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3Com Sues over DaVinci
poetbill writes "Palm Computing has obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting Royal from selling its rival DaVinci handheld device, which 3Com claims was copied from the Palm operating system." Does this remind anyone of a similar case from a few years back?
If the money was recieved before the suit, then your in luck, if not, you'll get it sent back with a free kit, until this thing blows over.
You know, this story is greatly distorted. The very large software company's OS did not catch on in large numbers at all until 1990 (Version 3.0 of that operating system). The same OS really didn't gain its near-monopoly status until sometime after 1993. (Before about 1992/1993, most computers ran on the very large software companies earlier efforts, which weren't even graphical.)
So the larger companies graphical OS really didn't catch on until *well* after the earlier companies computer became color-capable.
And the realm of computing is split into far more than two camps. You have the Windows camp. The smaller, but still existant OS/2 camp. The Linux/xBSD camp. The commercial Unix camp. The still-very-much-active Amiga contingent. The BeOS camp. Need I go on?
Don't be so short-sighted. There are many, many more viable platforms than the one you happen to find attractive.
My journal has hot
handspring will do this, I hope
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
99 bucks is plenty, and 40 buck instead of 100 for the memory upgrade demonstrates the margins involved. 1/3 cost of production, 1/3 to cover development costs and 1/3 for distribution. Given that acce$$ories are the real money spinners, I can see why some are keen to stop price cutting, that savages p/e projections.
spurt that crazy jizz all over your Palm V. yeah baby, spurt it!
Replay TV and TiVo are about to get hit by some major lawsuits contending that they need to pay licensing fees to the networks.
Networks are treating these as they would a Sattelite system as they allow skipping over commercials (major source of network revenue).
Two faults here:
Like I said - I know of these options. However, I doubt any title you write would end up in the store (so that others may purchase it and play it). The point is getting the game to a mass audience - not just a core group who would be willing to burn thier own ROM. The need for the physical media (the cartridge) is the barrier.
If the GB was a completely programmable device which you loaded the games into (similar to the MP3 devices offered), then it would be viable for mass marketing via the Net, since there wouldn't be any need for the exchange of physical media. However, the GB isn't this way...
Which is where a Palm-type device could come into play (no pun intended) - being that it is programmable, and that software is loaded onto it from a host machine (rather than as a packaged ROM). This makes the dissemination of software via third party channels much easier for both the distributor, as well as the consumer, thus allowing for a third-party game to reach a wider audience.
All this is nice, but off the core topic of my question - the question at hand is why aren't there buttons arranged for directional control of something? Even if all they were used for was as an alternative to scrolling they would be useful (the current method for scrolling on a palm is OK - but it reminds me too much of flipping DIP switches with a pen)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
What case???
URL is dead!
Here's the story thus far:
First, a nifty little graphical computing device comes out on the market. Although its display is only black-and-white, its intuitive GUI and extensibility makes it an instant hit with developers. It sells quickly, but detractors are quick to point out the shortcomings of this machine, based on a Motorola processor.
Later, a very large software company designs a colorful, feature-rich operating system to compete with this earlier computer. However, it doesn't make the hardware to go with the software; rather, it licenses out the OS to many equipment manufacturers to encourage lower prices and larger selection. As it turns out, however, this causes compatibility issues, and the system is weighed down by "feature bloat" to try and solve every problem at once.
Many first-time customers are wowed by the longer feature list and higher numbers of this large software company's OS's models, even though many of them perform poorly in "real-world" applications. As a result, the realm of computing is indelibly split into two camps, and they fight tooth and nail over every little thing.
Plug in a few proper nouns here and there, and you could be talking about 1986 or 1999.
For more information, click here.
Its a shame... From what i've seen of DaVinci, its not a half bad machine. I'm still quite happy with my Psion5, but Having a palm-unit would be a bit more useful for me at this point.
I am rather irked that no one is seeing that there is any compatibility between OS's and handhelds before one handheld totally triumphs over all the others and gains a 95% market share *cough*windows*cough*. Palm is trying to keep their stuff proprietary, just like Microsoft does (who then cries "standards!" when they try to enter a market where they have .005% market share). But then the DaVinci people are then selling their handheld for $99... either it's one of those "you get what you pay for" or they are pulling the eMachine stunt and selling at below cost. (prob to gain market share...). I don't think either companies are quite playing the fair competition game here.
I see the link is broke, so it's also covered here:
http://mu.current.nu
and at
http://www.pdabuzz.com
I think Handspring is the company you're thinking about (the ones lead by former Palm people). Palm is trying to licence their OS for other non-3com made devices (similar to IBM's Workpad). If their claims about da Vinci are true, abd this is a case of someone just copying code. I'd say Palm's the right.
Has anyone tried this application? It's GPL'd, and sound like it tries to mimic the windows version of the palm desktop pretty closely.
Now I wonder if I'll get my DaVinci back -- I sent it in for a memory upgrade -- I was hoping to start writing a program for it when I got it back. AC
Justin, fix your link. It's busted up.
Here's C|NET's version.
