HandheldPlanet makes some nice looking cases for Pocket PCs, including the iPAQ 3800 series. Tonight they also showed me a prototype of a very nice case for the Toshiba E310. If you are looking for a case, this might be worth checking out.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:27 PM |
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Yahoo! News - XScale tips the power to Pocket PCs Word I am hearing is that XScale devices might not really make it to market until the end of July or August. That wouldn't stop companies from making formal announcements in June.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:03 PM |
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The Pocket PC Summit is winding down. Right now I am waiting for the networking even to start in a half hour. Tomorrow there will only be two sessions, with no keynotes. That will give me some time to walk around the exhibits before loading up the car to head back to Detroit. I am disappointed that I didn't have a chance to see Transplant Computing's GPS receiver. They were supposed to be at the Anycom booth, but never showed. Given that their web site doesn't load, I wonder if the story of their Bluetooth GPS receiver is real.
PPC Techs has a battery upgrade for the 3600/3700 series iPAQs that can provide 2x or 3x improvements in battery life. Leonard Wesson reports that he listened to MP3s on his flight from LA to Philadelphia and only used 10% of the battery life.
If you own a Compaq iPAQ and you think that completely discharging the battery before recharging extends battery life and prevents "memory" affect, you are wrong. The technology in the battery is designed for the exact opposite, with frequent recharges extending battery life.
By my unscientific observation I say that the show has been well attended. Word is that 1200 people registered, which I think is a good turn out of a show targetting a niche market. The next show will be in Hollywood this coming October.
Kenamea's Web messaging software allows enterprise applications to communicate in real time with one another over the Internet.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:51 PM |
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Jason blogged Derek Brown's keynote presentation this morning. I think it was very clear in Derek's presentation that wireless is a big part of Microsoft's plans for mobile devices. The problem with Todd Kort's presentation yesterday is that he made strong cases why Palm is succeeding over Pocket PC like price and battery life, but there is another reason. To a large extend Microsoft is getting beat by Palm because they aren't trying to beat Palm. Microsoft and their hardware partners appear to be very willing to give Palm the < $300 organizer market. Why? Profit margin. HP, Casio and others are more than happy to sell only hundreds of thousands of devices at 40% margins (or so) rather than sell millions at 5% margins.
The bottom line here is to not hold your breath waiting for a new Pocket PC to be introduced at < $300. It is much more likely that a company will drop the price of devices they have been selling at < $300 (like the Audiovox Maestro).
Here are some more tidbits... Voicestream's Pocket PC Phone Edition should ship in July....the Voicestream PPC Phone will not record phone conversations because that is illegal in the United States...Microsoft has created the Mobile2Market program to help independant software vendors sell mobile applications. I believe this is primarily for SmartPhone...MobileSoftware has a cool portal that allows one to select customized audio content based on the number of minutes. If your drive time to work is 20 minutes you can sync 20 minutes of corporate information to your Pocket PC to listen to on your way to work...Elegant Solutions Software and Publishing's Electric Quil appears to be a very good eBook creation tool.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:10 PM |
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I thought I had three different ways that I could blog the Pocket PC Summit using my Pocket PC. Unfortunately, it appears that all three methods are hosed so I can't make entries here during the day unless I lug my Dell Inspiron notebook around... which I am not going to do. Alas, the best layed plans of mice and men!
posted by Frank McPherson 7:57 PM |
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The anatomy of the Pocket PC industry is that Palm is eating Microsoft's lunch. That's what Gartner analyst Todd Kort told the Pocket PC Summit crowd in a presentation that generated some negative reaction from conference organizers and attendees. Kort reported that market numbers indicate a slow down in the total number of PDAs being sold worldwide, and they also show that while Pocket PCs are selling well in Europe, Palm holds more than 70% of the market in North America. The reason why, according to Kort, is price. Kort also had negative views about SmartPhone and Pocket PC Phone Edition, and predicted that Apple may purchase the Palm Platform group and that Palm and Handspring may merge.
Conference organizers were apparently taken by surprise with the presentation, which according to the show guide was to be a panel discussion. Apparently the expectation was a discussion about the Pocket PC market: OEMs, software, etc. They did not intend the presentation to be about Palm vs. Pocket PC.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:30 AM |
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I haven't had much luck updating this site using Pocket Blog. Last night I updated to the latest version and I get an application error every time I try to retrieve entries from this site. I suspect that since I am using the new Blogger publishing server that has some how messed things up in such a way that Pocket Blog doesn't know what to do. Perhaps Ev has broken the Blogger API?
posted by Frank McPherson 7:23 AM |
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Chris DeHerrera started the show with a keynote that provided the history of how we got to where we are today.
Right now Leonard Wesson is showing the insides of a Pocket PC.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:11 PM |
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Ok. I am live at the Pocket PC Summit. For some reason everyone is struggling to get connected to the WLAN with their Socket cards. My D-link connected right up, right away. I've had this card for only a few days and so far I am impressed.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:08 PM |
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I made it to Philadelphia. The drive here through northern Pennsylvania was beautiful.
Before I left I downloaded Philadelphia into Vindigo, which came in handy as we wandered the streets this evening. One problem. Vindigo doesn't list Independence Hall. The hall is not a museum and Vindigo doesn't list attractions.
We'll spend tomorrow doing more sightseeing before to the Pocket PC Summit on Teusday. I think it is appropriate that we spend Memorial Day at the birth place of Democracy.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:59 PM |
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