and with less features than the Newton, the PalmPilot became the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history." [Sorry to keep jumping in, but I don't think this is true - Walkman WM-2 in 1981, anyone? (Reference) -PL]"
Steve goes on to say that palmOne and HP will be the only PDA manufacturers left standing. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. Dell is mentioned in passing, but is discounted as a niche player in direct corporate sales. Steve thinks that the future belongs to smart phones, communication devices and single-purpose devices.
Personally, I see no reason why new and existing manufacturers can't create increasingly converged devices based on the existing operating systems. Just because palmOne has been reduced to one major hardware manufacturer is no reason to assume that the same fate will apply to Microsoft-based devices. Dell should not be discounted, and neither should Motorola, ASUS or Toshiba, much less the lower volume devices hitting the markets from Mitac, Audiovox, and possibly even Benq. Where's the competing hardware from palmOne? What do you think? :mrgreen:
"Twenty years ago a small group of engineers at Apple began dreaming up the next revolutionary device. It wasn't the first time they'd embarked on a mission such as that. They'd done it nearly a decade before with the Macintosh, a device that made it easy for the common man to harness the power of a computer. [So the Macintosh came out in 1974? ;) -PL] But Mac sales were quickly drying up, thanks in part to competition from a host of new PCs running a competing operating system from Microsoft called Windows, and they needed something new, something futuristic to eventually replace it as Apple's breadwinner. Something no one had considered. What they came up with was the Newton. Although Casio and Tandy would eventually beat it to market with a device of their own, called the Zoomer, Apple, and its Newton, is credited with pioneering the PDA industry. [Actually, the Zoomer was created by Jeff Hawkins of Palm Computing, and it was manufactured by Casio and distributed by Tandy. -PL]
As the Newton floundered, a much less ambitious device from another California-based company, tiny Palm Computing, Inc., was flourishing. Less-expensive and with less features than the Newton, the PalmPilot became the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history." [Sorry to keep jumping in, but I don't think this is true - Walkman WM-2 in 1981, anyone? (Reference) -PL]"
Steve goes on to say that palmOne and HP will be the only PDA manufacturers left standing. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. Dell is mentioned in passing, but is discounted as a niche player in direct corporate sales. Steve thinks that the future belongs to smart phones, communication devices and single-purpose devices.
Personally, I see no reason why new and existing manufacturers can't create increasingly converged devices based on the existing operating systems. Just because palmOne has been reduced to one major hardware manufacturer is no reason to assume that the same fate will apply to Microsoft-based devices. Dell should not be discounted, and neither should Motorola, ASUS or Toshiba, much less the lower volume devices hitting the markets from Mitac, Audiovox, and possibly even Benq. Where's the competing hardware from palmOne? What do you think? :mrgreen:
