.KEYWORD techskeptic0500
.FLYINGHEAD TECHNOLOGY SKEPTIC
.TITLE Dr. Strangepalm or, how I learned to stop worrying and love Microsoft
.OTHER
.SUMMARY If you’ve been listening to the prophets of doom lately, you’ve already heard that the End Days are here, and the Beast Whose Number is 666 is on the horizon. Microsoft’s Pocket PC is coming, and many predict that by 2003 Microsoft will own over half the PDA market (assuming Microsoft doesn’t get chopped into lots of little pieces), relegating Palm, Inc. to the status of also-ran. In this article, PalmPower’s resident technology skeptic, Kevin Quin, takes a daring stance, embracing the apocalypse as if he were Slim Pickens riding an H-bomb into oblivion.
.AUTHOR Kevin Quin
If you’ve been listening to the prophets of doom lately–in this case, the ones in the electronics industry–you already know that Armageddon is coming, the End Days are here, and the Beast Whose Number is 666 is on the horizon.
Armageddon is being brought to the Palm unit world courtesy of Microsoft’s Windows CE 3.0, a powerful beast which, as I write this, slouches toward Redmond to be born. Windows CE 3.0 is the operating system designed by Microsoft to power a new generation of the PDAs (formerly know as Palm-sized PCs, now re-labeled "Pocket PCs").
So, how big and bad a wolf is the Pocket PC and is it a threat to Palm’s Lilliputian quest for world domination?
.H1 The end is nigh
If you believe the hysteria, Windows CE 3.0 will be a Palm device-killer. Microsoft will put all its considerable resources, both in software and marketing, behind this product in hopes of finally muscling into the fast-growing PDA market. Some industry pundits predict the effort will pay off, and by 2003 Microsoft will own over half the PDA market, relegating Palm, Inc. to the status of also-ran.
Of course, these are the same soothsayers who predicted Microsoft’s first effort in this category, Windows CE 2.0, would knock Palm, Inc. off its pedestal. Come to think of it, they’re the same jokers who in the spring of 1996 scoffed at a new electronic organizer called the PalmPilot, labeling it "the world’s most expensive address book." Of course, they were wrong. The Newton was the world’s most expensive address book, but I digress.
If you follow the latest line of reasoning flowing from these oracles, Microsoft will invest so much manpower and marketing dollars in the Windows CE 3.0 Pocket PC that Palm, Inc. will be dead inside five years. Then we’ll all spend more time staring at the Windows start-up screen on our PDAs than actually checking our schedules. Bulletin boards on Palm device-related Web sites are full of these sorts of gloomy predictions. The same propeller-heads that gleefully listed the shortcomings of the Windows CE 2.0 Palm-sized PC and rejoiced in its failure are now heading for the fallout shelters, Palm units in hand.
.H1 Time for a reality check
Microsoft isn’t going to kill off Palm, Inc. overnight. Microsoft may well be the world’s strongest company, but ousting an entrenched monopolist from its market is a Herculean undertaking. And Palm, Inc. is surely an entrenched monopolist. Even the industry prophets of doom recognize Palm, Inc. has a market share approaching 80 percent, and those estimates probably include archaic clamshell-type devices that aren’t truly in the same market. From down here at the regular guy level, I can report that although I occasionally see somebody sporting a Palm organizer on my subway ride, I’ve never ever seen anyone using another organizer, Windows CE or otherwise.
"But wait," say some of our propeller-crowned friends, "Palm, Inc. does have competition! What about Handspring?" Handspring’s Visor PDA has been sold over the Internet since last fall, but it was plagued with shipping and ordering problems. Although it finally arrived in retail stores last month, in my opinion the only people likely to have seen one so far are those running with the pocket protector set.
More importantly, Handspring doesn’t compete with Palm, Inc. The Visor runs the Palm OS with nothing more than a few minor tweaks. Although you may have heard that Visors run faster because their "code has been optimized," even a non-technical guy like me can download a tiny application called Cruise Control (see http://www.backupbuddy.com/cc/prod_cruisecontrol_details.html) to get the same minor speed improvements on my Palm device. ("Look, Ma! I optimized my code!") If the Visor had a Palm, Inc. label instead of a Handspring label, only the digitally-overdosed would be able to tell the difference.
.CALLOUT
