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Sony Exits US Handheld Market
10999 writes "Today Brighthand reports that Sony will no longer develop and sell Clie handheld models to the United States market.
Most certainly that means no more Clies for Europe, too."
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Well, if they hadn't removed the Bluetooth from the TH-55, I'd have bought one. *sigh*
Now I have to wait for Palm to come up with something comparable.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I feel the exact same way! I bought an NR70, expecting to be able to use the new mem sticks when they came out, but, no! I'm stuck with 128mb sticks. Same goes for my nice cybershot camera.
Come back when your products will do what they should.
hey!
In my recent visit to Japan, I saw loads of technology that isn't in the US yet. Why is this? Yes, I know that it is stuff that is manufacturered by Japanese companies and so it is natural that it should appear there first, but Japan seems to be the best stuff several years before the US. Is the USA not a good market for tech gadgets?
The miniature laptops I saw just rocked, and I can't believe they wouldn't sell in the US.
All of the handhelds that I have evaluated do not have a long enough battery life to be useful.
A full time radio connection (wifi is an example) requires significant power resources.
Handhelds don't have the power.
The small Sony laptops are more appropriate. They have a useable keyboard, and they almost fit in a jacket pocket
Peace
Their exit is extremely strange, but until we get more corroborating articles, I'm going to stick to that thought.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
Do you see this as a clear sing, that Microsofts Pocket PC is slowly winning the PDA operating system war? Or is it just that Sony couldn't turn Palm OS in to the media OS it wanted? Or perhaps something else?
The next generation mobile phones are really what killed the PDA. If you have seen the high end phones some are PDA like (Sony Ericsson P900), and even the medium range now has very good organiser and synchronisation facilities. Combine that with Java expandability and there is not much need for PDAs for most people.
When you think about it, Sony's never been into the corporate market. They're all about multimedia and entertainment, hence the upcoming PSP media handheld. PDAs have their most functional benefits in business applications. I could defnitely see them taking their Clié R&D environment and redirecting it to the market they know best: entertainment.
i think the handheld pda as we have known it has really just been a tranistional device anyway. its purpose, as history may remember it, was to bridge the gap into more versatile devices such as what mobile phones are becoming (and have become already). the major features of newer pdas are wireless networking capabilities such as bluetooth, 802.11, etc. but what about the most well-established and well-known networking capability of them all---the telephone? now that's wireless. just use that.
of course i think it's rather sad to see such a well designed line of products come to an end (i personally have a sony clie), but surely sony is aware of the larger issues. the newest coolest thing they came out with was the UX-50, which when i first looked at it, i thought of it as a sub-sub-notebook. it just runs Palm OS and you can't upgrade any of the hardware. for the cost (US$600) you could easily get a bad-ass mobile phone that does all you'd need anyway---and it's a phone.
I have owned a number of Clies and still use one as my handheld. Sony has done a spectacular job with the hardware on many of them. They also tried really hard with the software, but ultimately, they ran into too many limitations with PalmOS.
For example, Clies ship with PicselViewer, an image and PDF viewer that lets you read and view normal image and PDF files off memory sticks, and it's actually pretty fast. Clies also ship with applications that let you back up your data to external flash memory, that let you manage your files. In the latest version, they tried to revamp the aging and somewhat limited Palm PIM applications.
But doing any of this under PalmOS is really hard. PalmOS is essentially still a single-tasking OS with a quirky window system, severe limitations on memory management, little protection of applications from one another, and a lousy desktop synchronization architecture.
And things keep changing even between minor PalmOS versions in weird ways: Bluetooth support, configuration applications, datebook record formats, etc. And Sony always ended up behind Palm--for example, the T3 ships with a lot of nice functionality that didn't make it into the TH-55. It must have been a nightmare for Sony.
Ultimately, I suspect Palm was just too much of a pain for them and they didn't like playing second fiddle to Palm. I don't expect Sony to get out of the handheld market long-term, I think they'll just switch to some other platform--PocketPC, Linux, or Symbian, maybe.
I'm a bit torn by this but overall this is a good thing. I have had many, many Sony PDAs over the years. I used an NX70V for a long time and really enjoyed it. However, as a developer, the Sony devices were a royal pain in the ass. The UI was painful to deal with. Their OS4 devices were a disaster, again, from the independent developer POV. They did move the ball forward though. They will be missed.
Even the article suggests that the trimming of the PDA field was not unexpected, given the flat sales. And the reason is made clear by talking to PDA shoppers or even looking at this thread: Everyone is fine with what they've got.
/. seem to be the same way. I love new tech just like anyone else, but it's a lot cheaper for me to play with the neat gizmos seperately, and not have my mishaps affect my PDA. Any other thoughts?
