Cygwin aside, most people seem to ignore that the Zaurus has one of the best implementations of Java in all the PDAs out there. And nobody seems to have a problem developing for that on Windows.:-)
If a college student can't afford a $200 PDA, how do they afford a $600 phone with similar features? Buying a PDA and a phone separately is always cheaper.
If you withdraw a device from the market, nobody buys it. Therefore, there is no demand.
At least, that's the logic which Sharp played in Australia. They released the SL-5500, then made sure not to actually give it to any retailers. So nobody could find the product, and as a result, nobody bought it. Product gets phased out.
It sounds like you're getting a repeat of the same logic over in the US. A few people have posted comments on this story saying that they can't find an SL-6000 anywhere. If nobody can find it, nobody will buy it, and lo and behold, the "demand is just not there."
And now, a little hint to Sharp, in case they are reading: A product does not sell without marketing. I didn't see a shred of marketing for the Zaurus outside of Slashdot!
There is a cost bias which prevents a lot of users from switching.
My current setup is a Tungsten T3 (bought a couple months ago for A$600), and a Sony Ericsson T610 (bought second-hand for A$240).
A new P900 would set me back something like A$1200, and the result would be a device whose screen is slightly too small for me to like as a PDA, and is slightly too big to still fit in my pocket as a phone.
The only advantage of rolling this into a phone at the moment is so that you can effectively buy your PDA on a monthly plan. But you always end up paying more on a plan than when you buy the phone outright, so that doesn't really help.
For use as a PDA, presumably. The device is pretty kickass, aside from the sync issues, it is the developer's dream. No dealing with shitty companies like Microsoft who lock you into their tools, or Palm who distribute half-baked Java implementations.
I would be sorry to see it go, but Australia lost the Zaurus ages ago.:-(
The best we have in Australia is still the SL-5500, and oh yeah, over here it still has a RRP of AU$1200 (around US$800.)
No sign of the SL-5600, and definitely no sign of the SL-6000.
I was inches away from buying the SL-6000W (the one with both Bluetooth and Wifi, IIRC) from Japan, until I got discouraged by the proposition of getting no customer support.
We did that to a naive user in this company who was always complaining about Spyware. We removed Internet Explorer (well, "hid" it... you know the deal), installed Firefox and set up the Firefox quicklaunch to display the IE icon.
Haven't had one spyware issue from that guy ever since.
The next step would be "streamlining" it into the actual Windows install.;-)
More importantly, who wants to shell out $900 for a Media Center box before buying a Media Center Extender, when they could just drop a couple hundred for the Xbox and modchip and do all the recording on their normal PC as usual?
Seriously, this price M$ are charging seems a little steep for what amounts to a (very limited) PC remote control.
But that's what we're all used to coming from M$ anyway, right?
Calling it Xbox Media Center is going to confuse people. Xbox Media Center [proper] has been out for ages, is free, and plays a whole lot of formats. Xbox Media Center Extender (presumably named specifically to take advantage of the former product) will cost money, play fuck-all formats, and probably be DRM'd to hell.
True, so long as you ignore the fact that Palm's current OS blows goats, and their only working Java VM blows even more and varies farmyard animals.
And I say this being a Tungsten T3 owner, too. It's a good machine, but I really don't like the complete lack of multitasking in the OS. As soon as someone sends you a file via Bluetooth, you will be waiting until it finishes downloading. Never mind if you were trying to listen to music, it just doesn't care.
This is why I wonder not so much about the lack of wifi, but I wonder why there is no Bluetooth. Why should I have to slot in a card, when I could be doing the communication wirelessly to the phone I already have in my pocket?
And better yet, because you only have two card slots, if you want both Bluetooth and wifi, such as was available in the Zaurus SL-6000W, you get to choose: either (a) take up both slots, or (b) switch cards constantly and lose one of your CF cards.
Renting a game costs, what, $5? I don't think many 13 year olds would have trouble rustling up this much cash.
They should be glad over in Canada. Australia outright banned Manhunt (and even the new Leisure Suit Larry remake!), so even adults don't get to see it.
I don't even see why such an intuitive system is considered "news", let alone "stuff that matters."
I dunno. It says that no one may buy or sell except the person with 666 on them. If this were true, the person with 666 would be the ultimate monopoly, right? Does Bill Gates have this tattooed on him somewhere?
Slashdot Mirror
Cygwin aside, most people seem to ignore that the Zaurus has one of the best implementations of Java in all the PDAs out there. And nobody seems to have a problem developing for that on Windows. :-)
If a college student can't afford a $200 PDA, how do they afford a $600 phone with similar features? Buying a PDA and a phone separately is always cheaper.
The trend is pretty simple.
If you withdraw a device from the market, nobody buys it. Therefore, there is no demand.
