Worldwide PDA shipments declined 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2004, but the battle for the PDA operating system market has heated up as PalmSource and Microsoft were in a virtual tie in shipments in the first quarter of 2004, according to preliminary results from Gartner, Inc. Palm OS shipments declined by 20.7 percent in the first quarter of 2004 compared with the same period last year. Palm OS market share slipped to 40.7 percent, while the Windows CE market share increased to 40.2 percent. Microsoft licensees have been steadily chipping away at the Palm OS lead since 2000, when Microsoft accounted for 11 percent of the PDA market. Read the press release here and the news item here.
PalmSource, MS Tie for No 1 Ranking in Worldwide PDA OS Market
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but the pocket PC devices are relatively powerful (at least in way of specs), agressively priced, and aggressively feature rich.
Palm needs to hurry up with cobalt devices and update that gui. devices with a full sized screen (as opposed to those with the stylus area) would be nice too.
I can agree that pocket PC is ahead in power but how are they to write on nowadays? I like Graffiti a lot and have so far only heard bad things about pocket PC:s in this regard. Are they still behind in this vital (for me at least) aspect?
There are many parameters that someone can choose Palm over PocketPC and the other way around. On my own experience:
I bought a SONY Clie TH55 1.5 months ago (I already had a Palm V but that was too old to do WiFi). It works great and it looks great. However, it has connectivity problems:
1. Its wifi wireless capabilities have problems with some routers (there is a patch, but only for the japanese version)
2. The US version does not have Bluetooth neither there is a *new* memory stick model for bluetooth to buy!!
3. There is no third party or SONY-made 56k modem addon.
For me, it is very important to have 56k modem or bluetooth/modem capabilities when I am in Greece in my parent’s house where DSL is not available.
Then, there is the PalmOne PDAs: the only ones I like from there is the Tungsten T3 (it has all the features I need), but it does not have WiFi. PalmONE had a contract with SanDisk to make a WiFi SDIO card, but SanDisk was not able to create it for technical reasons, and so while the T3 is the best PDA in the market today IMHO, its lack of WiFi lowers it in my eyes a lot (in US I use WiFi, while I need modem/bluetooth capabilities when I am in Greece/France). Also, PalmONE PDAs comes with WebPRO as its web browser, which is a very sucky browser (Clies come with the much better NetFront).
And then there are the Pocket PCs: they have CF/SD cards for everything pretty much, from modems to WiFi to Bluetooth, there are much more powerful and they have IE (however NetFront 3.1 on SONY Clie is pretty good too, plus NetFront is available for PPCs as well). BUT, WinCE looks like crap. The apps feel like Win3.1. I know that most PalmOS apps don’t look much better either, but for a so much more powerful PDAs PocketPCs use, I would expect a better UI.
So, it is a lot of hit and miss, both sides could do better. If PalmOS 6.1 (which will have an updated UI as opposed to 6.0) is actually STABLE (I can crash my 5.2 Clie easily even by running AvantGo sometimes), my next PDA will be a PalmOS 6.1 PDA, but I will make my research first to make sure that the PDA in question is able to communicate natively or via third party addons via:
* Infrared
* WiFi
* Bluetooth
* 56k modem addon
palm needs to support linux. that would help give them some additional sales I think.
I use a Palm Vx, still. What, pixelmonkey, you don’t like new features and bells and whistles and bullshit? Nope, I don’t. I like AvantGo, DueYesterday (student-centric todo list) and Vindigo (NYC maps and listings). Other than that, I keep the contacts and appointments in there. But even after all these years, it’s still slimmer/lighter than all my friend’s Palms/PocketPCs, has better battery life (~2 weeks), and is prettier.