~ Give me 101 plastic soldiers, and I will conquer the world.
And I was just getting ready to break down and buy a PalmPilot. Now this. I'm certainly not about to get one now.
Does this remind anyone of a similar case from a few years back?
A little bit, but the actual allegation has nothing to do with look-and-feel, but rather ``that some of the DaVinci operating system was lifted directly from the Palm OS'' (from the C|Net article). Of course, that could be made up, but it's not just another Mac-Windows or iMac-iPC style suit.
``This, too, shall pass.'' ---Eastern proverb
Yeah, but if you really want games, get a Gameboy... there's lots of games for it, it fits in your shirt pocket, and they're cheap.
No, Handspring is the start-up by the old Palm chief. And palm has every right to protect it's intellecyual property if it feels so inclined. This is not to say I do not support Open-Source, and please don't email me saying that is. Just that Palm has developed this software, and they have rights. I am just glad they are not suing everyone who is porting it to linux.
OctaneZ
I might be wrong, bu wasn't da Vinci the company that's headed by the former Palm chief, and operation with Palm's approval? I think I remember reading about how this was Palm's ploy to (re)capture the market, by having cheap clones. Anyway, it's not cool on Palm's part.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
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As it turns out, however, this causes compatibility issues, and the system is weighed down by "feature bloat" to try and solve every problem at once.
Yeah.... it seems to be another one of those situations in which, to conquer the market, the company tries to be everything at once, so that they'll have a rush of supporters for start up (even though their product sucks) so that they can ensnare these supporters with upgrades as they work frantically to improve their product to 'working' status... later to introduce a new release, fabled to correct the problems of the original/previous version(s) and to introduce new and never-seen-before features.
ha! who do they think they're kidding?
Insert mind here.
Hey, stupid: Bob Metcalfe got kicked out of 3Com quite a long while ago. It's debatable whether he was unjustly ridden out or whether they actually needed to get rid of him, depending on who you talk to, but basically he has nothing to do with running 3Com any more, and hasn't for years.
I don't see why Palm is bothering. I have a daVinci, and trust me, it's no winner. Actually, it sucks. I can never sync. Not a lot of software, and what software there is sucks. Can't sync. Handwriting recognition has trouble telling the difference between "b" and "d", and "f" only works right about 1/2 the time. Can't sync. No support for repeating events. Can't sync. Single-tone alarm that keeps beeping for 1 minute, then stops instead of going off for five minutes, then beeping again. Can't sync.
I wouldn't be surprised if the daVinci OS was copied from Palm's. Royal doesn't seem to know very much about it, and Palm asm compilers work fine - you just have to strip some bytes of the beginning of the binary to get it to work.
Frankly, I expect the daVinci to be dead within a year or two. At $99, they can't be making much of a profit off it, and support for it ROYALLY [sic] sucks.
-Ender Stonebender
(And did I mention I can't get the damn to synchronize with my PC?)
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
"Royal said it is investigating the charges but believes the suit only affects a small number of shareware files. Shareware software is available to the general public and is not considered proprietary." What you say? Damn, lets head of to Download.Com, download everything and sell it as our own!
Would you be happier to know that Bob Metcalfe hasn't had anything to do with 3COM for years? In fact, he's quite bitter about it. Seems that he was forcefully ousted from the company he founded.
Granted... all this has nothing to do with the legal standings and product offerings of 3COM. And it has nothing, really, to do with your misguided rant. All we're doing is confusing the issue with facts, right?
They have to defend trademarks against dilution, but I don't believe the same is true of copyright. If they can prove it's theirs, they can sue anyone anywhere and win, whether or not they previously defended it. That's cause trademarks are small, i.e. "You've Got Mail" (tm Amreica on Lien [AOL]), and are harder to prove it's yours. Lines of text, code, or music are a lot easier to prove they are yours.
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
One of the big sticking points with me about the Palm Pilot has been its price - $200 is a little bit pricey for what you get (but just a little - $150 would be a better price point). The only other thing that the Palm Pilot has problems in is the interface.
The writing interface is pretty cool - no problem with that. But the buttons below the screen should be arranged differently. They are fine for business uses - but I wish they were arranged better for wider application (like games). Along comes the DaVinci - and wow, buttons arranged in a cross-pattern, plus extra buttons next to it - a new handheld gaming platform!
I realize that the Palm Pilot (and others) aren't meant for games - but let's face it, neither was the PC. Only when people started to play serious games on it did it start to become better (think about it - most peripheral devices in use today were developed with gaming in mind - sound cards, graphic accelerators, cd-rom drives). As they became better, PCs became more widespread. The same thing will probably happen with handhelds...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Bob Metcalfe can keep is palms and his crappy Winmodems and his FUD to himself. I will never buy anything from any company associated with this asshole.
also run the sync server on the PC
Then why not buy a Palm? Of course you'd be paying premium for it, because currently there are no real competitors. A used one could prolly be had for less than $200, and one of those Palm IIIe are $229 new, right? I really hope more Palm work-alikes come out, and at lower price points.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*