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How Palm's Treo Got Boost From BlackBerry Lawsuit
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Palm ramped up its marketing campaign for its Treo smartphone while rival Research in Motion was embroiled in a patent fight, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'The result: at least 1,500 new inquiries about the Treo in the past few months from corporate customers, resulting in 600 free trials, Palm says. In total, Palm says it has more than doubled its number of sales leads since October. "The doors have been opening," says Ed Colligan, Palm's chief executive. At a November staff meeting, Mr. Colligan says he told his staff to "step things up. We have to go back and knock on doors and respond as fast as we can." ... Internally, Palm executives say they believe that the Treo will outsell BlackBerrys by the end of this year.'"
because i've used both, and the blackberry far eclipses the treo as a mobile email device.
the blackberry is popular because it does mobile email REALLY well. It also excels in one hand operation because of the clickable scroll wheel. It's also intuitive and easy to use - as well as significantly lighter than its bulk would indicate.
the blackberry isn't an browsing device - it's for voice and text - and it's ideally suited for the workplace.
I haven't used the windows mobile treos, but the palm treos are heavy with small keyboards. The units don't multitask well - and they CRASH. I've never hada blackberry crash - treos freeze up all the time.
maybe the windows mobile treos are better - but treos need to go a long way, from form factor onwards, to truly best the blackberry atwhat it does.
un burrito me trampeó.
www.chatteremail.com - push email works really well with my home machine running Dovocot IMAP server.
Actually there's a Treo 700P (palm based) which is coming out this year (perhaps may?) check the treocentral forums for more info.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
At least one email client, ChatterEmail (http://www.chatteremail.com/ - I am a satisfied user but otherwise have no connection) supports IMAP IDLE, which behaves about the same as blackberry-style push. Basically your Treo connects to the IMAP server and says "IDLE" which means "when anything changes, tell me about it." So new messages arriving triggers a message from the IMAP server to the client. From a user perspective, this is the same as push email -- it makes no difference to me whether the server or client technically initiates the connection. It has the advantage of being standards-based -- you are not tied to any particular server implementation.
There is also GoodLink, which I believe is more blackberry-style push where the network operator is involved -- network notices the device, tells the messaging server it's online, and then the messaging server initiates the connection and sends the data.
I've got a 650. It was my first Palm device, and I can now not live without it. I am a Professional Sound Tech, and now could not live without having internet and email coming to a device in my pocket. There is not an email push(yet), but it is coming. I automatically download my email every hour, which is fine for me. I currently use my treo for a movie player, mp3 player, cell phone, email reciever, computer remote control, and personal organizer. Go buy one.
The worrying is over now and we're sticking with BB/BES.
no.
the biggest problem is that the treo suffers from bad design. The battery when low will cause buzzing in the phone audio and the damned things lock up and die on a regular basis.
I have yet to have a blackberry lock up to the point of useless like the 4 treo's i have had all have done.
if you like to have a reliable phone. do NOT get a treo.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I had 3 600's and 1 650 and all 4 of them had the buzzing in the earpiece and audio to the caller when the bettery would get down to 50% or less. also random lockups that take a reset to get it back are 100% unexcuseable on a phone. I can not have my phone lock up and not recieve calls because the hardware was not proven to be robust enough.
Palm's in general have been great. but they always failed horribly when they tried to marry them to a cellphone. I had the origional Qualcomm Palm unit and it sucked horribly in life and stability. Then I have tried off and on the treo's and all of them had a major flaw that makes them useless. The flip treos would break their hinges within days of getting it, the 600 and 650 have lockup issues and a shielding design flaw that palm refusesto fix (It's even in the 700's! I know of 2 people that have the 700w and they get the buzzing when the battery is lower than 1/3rd.
until they decide to quit making them cheap and put time into making a robust pda/phone that will last more than 12 months they are not practical.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
keeping a cellular data connection open constantly appears to be...less than ideal.
I guess... although the Chatter developer claims you transfer approximately the same amount of data no matter whether you use timed syncs or IDLE push. I believe that -- either you have the connection initiation data every time you wake up and sync, or you have smaller "hi, still idling" messages at similar intervals. Obviously he does not have a server-initiated-push mode in his application to compare against. But my guess would be the savings are not huge -- the bulk of the data is the body of the email, which has to be sent anyway; the difference is just any keep-alive messages to maintain the GRPS and IMAP connections. I can see this is not 100% ideal, and certainly not the cleanest design ever -- similar to the frustration with RSS feeds being pull not push. But like I said above, it's a 99% solution for most people.
My experience is the device lasts about 18-24 hours with Chatter running and continuously connected in the background, plus some phone and PDA use. I charge it every night, so that works fine for me. I know blackberries last for several days of continuous email operation, but I would attribute the difference more to screen type (Treo has a much better/brighter backlight and a sharper/larger screen) and the fact that I use my Treo as a cellphone too, which obviously drains the battery more quickly than data applications.
My treo is for personal use, so the Chatter solution is perfect for me. I just set it up like any mail client to connect to my existing IMAP service (a personal hosting plan at Dreamhost). Everything just works! I can see that this is not the proper model for large businesses, but for medium-sized and small organizations, and for places that place high value on interoperable standards and the ability to easily swap out or intermix server and client components from different vendors, this is a good fit.
My biggest problem with it is that the speakers aren't loud enough but I use volumecare to get around that. I also like MP3 ringtones and I use Ringo for that. Between the two, I'm sure that's where I get the random crash a week, but it's never been while using the phone.
As a phone, Blackberries are HORRID, the phone function ALWAYS wants to call the last number dialed, it's a stupid "feature" that persists in the newest devices. Plus you have to dial the number and then fiddle with the scroll on the right to activate a call. DUMB. There should be hardware buttons for call and end.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.