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http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html

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It was a time of great turmoil. The strong preyed on the weak, dogs
and cats lived together. One voice cried out in the wilderness:
William P.N. Smith wrote in
<r91n11h1o8dqckq668386169goqh99955l@4ax.com>:

> http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html

This would have been a huge surprise last year before they exited the
PDA business in North America and introduced the PSP. But now, it's
pretty much what most people expected.

--
Roberto Castillo
robertocastillo@ameritech.net
http://www.freewebs.com/robertocastillo/

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It is alleged that William P.N. Smith claimed:

; http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html

It was only a matter of time until they dropped completely out of the
Palm PDA market. Japan was their last market, they pulled out of the
rest of the world last Summer. Expect their next entry to be either a
Symbian or MS Smartphone due to their cellphone partnership with
Ericsson.

It was rumored last year that Sony had bid to purchase what became
PalmSource from Palm Inc. It is my opinion that failure to complete
that bid is what made them decide to drop the PalmOS specifically, not
the more general drop in sales after they flooded the market.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"The Superior Person's Book Of Words", by Peter Bowler:
CIRCUMFORANEOUS: Wandering from house to house. A Morman, a Jehovah's
Witness, an Avon Lady, a hungry cat, or a teenager.

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In article <9p6o11ljki3mh70lool47kc2d18rg2sn5h@news20.forteinc.com>,
Jeffrey Kaplan <cspp@gordol.org> wrote:

> It is alleged that William P.N. Smith claimed:
>
> ; http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html
>
> It was only a matter of time until they dropped completely out of the
> Palm PDA market. Japan was their last market, they pulled out of the
> rest of the world last Summer. Expect their next entry to be either a
> Symbian or MS Smartphone due to their cellphone partnership with
> Ericsson.

I think they're still afraid of Microsoft. Once you sign on to be a
Microsoft licensee, MS begins to dictate your hardware design and it'll be
very hard for Sony to differentiate its offerings.

Plus, I don't see Sony running MS software on the PlayStation, when XBox
is a competitor.

Symbian's more likely, if it's still around. Nokia seems to have struck
some kind of deal with the Evil Empire whereby MS makes many of its phone
components available for free. At least, that's the impression I got from
the news headlines. Anyone know?

It's also possible that Sony will use the Palm smartphone platform and
even put the Palm OS in the PlayStations.

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Makes good sense.

It seems to me that Sony will focus more on development on
entertainment and games devices such as the PSP for which they
are good at.

Best regards,

James Seah

"Guy Bannis" <guy@ether.net> wrote in message
news:guy-2202052216450001@192.168.1.103...
> In article <9p6o11ljki3mh70lool47kc2d18rg2sn5h@news20.forteinc.com>,
> Jeffrey Kaplan <cspp@gordol.org> wrote:
>
> > It is alleged that William P.N. Smith claimed:
> >
> > ; http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html
> >
> > It was only a matter of time until they dropped completely out of the
> > Palm PDA market. Japan was their last market, they pulled out of the
> > rest of the world last Summer. Expect their next entry to be either a
> > Symbian or MS Smartphone due to their cellphone partnership with
> > Ericsson.
>
> I think they're still afraid of Microsoft. Once you sign on to be a
> Microsoft licensee, MS begins to dictate your hardware design and it'll be
> very hard for Sony to differentiate its offerings.
>
> Plus, I don't see Sony running MS software on the PlayStation, when XBox
> is a competitor.
>
> Symbian's more likely, if it's still around. Nokia seems to have struck
> some kind of deal with the Evil Empire whereby MS makes many of its phone
> components available for free. At least, that's the impression I got from
> the news headlines. Anyone know?
>
> It's also possible that Sony will use the Palm smartphone platform and
> even put the Palm OS in the PlayStations.

