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Handspring Delays Treo, Plans To Drop Organizer Line
backlonthethird writes: "http://www.palminfocenter.com has the scoop on Handspring's triple announcements yesterday. CEO Donna Dubinsky says they're dropping "Organizers," (i.e. visors?), and most of their new Treos are going to Europe because of a parts shortage. At least their losses this past quarter aren't as bad as people were expecting--they claim profitability by this Summer. What the heck is going on over there?"
Yeah, they'll stop making Visors one day... color me stunned. Sony stopped making 10" B&W TV sets at some point too...
The Treo is a nifty little device which is an evolution of the Visor. Integrating a phone makes sense, integrating wireless makes sense. If Handspring decides not to make a device that *only* does PDA type functionality, that's probably a good business decision. Sure they're still be a market for a limited device like that, it just won't be Handspring making it. But as the technology changes, and component prices come down, it'll be generally expected that a device have more and more features. Handspring is just acknowledging that fact.
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
Donna has referred to organizers as a "dead end" several times before now. I can't blame her, since she's right. With the hardware getting better and better all the time, and Microsoft's PocketPC basically owning the high-end of the market, she can see where the road will lead. When the hardware finally does catch up and the price falls, no one will pay $100 for a Palm when they can get a PocketPC for the same price that runs their cozy Windows OS and does almost as much as their laptop.
:)
So what does Handspring do? They go sideways. Start merging their devices into cell phones and other WiFi solutions, and hopefully expand the market in a way Microsoft's lumbering embrace-and-extend strategy won't be able to engulf for another year or two, buying them some more time to figure out where to go next.
In a bizarre way it reminds me of The Nothing relentlessly following Atreyu across the countryside in The Never-Ending Story.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
...is the only reason I'm a Handspring user. The backup module kicks ass, and with my extra on-call pay this week, I'm seriously considering the OmniRemote module. The VisorPhone looks cool too, but GSM capabilities in the U.S. are virtually non-existant and I'm not impressed by VoiceStream. That slot is what sold me over. I'd have a Palm V otherwise.
:) Granted, they look pretty...but under a very heavy use load, I get a couple weeks out of my Visor Neo's batteries.
Last I knew, WinCE devices don't have that kind of expandability...unless someone is planning to make PCMCIA versions of all those cool devices.
There's something about it being "non-Microsoft" that I enjoy...something that I don't feel particularly tied to...free.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
The springboard was a marvelous idea. The biggest selling point in my book being plug-and-play that actually worked. All software is on the card, and the Visor recognizes it instantly. Witness the Sony Clie's memory-stick camera. Note on their web site says that it only works after loading the software on seperately. That's a shame, because with the Springboard, it's 100% automatic. In the end, I think most people were like me and thought they were cool but couldn't fork over the money.
Unfortunately, once you start using the "start button" etc, you'll find out that the Desktop metaphor has scaled very, very poorly.
All my friends use Palm (save this one guy). The trouble is they all use old PalmVs and the like, and see no need to upgrade; Palm has hurt itself by making a perfectly adequate product from its first few generations. (Like, once it added the backlight...)
I was playing with that one guy's iPaq, and even he couldn't explain how to use part of WinCE; specifically opening a document (I forget if we wanted to open it in pocket IE or whatever, but all the usual manipulations of the "filesystem" didn't do the trick, plus the "magic synching" sucked much ass), and then manipulating one of the menus of his GPS map program so that all the directional arrows were visible (not to mention dialog boxes that were scaled to be 3 times the width of the screen, so you had to scroll just to be able to hit OK)
I don't know about the future; it will be a race of Palm getting itself out of some technological corners its painted itself into, and hardware becoming powerful yet battery efficient enough for WinCE to make sense, with Microsoft making improvements to their basic organizer functionality.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
nobody's upgrading? My old Palm still works fine.
sulli
RTFJ.
I liked the idea of the handspring modules...But they have never really taken off, and are hard to find in the stores. (and really expensive) -- I long for the day I could just simply take the PCMCIA modem or NIC card out of my laptop and use it with my "state of the art circa 1996" HP 200LX .. And in 2002 I am spending $100+ for a 33.6K springboard modem for my Handspring (granted you can find them in the stores -- hint, you may have some luck on the closeout table right next to the returned items that have been marked down .5%)
The palms are even worse -- I dont think the external devices have been compatible with the next gen models since day 1. (I.E. my palm V modem will not work with my palm m505 -- etc.)
If ever I have seen a market that was begging for a little standardization -- the PDA market is it.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
It is better for all the people who decided to buy a PocketPC than a Palm, apparently.
[sarcasm]
It's nice to know that consumers never make the wrong choice. I'm glad that none of them are ever disappointed by the battery life, weight, reliability, usability, etc. I'm happy that people who received PocketPCs as Christmas presents were universally happy with them.
[/sarcasm]
I guess, by your logic, AOL is the Best ISP In The World because they have the most customers.
It is better because it does more and does it faster than Palm can.
My desktop computer can do more and do it faster than a PocketPC. Does that make it "better" than a PocketPC?
If the Palm does everything that I need it to, why would I care that a PocketPC can do stuff I don't need (like play MP3s and jerky, low-res videos)?
It may not be better for you, but it is better for all the people who helped put PocketPC sales above PalmOS sales last year.
Again, you seem to have the mistaken notion that consumers always make the best choice. Remember, consumers bought thousands and thousands of Pet Rocks, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Beanie Babies.
So, when are you going to sign up for AOL?