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Psion May Look To Linux For The Next Big Thing

Posted by timothy on from the netbooks-are-sweet dept.

An anonymous reader points out this "interesting interview with Psion founder Dr David Potter. It explores the reasons why Psion sold their share in Symbian to Nokia and why Potter believes that there is good future for Linux on "compact" notebooks and the like. Guy Kewney is a very well respected commentator on technology, he's been doing for a long time and I've always found his insights to be pretty spot on. "

2 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, but for different reasons... by MrChuck · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have a psion 3, a 3c and a 5. Nice little thing for its time. STILLL nice, almost.

    I carry a Zaurus 5500 (which needs to be charged every 5 minutes). It runs linux. That was part of why I liked it. But more, Mom would never KNOW it runs linux. And that's good. Especially on handhelds, its about the apps. Whether it's on Palm or Psion or the Z, bad apps make the thing useless.

    So how did Psion blow it?
    Well, if you wanted to develop (beyond the scripting language), you had to give Psion lots of money for the devel package. It was defended on the boards: "They have a right to make money" blah blah blah.

    The PALM came out and dev tools were RIGHT THERE. For free. Sure if you wanted an IDE, you'd blow <US$70 on the stuff to plug into your dev env. But you could right binaries for it without that, you could EMULATE the psion on Mac, PC and several *nix's.

    That, combined with no brainer syncing helped the Palm take off. First, hundreds of useful utilities appeared for free. Harmful to 3com? Well ... no. They sell hardware. Hardware is more useful when more people have them and develop for them. Fancy apps don't generally come out of OpenSource, so there was a market. But handy util's (mileage trackers, shopping lists, etc) appeared instantly.

    Contrast with Psion
    Sure, I can sync it: how many extra software packages and cables (different for each Psion) do I own to backup the bastard? How many variations on small proprietary storage devices?
    Sure I can get programs for it.
    On cards (only 2 in the machine at a time). Which were often ok, not great. But they were too often islands. I know 3 people who ever had Psions. And I'm a geek. I know about 100 people with Palms these days.

    What do I miss in the Zaurus?
    I loved that I could press the PHONE button on the psion and it would emit touch tone. I made a call when visiting mom. Looked up the number, held it to the phone and pressed DIAL. Mom looked up at the sound and, after a couple seconds realized what I'd done. "God, that's so lazy..." Sure,,but I never misdialed numbers and it worked for my answering machine when NYNEX was disabling touch tones after the call went through on their payphones.
    I miss the battery life.
    I don't miss that the free software was mediocre and that the pay software was also not stellar (for lots of money).
    I don't miss buying cards for that one model.
    CF's boot a couple computers, feed the zaurus and work the camera.

    BSD? Linux? who cares?
    You don't buy it for the OS (though ssh'ing to it is killer). OPEN SOURCE is good. It means that people can use and extend it. Try that with VxWorks or Wince.
    For flamebait, I find that most BSD developed software runs on any unix, but not so with too much software developed on Linux. That's not a reflection on the kernel/OS, but more a reflection on the professional maturity of the developers. There aren't that many fresh faced newbies that find BSD first. (but it's dead anyway and has been for 15 years :)

  2. Another British 'success' story by payndz · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Typical British innovator. They come up with a great product (Series 5, 5mx, Revo, etc) and then completely fuck it up because either they can't get the money to battle it out against the inferior but better financed copies that follow... or simply make stupid decisions. See also: Sinclair, Sir Clive.

    I still use my 'ancient' Series 5 for working on the move because A: it fits in a pocket; B: I can touch-type on it; C: it uses two AA batteries that last for ages; D: I can pull out the flash card and drop files straight onto my Mac; E: it has a decent programming language (OPL) built in; F: it's been pretty rugged so far, going around the world with me; G: the built-in office package is solid enough for most tasks. Every time I see a co-worker pecking away at a PDA trying to enter text with a stylus, it makes me wonder what they can accomplish there that a 50p notebook and pen couldn't.

    But then, that's the British technology story all over. We come up with great and novel ideas, then botch the actual selling of them and allow everyone else to take over. I shouldn't be surprised by it any more.

    --
    You must think in Russian.