I'd be freaking lost without my PDA. I used a Palm 3 that I was given for a little while, then bought the Visor Deluxe when it came out, and used it until just recently. When it finally died (backlight failed) I dropped $90 on a Clie SJ-22. It's a great little PDA with a very bright white backlight that's on by default, 16meg memory, reads memory sticks, etc. I'll use it until it dies some horriffic death (hopefully in a few years) and get whatever is simple, cheap, highly-reviewed and well-supported.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people use these things primarily for their original purpose: to *organise things.* The vast majority of PDA users might *like* color screens, mp3 playback, cameras, etc. But when they get to talking about it, you soon understand that they still mostly just want it to keep their lives in order. It's interesting that even many one-percenters on
The PSP is going to be the Game Gear all over again. Size and battery life will kill it.
If Sony took down their Clie operations in order not to "compete with PSP," that only means in two years they'll be out two revenue streams.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I agree, given the aggressive launch schedule Sony is trying to follow for the PSP (fall 2005 US I think), shifting resources to PSP makes sense. It wouldn't be surprising if a lot of the Clie people were working on PSP too.
It is also likely that the PSP has a far greater profit potential than the Clie too. For the Clie they only get money on hardware and probably not too much since they have to pay PalmOS licensing fees along with competing with a dozen or so other PDAs. For PSP, they will likely lose money on the hardware but more than make it up in royalties paid by game publishers for the system. If Nintendo's success in the handheld console market is an indicator, then PSP could make some major dough for Sony.
As for battery life, etc..., with the Clie people working on PSP, I like their chances. They've got experienced, talented people and a clear target and path laid out by current portable king, Nintendo. So on the whole, I think dropping Clie to focus on PSP is a good bet. This isn't Game Gear again by any means. Sony has far greater resources than Sega ever did and has shown that they know how to fight in the games market.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
wait wait wait - you're on to something, but you're missing the A1 numero uno priority for Sony to do this. Let's follow the train of the latest news in portable hardware, shall we?
Sony wants to claim a huge stake in the handheld gaming market, and they know that the opening sales of the PSP will be pretty indicative of how the console will do down the line. Big launch will mean big boost in reputation, and then more third parties to develop for the PSP, more sales, yadda yadda.
However, this article points to a huge possible dent in all systems portable this year due to a tighter supply of LCD screens. the linked article talks about Nintendo, I know, but it still drives the point home: Sony has to prioritize its allocation of LCDs, and it has to do so ASAP.
Pretty big judgment call on Sony's part to give up a decent PDA marketshare in order to go full-force on the PSP. But, then again, considering how much $ they can pull not only with PSP sales, but also games, music and movies (many of which will come directly from Sony studios/records/etc), it seems like Sony has quite a forward-looking financial plan, and this move to re-allocate LCDs is proof positive of such forward-looking. Even if the additional movie/music stuff doesn't lift off in the States, Europe and Japan are ripe for such sales, so don't scoff at that notion too quickly.
where are y'all?
There's still a significant market out there for people who don't want the do-everything phone. I bought a Clie TJ-25 because it is a great book reader, calendar, and electronic notepad. And it was cheap--I bought just the features I wanted (no MP3 player, camera, etc.)
It is a mistake to assume that everyone wants a phone-pda-camera-mp3 player-fm radio-refrigerator. (Well, not refrigerator.) Too much integration leads to unused features (==bloat) and wasted money. How many people buy Microsoft Office just to use Word? You'd be surprised.
Why carry (and recharge every night) two pocket-size electronic devices when you can carry just a single one that does both?
Because a PDA should have a screen large enough to be useful. But that means that you may not want to carry it around all the time-- when you go on vacation, for example, or if you're just making a run to the convenience store for a twelve-pack. But of course you do want to carry your phone around all the time. Most phones right now will easily fit in a pants pocket unintrusively enough that you can jog or take a nap on a couch with them on your person. But a usably-sized PDA? Not really.
A headset? What if you're talking to someone about something and you need to pass the conversation for a moment to your friend, standing next to you? Much easier with a traditional form phone factor. What if you're backing up a full PDA and flash card and you want to make a phone call or go somewhere while you wait for the backup to complete?
What about battery life? Generally, you want your phone to be on all the time... but you don't want your PDA on unless you're using it, in order to maximize battery life. You've had a heavy day using your PDA at work and the battery is almost gone, but luckily work is almost over and you're going out with friends right afterward, you just need to call them to arrange a meeting place... d'oh! Battery dead, no phone all evening, unless you go home first and charge your PDA. Or feel free to reverse the scenario.
As usual, the integration of two devices means significant compromises for both.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Anyway I scoured around the shop and came across the Clie TJ25 - what a beauty! This was the first PDA I had seen (in the sub $200 price range) with a metal shell and beautiful color screen! I was a little hesitant about the 'memory stick' (I prefer more 'open' technologies like SD or CF), yet I found some cheap 128 MB sticks at tigerdirect (which were actually lower in cost per MB than SD/CF).
Anyway, I was really hoping to upgrade in a year or so to a new wireless/camera/MP3 Clie. Now I guess it will happen sooner than later because of the price drops as stores dump their Clie inventory. However it will be a sad day when the Clie is removed from the PDA lineup - one less great choice for those choosing palm! I just really hope we don't see Sony jump ship to the ms wince camp in a year or two!