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Jeffrey Kaplan wrote:

> It is alleged that William P.N. Smith claimed:
>
> ; http://www.tomshardware.com/hardne [...] 23636.html
>
> It was only a matter of time until they dropped completely out of the
> Palm PDA market. Japan was their last market, they pulled out of the
> rest of the world last Summer. Expect their next entry to be either a
> Symbian or MS Smartphone due to their cellphone partnership with
> Ericsson.
>
> It was rumored last year that Sony had bid to purchase what became
> PalmSource from Palm Inc. It is my opinion that failure to complete
> that bid is what made them decide to drop the PalmOS specifically, not
> the more general drop in sales after they flooded the market.

Good take... I hope you don't mind me making it public...

http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/arch [...] ltogether/

I am among the sad Palm users that see the damaging effects of this.

Roy

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It is alleged that Roy Schestowitz claimed:

; > It was rumored last year that Sony had bid to purchase what became
; > PalmSource from Palm Inc. It is my opinion that failure to complete
; > that bid is what made them decide to drop the PalmOS specifically, not
; > the more general drop in sales after they flooded the market.
;
; Good take... I hope you don't mind me making it public...

Well, this is a public forum. However, I did goof a bit. PalmSource
is older than one year, so the rumor of Sony trying to purchase it from
Palm Inc would have had to have been longer ago than that.

; I am among the sad Palm users that see the damaging effects of this.

Me, too. It was with regret that I switched from my last Clie (T615).
It was a great device. But I wanted to move to a SmartPhone more. So
I got a Kyocera 7135 and sold my Clie to my (older) brother.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public."
Scott Adams

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Well now, this is a sad state of affairs.
Are we now left with only Palm One to buy from if we have tons on money
invested in palm os software?
Since Handera, Handspring and now Sony do not offer hardware any more
is there anyone on the horizon that might give Palm some competition in
this arena?
I say this as a not-so-proud owner of a T/E and a backup T/E. The
graffitti area on the main one is suspect and the backup won't hotsync
any more. In the 9 months I've owned them I've switched back and forth
between them as to which was the main and which was the backup as more
and more hardware problems aroze.
Before I bought these I tried the Zire 71 and had to return it because
it was defective.
I was testing a Clie against the T/E and went with the T/E because of a
superior screen. Now, it seems that was a mistake.
Alas, what are we to do? You'd think there would be a market for some
competion.
I gotta say, the future doesn't look to bright.

Thanks.
Shawn

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Shawn@Thrillofthechase.biz wrote:

>Are we now left with only Palm One to buy from

For now. But if you keep up with business news, the Palm type PDA (all brands)
as we currently know it, is on the way out.

> if we have tons on money invested in palm os software?

I'll store mine with my DOS stuff... ;)

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Shawn@Thrillofthechase.biz wrote:

> Well now, this is a sad state of affairs.
> Are we now left with only Palm One to buy from if we have tons on money
> invested in palm os software?
> Since Handera, Handspring and now Sony do not offer hardware any more
> is there anyone on the horizon that might give Palm some competition in
> this arena?
> I say this as a not-so-proud owner of a T/E and a backup T/E. The
> graffitti area on the main one is suspect and the backup won't hotsync
> any more. In the 9 months I've owned them I've switched back and forth
> between them as to which was the main and which was the backup as more
> and more hardware problems aroze.
> Before I bought these I tried the Zire 71 and had to return it because
> it was defective.
> I was testing a Clie against the T/E and went with the T/E because of a
> superior screen. Now, it seems that was a mistake.
> Alas, what are we to do? You'd think there would be a market for some
> competion.
> I gotta say, the future doesn't look to bright.

I have ten words for you: Aceeca, Alphasmart, Fossil, Garmin, Symbol,
Topwave, GSPDA, Kyocera, Pitech, Samsung

> Thanks.
> Shawn

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

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AaronJ wrote:

> Shawn@Thrillofthechase.biz wrote:
>
>>Are we now left with only Palm One to buy from
>
> For now.

Maybe _you_ are only left with Palm One to buy from. Where are you located
that the many competing models are not available?

> But if you keep up with business news, the Palm type PDA (all
> brands) as we currently know it, is on the way out.

What "business news" is this?