People need to stop getting distracted. Things are supposed to last. Mine did. If you let PocketPCs become the subject of the same pissing contest PC upgrades are currently subject to, you’ll find your wallet pretty dry, pretty quick. I only have 2MB free on my Palm (which has a total of 8). But I bet I use it more than most PocketPC users. Or at least, more effectively… I see all these people on the subway trying to use their PocketPC as a Gameboy advance, ipod, and blackberry all-in-one. I’ll opt for my occasional AvantGo article, and a good book (remember those?).
“palm needs to support linux. that would help give them some additional sales I think.”
how would this help them. their giving up on mac support. Let alone linux support. There isn’t any market on linux for commercial stuff. granted this would just be syncing software not something to make money off. But the cost of writing the software probably wouldn’t be made up in increased sales.
“how would this help them. their giving up on mac support.”
PalmOne are NOT giving up mac support they will bundle third party sync software if they have to but they are not abandoning mac users. it’s palmsource that are ceasing mac support.
I wish it were true, i have *two* Palm Vx’s (including one my father dumped in favor of a tungsten) … but i find the screen close to unusable in low light and indoor situations. Its hard to read making it pretty impractical. I’ve been using it alot, but lately, i do have colour screen envy. I’m a staunch beleiver in the keep it simple principle but colour screen are a must. Thinking of buying a second hand palm IIIc.
Palm is toast. There’s very little money in this market, and Microsoft won’t stop until it drives Palm into the ground. It may take 5 years but Palm will wither on the vine (pardon the bad pun).
Dedicated PDAs are a thing of the past, anyway. Microsoft is focusing a lot of its effort on making integrated phones; that is, PocketPCs integrated with phones. They’re expensive — but I see a lot of people carrying them now. It doesn’t make sense to have a standalone PDA anymore; integrating them with phones was the next logical evolution in the devices. Thing is, Microsoft’s platform runs in a lot more places (i.e. TabletPCs, PocketPCs, Phones, HPCs, desktops, etc) than Palm. MS can afford the battle of attrition to knock Palm out of the marketplace. Writing is on the wall, I’m afraid.
The Sharp Zauri 700 series are by far the best palm computers out there. Great battery life, wifi, a non-crippled OS that you can flash out and customize or replace. They are far useful than the Sony UX models since their keyboards are bigger and yet they’re still pocketable.
Palm are selling many pretty low-end PDAs, when it’s impossible to find recent Windows Mobile that’s as low end as most of the Palm ones. So it’s strange Microsoft even got close to Palm’s are since Palm aims at bigger market. BTW Microsoft outsold Palm last year so Palm is going in stronger again.
well, as the market for desktop linux continues to grow, if palm supported linux it would help convince people to buy palm instead of pocket pc.
this isn’t an immediate soloution, it’s a long term plan.
i’d also like to see dataviz support linux with documenets to go for open office or star office and Beyond Contacts” that could support Evolution or kontact.
If you’ll notice at the bottom of Gartner’s comparison chart, they note: “Totals include cellular PDAs such as RIM BlackBerry 7230, but not smartphones. PalmOne results include Handspring PDA shipments.”
So here’s the confounding quest: Do they consider the Treo 600 a smartphone, or a “Handspring PDA”? If they call the Treo a “smartphone”, that would mean they’d be leaving it out of the survey, which would be extremely unfair, considering the BlackBerry is a direct competitor. Then of course it would look like Palm lost market share.
you can already use palms with linux with some software you install.
palm needs to be more open with its licensing policies and much less expensive.
“palm needs to support linux. that would help give them some additional sales I think.”
What support do you mean? I know Palm Desktop is not for linux, however Palm’s will synch up with linux and evolution just as it does with windows and outlook. I know very few people that use Palm Desktop at all, although I am sure there are some. In that respect there is JPilot or KPilot that I am aware of which provides the same functionality as Palm Desktop. In that respect Palm does support linux as the interface is easy to talk to so people have made applications which do the same. The Windows PDA’s can not be synched to Linux and only support Windows to my knowledge, though I could be wrong as I do not have a Mac.
Regards,
DrillSgt
The new PalmOne Zire 72 is fantastic!