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PDA Wars: HP Strikes Back With New Jornadas
wbav writes "According to this article on cnn HP has anounced that they are releasing two new models. At 6 ounces it sports a 203 mhz processor and 32 or 64 megs of ram depending on the model. It comes with Pocket PC 2002, and support for VPNs. Very nice." I do wonder what will happen to the Jornada, given the HP purchase of Compaq - my understanding is that the iPaq has kicked far more butt then the Jornada.
I believe the main reason why the iPaq has been so much more successful than other Pocket PCs is because it has been the first one to take advantage of the strong arm technology. It also sports a pretty cool case. Although the PC Card expansion sleave is a bit clunky it allows for wireless PCMCIA cards. Wireless LAN access is of course ideal for a PDA. I am very interested to see what HP will do with the iPaq ideally they will combine it the the best aspects of the Jordana.
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Hey, I love my iPaq, but I run intimate Linux on it, and not PocketPC 2002, 2001, etc... (Something about being able to apt-get on a pda is really damn cool.)
The question is, Compaq is decidely pro-Linux, moreso than even Big Blue, but will we start seeing HP support Linux ports to the Jornada series? I LOVE the Jornada form factor, and it would be great if they did!
Most likely, whichever platform is superior will be marketted as the jordana or some new name.
Does HP plan to continue using the Compaq brandname? There's the chance that they may want names like iPaq (even though iPuke when iHear iPrefixed too many freaking iTimes).
Or they may attempt to steal features from both, not necessarilly on a technical level (since incompatibilities may arise, but I haven't studied the particulars close enough to comment on that), but icons, trademarks, interface features, so on.
Compaq has been mopping up vs HP in PocketPC sales. HP took the hit a while ago with the high color screens that really only did 4096 colors. Given the recent merger, and the shareholder doubts surrounding it, one has to wonder how this will play out in product introductions from each, and whether this is or is not good for Casio, the Number 3 in the PocketPC race.
Don't underestimate the speed to market aspect in handhelds. When Palm announced, but couldn't deliver on, the new models, they dealt themselves a mighty blow. Given the speed of change in handhelds, marketing, technology, and manufacturing all have to be singing off the same page to ensure market success.
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my understanding is that the iPaq has kicked far more butt then the Jornada.
Thats probably because they can be upgraded..
Both in Operating system and Memory.
air and light and time and space
I do wonder what will happen to the Jornada, given the HP purchase of Compaq - my understanding is that the iPaq has kicked far more butt then the Jornada.
:)
Yes Jornada's kicks, but the success of iPaq tells us a company's marketing and supporting is also very important.
I know many people who are going to develop apps for iPaq have the common happy experience - Compaq is being very supportive in development, martketing and financing when you shows your intention to develop for iPaq.
Compaq will take every opportunities to promote your apps(even in pre-alpha stage) in every trade show and even invite you to their promotional events if possible. If your apps is good enough Compaq even help you line up VCs for you to start a new company! That's some kind of convenience that couldn't be found in developing apps in other handheld devices.
It's no harm in having two lines of similar products, but to ensure the success Jornada HP must put their entire Jornada's team under iPaq's. Really, you can hardly find any other line of business more supportive than iPaq's.
The iPaq and Journada fight in the marketplace.
The iPaq trounces the Journada.
HP buys Compaq.
HP has to struggle with reconciling their own product lines and bring them into one company.
This is the first example. HP has bought Compaq, but the iPaq is cooler. They can't call it the iHP or anything, can they? Bob Cringely made some remarks about just this sort of thing in his latest column. This merger makes no sense at all. HP and Compaq have already bought out companies that helped their bottom line, and now they're doing it again. Unless HP does some seriously insane reorganization, their chances of doing anything signifigant are pretty small.
The Viewpad
Not as cumbersome as a laptop, but larger than a iPaq or Jornada, which makes it ideal for me.
I recently (some weeks before the HP/Compaq merger was announced) had the chance to check out a prototype Jordana that's in testing at the moment.
Unlike the model mentioned here, the unit I saw, labelled X25, was a lower-end PDA aimed squarely at college students, as evidenced by the glossy made-up "consumer profiles" supplied to the testers.
The unit is slim, has a crisp monochrome screen, a and hardware MP3 decoder. Best of all ppl, the OS is Linux, though the UI and apps are all Java. It runs pretty nicely, looks cool, and is likely to be very cheap!
It's not based on the ipaq at all though, so it will be interesting to see just how a parallel Linux-based PDA project however meritorious will survive in the brave new "synergized" HP/Compaq world...
So the Jornada will be successful because it has a keyboard ? Ummm, the iPaq has a keyboard available for it, and has done so for quite some time. The iPaq can also handle network connectivity and store large amounts of data at the same time. The Jornada can either have network connectivity or have local data not both. Now I think having both is far more useful, plus you can plug in the keyboard the same as the Jornada. Seems the iPaq is much more usefull in a commerical situation.