>> if we have tons on money invested in palm os software?
>
> I'll store mine with my DOS stuff... ;)

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

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"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote:

>AaronJ wrote:

>> But if you keep up with business news, the Palm type PDA (all
>> brands) as we currently know it, is on the way out.
>
>What "business news" is this?

http://palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7650

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AaronJ wrote:

> "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote:
>
>>AaronJ wrote:
>
>>> But if you keep up with business news, the Palm type PDA (all
>>> brands) as we currently know it, is on the way out.
>>
>>What "business news" is this?
>
> http://palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7650

So we've got one outfit's gloom-and-doom predictions. So in this declining
market how is it that Palmsource's revenues are up 14%?

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

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"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote:

>So we've got one outfit's

That was just one example of a general consensus and is verified by sales
figures of PDAs *as we currently know them*, that is made in the basic style of
the original Palm Pilot.

>gloom-and-doom predictions.

No gloom and doom for the industry as a whole though. Smart phones and like
devices will take over the duties of the soon to be dead or very diminished PDA.

>So in this declining market how is it that Palmsource's revenues are up 14%?

Are they? If so I'll bet that was before Sony bailed on them. If you really
believe in the future of the PDA, I would suggest that you load up on shares of
the Palm companies. They are very cheap right now. Oh, and I've got this
bridge... ;)

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On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:24:45 GMT, AaronJ wrote:

> No gloom and doom for the industry as a whole though.
> Smart phones and like devices will take over the duties of
> the soon to be dead or very diminished PDA.

The only problem is that for phones, most people prefer smaller
sizes for portability and convenience. Many people that use PDAs
prefer the ones having the largest possible screen, for reading
ebooks, viewing large spreadsheets, etc. I suppose the larger PDAs
could have smart phone capability built-in, but then they'd better
be able to work with multiple carriers.

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BillB <rainbose@earthlink.newt> wrote:
On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:24:45 GMT, AaronJ wrote:

>> No gloom and doom for the industry as a whole though.
>> Smart phones and like devices will take over the duties of
>> the soon to be dead or very diminished PDA.
>
> The only problem is that for phones, most people prefer smaller
>sizes for portability and convenience. Many people that use PDAs
>prefer the ones having the largest possible screen, for reading
>ebooks, viewing large spreadsheets, etc. I suppose the larger PDAs
>could have smart phone capability built-in, but then they'd better
>be able to work with multiple carriers.

Are people throwing their PDA's away and replacing them with smart
phones, or is it just that people who previously didn't use PDAs
are replacing their dumb phones with smart phones?

To put it another way, are PDA sales falling, or PDA sales *as a percentage
of* total sales of traditional PDAs and smart phones put together?
(Or neither?)

Adam

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> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:24:45 GMT, AaronJ wrote:
>> No gloom and doom for the industry as a whole though.
>> Smart phones and like devices will take over the duties of
>> the soon to be dead or very diminished PDA.

I really don't understand why someone would like to put his most private and
personal data on a device which is most of the time connected to a phone line,
whose OS he cannot control in every aspect of connection and which cannot even
actually be switched off.
regards
arnd






--Please send your answer to
--arnd at the host named monochrome which has a com-Domain.

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On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:48:55 GMT, BillB wrote:

> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:24:45 GMT, AaronJ wrote:
>
>> No gloom and doom for the industry as a whole though.
>> Smart phones and like devices will take over the duties of
>> the soon to be dead or very diminished PDA.
>
> The only problem is that for phones, most people prefer smaller
> sizes for portability and convenience. Many people that use PDAs
> prefer the ones having the largest possible screen, for reading
> ebooks, viewing large spreadsheets, etc. I suppose the larger PDAs
> could have smart phone capability built-in, but then they'd better
> be able to work with multiple carriers.

Hence the reason that, no matter how much of a geek I am and how much
I think the Treo 650 is almost drool-worthy, I still use a *small*
clamshell cell phone and my m515.

--
Derek

Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not
know the terror of being forever lost at sea.

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Derek <news@gwinn.us> aszonygya:
:Hence the reason that, no matter how much of a geek I am and how much
:I think the Treo 650 is almost drool-worthy, I still use a *small*
:clamshell cell phone and my m515.

Putting one's oily skin next to the PDA's screen is not something I am