Thursday, October 7, 2004
Terminal Marketing Madness and PDAs: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, the Ridiculous, etc, etc.
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "THOUGHT" @ 06:30 AM
"I was a little disappointed when Sony announced it was pulling out of the worldwide PDA market just after I'd bought my second CLIÉ, but I can't say I was surprised. The symptoms of Terminal Marketing Madness (TMM) had been there for months in the shape of dozens of whacky new models with funny hinges and seemingly random price tags....... The areas most prone to TMM - such as the PDA and laptop markets - would appear to be those where the products are in some sense discretionary or luxury purchases, catering to gadget freaks with large disposable incomes. Quite possibly there's an underlying strategy, but it's high-risk gambling rather than investment: throw millions of bucks at a dozen bizarre but innovative designs, and hope that just one will be the big winner."
Dick Pountain of PC Pro Magazine usually has interesting things to say and his column in the November edition of PC Pro is no exception. From the look of it, HP is in full Terminal Marketing Madness mode at the moment, with many models making their merry way into shops. So, enter the rz1715, hx2110, hx2410, hx2750, rx3115, rx3415, rx3715, hx4705 and h6315. Many of you guys have said that you are not inspired by any of them. Sure, individually many have nice parts and components, but is there one 'killer' device among them that you would like to own? Are there too many compromises in each one? So what do you guys think? Is it good to have a huge range of models from a manufacture, or is it better to have fewer models, but spend the time to get the feature set right on each one?
Dick Pountain of PC Pro Magazine usually has interesting things to say and his column in the November edition of PC Pro is no exception. From the look of it, HP is in full Terminal Marketing Madness mode at the moment, with many models making their merry way into shops. So, enter the rz1715, hx2110, hx2410, hx2750, rx3115, rx3415, rx3715, hx4705 and h6315. Many of you guys have said that you are not inspired by any of them. Sure, individually many have nice parts and components, but is there one 'killer' device among them that you would like to own? Are there too many compromises in each one? So what do you guys think? Is it good to have a huge range of models from a manufacture, or is it better to have fewer models, but spend the time to get the feature set right on each one?