I was reading through what PowerPC 2002 was offering and it kept reminding me "Palm already had that for some time.... Palm offers that now... Palm has it already..." Geesh. And to think Microsoft itself with Windows is slowly becoming Unix back in 1970!!!
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We develop sales automation tools for handheld pcs. we couldn't do that on a PDA. there is no keyboard. how can a sales person lookup a customer / part, or enter an invoice / order with a stylus touch pad. answer, you can't you need a keyboard.
I disagree. Sales should have next to zero use for a keyboard. Product lines, customers, price lists... should all be selectable WITHOUT a keyboard. We're designing internal applications for our sales force using Palm PDAs. The sales force will have a PDA and a portable DVD player.
Product demo videos will be on the DVD players and they can give out CDs with documentation and other goodies. The Palm handlelds will have a few apps for quoting and the standard email, time tracking, contact management and datebook applications available.
We used to give them laptops which had to be upgraded every year or so, were prime targets for theft, crashed and were generally used to play games instead of sell. Now we're replacing them for less money, less space and 10x the effectiveness. Throw in a folding keyboard for writing[1] faxes/emails and a modem and they have everything they need.
[1] - yes, the odd time a keyboard is needed but it's very infrequent.
There is currently a product from Atek electronics, which is a CF type I to CF type II adapter. Add CFII WLAN card, and you're set.
-bZj
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You need to learn how to read, son.
The chart you linked to shows Compaq with 11.9% of Q1 2001 vs HP's 4.1% of Q1 2001. The number you keep quoting was Q1 2000. Year to Year, # of Units sold in Western Europe was 8,978 units for Q1 2000 for Compaq and 100,362 units for Q1 2001. In contrast, HP accounted for 16,514 units for Q1 2000 and 34,210 units for Q1 2001. That's 109,340 units for Compaq in the two compared Quarters, and 50,724 for HP. In short, Compaq has shipped more than twice as many units as HP has in the same compared periods.
I think you are quoting the old numbers from Q1 2000. By Q1 2001, it's a completely different story...
Western Europe's mobile device market:
Q1 2000 share:
Compaq 2.2%
HP 4.0%
Q1 2001 share
Compaq 11.9%
HP 4.1%
Im really just trying to find a replacement for the Toshiba Libretto. After Toshiba stopped making the palm top, the only real choice people had was PDAs. I really need a wireless device, If I only wanted a calendar or contact list, I have PocketNet phone with Fonesync software. But I needed a true wireless connection with a tcp/ip stack(for SSH) so I picked up a CDPD modem. But carrying around a full size laptop sucks, so I migrated to a PDA. I first started off with an wireless Palm Omnisky. Battery life was nice, upto 1 week light use, and 2 weeks if it sat im my pocket. But I wanted color and sound, I migrated to the PocketPC (Ipaq) and CDPD modem. Not bad, I can surf websites in html not wap, and even listen to mp3s. (Very important for work ya know!) Battery life is weak, and I find myself letting the battery die right when I need. Picked up a IBM Microdrive. Fast, was able to move documents from my laptop and back, neat idea, but didnt use it as much I wanted. I gotta get around to trying out the Pocket Divx Player and put a divx movie on the microdrive. (Gotta watch Red Dwarf ep with the Sock Puppet.)
:)
Heck, They even have PDA pr0n for those long boring conference calls.
206 MHz StrongARM SA-1110
32MB DRAM
32MB Flash
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USB, serial, Ethernet
Linux
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Umm. I don't see the logic here. We developed an in-house version of our mobile sales automation tools specifically FOR the iPAQ. The touch pad keypad works fine for most of the data entry that needs to be done. Remember that when entering an invoice or something, you should never need to type the customer's name and address in -- that should have all been downloaded from your primary computer system, where somebody presumable used a traditional compute to enter the "busy" information months ago when your customer was just a prospect. Besides, if you need a keyboard for the iPAQ, just buy one.
GreyPoopon
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That's really cool, Ken! You pull it off politely, but forcibly. Good on ya!
However, the problem I have isn't with their website. I accept their cookies for the session, and then delete them after.
Problem I have is that they've completely and utterly failed to actually market the product. I've never seen a newspaper or magazine ad. I've never seen a television commercial. Haven't even seen a web ad. And, especially, I've never actually seen one sitting in a display in any computer store I've visited.
Sorry, Psion, but unless you actually make people aware of the product, and its advantages over PDAs, it is *never* gonna sell well!
But, then, I think they're probably behaving typically British: a big hate-on for North America, so they don't bother with us. Never mind that sales would be 10x those in Europe...
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