At least, that's the logic which Sharp played in Australia. They released the SL-5500, then made sure not to actually give it to any retailers. So nobody could find the product, and as a result, nobody bought it. Product gets phased out.
It sounds like you're getting a repeat of the same logic over in the US. A few people have posted comments on this story saying that they can't find an SL-6000 anywhere. If nobody can find it, nobody will buy it, and lo and behold, the "demand is just not there."
And now, a little hint to Sharp, in case they are reading: A product does not sell without marketing. I didn't see a shred of marketing for the Zaurus outside of Slashdot!
Whoops. Forgot to escape that HTML. :-)
"I will switch when cost(ConvergentDevice) < cost(Phone) + cost (PDA). To do otherwise would be a waste of money."
Favourite quote (paraphrased?) from a recent article: "Cherry OS is nothing like PearPC. PearPC is way slow."
There is a cost bias which prevents a lot of users from switching.
My current setup is a Tungsten T3 (bought a couple months ago for A$600), and a Sony Ericsson T610 (bought second-hand for A$240).
A new P900 would set me back something like A$1200, and the result would be a device whose screen is slightly too small for me to like as a PDA, and is slightly too big to still fit in my pocket as a phone.
The only advantage of rolling this into a phone at the moment is so that you can effectively buy your PDA on a monthly plan. But you always end up paying more on a plan than when you buy the phone outright, so that doesn't really help.
I will switch when cost(ConvergentDevice)
For use as a PDA, presumably. The device is pretty kickass, aside from the sync issues, it is the developer's dream. No dealing with shitty companies like Microsoft who lock you into their tools, or Palm who distribute half-baked Java implementations.
I would be sorry to see it go, but Australia lost the Zaurus ages ago. :-(
I envy you.
The best we have in Australia is still the SL-5500, and oh yeah, over here it still has a RRP of AU$1200 (around US$800.)
No sign of the SL-5600, and definitely no sign of the SL-6000.
I was inches away from buying the SL-6000W (the one with both Bluetooth and Wifi, IIRC) from Japan, until I got discouraged by the proposition of getting no customer support.
Users buy things they trust. If something they might have bought has an OS with known security holes, they will be less likely to buy it.
I'm not pointing a finger at PocketPC, mind you, but more at OSes like Symbian which have recently been found with holes wider than goatse.
P.S. Screen quality? The iPaq 4155 has a pissy, 240x320 screen. My Tungsten T3 has 320x480.
We did that to a naive user in this company who was always complaining about Spyware. We removed Internet Explorer (well, "hid" it... you know the deal), installed Firefox and set up the Firefox quicklaunch to display the IE icon.
Haven't had one spyware issue from that guy ever since.
The next step would be "streamlining" it into the actual Windows install. ;-)
More importantly, who wants to shell out $900 for a Media Center box before buying a Media Center Extender, when they could just drop a couple hundred for the Xbox and modchip and do all the recording on their normal PC as usual?
Seriously, this price M$ are charging seems a little steep for what amounts to a (very limited) PC remote control.
But that's what we're all used to coming from M$ anyway, right?
Hmm... so they provide the video in? I got the impression that it was just streaming across the network, which can already be done.
Or, you could pay someone $10 to avoid having to crack open your own box.
Calling it Xbox Media Center is going to confuse people. Xbox Media Center [proper] has been out for ages, is free, and plays a whole lot of formats. Xbox Media Center Extender (presumably named specifically to take advantage of the former product) will cost money, play fuck-all formats, and probably be DRM'd to hell.
True, so long as you ignore the fact that Palm's current OS blows goats, and their only working Java VM blows even more and varies farmyard animals.
And I say this being a Tungsten T3 owner, too. It's a good machine, but I really don't like the complete lack of multitasking in the OS. As soon as someone sends you a file via Bluetooth, you will be waiting until it finishes downloading. Never mind if you were trying to listen to music, it just doesn't care.
"Allowing" people to buy their own data cards is great... that way you suck a few tens of thousands more yen out of the consumer. Way to go, Sharp.
I would much rather be using a built-in Bluetooth radio to communicate with my perfectly good phone.
This is why I wonder not so much about the lack of wifi, but I wonder why there is no Bluetooth. Why should I have to slot in a card, when I could be doing the communication wirelessly to the phone I already have in my pocket?
And better yet, because you only have two card slots, if you want both Bluetooth and wifi, such as was available in the Zaurus SL-6000W, you get to choose: either (a) take up both slots, or (b) switch cards constantly and lose one of your CF cards.
Who cares if some people don't want wifi?
Wasn't this why they sold multiple versions of the SL-6000 in the first place?
I would rather see them release four near-identical devices... a version with/without wifi, and a version with/without Bluetooth.
And speaking of Bluetooth, the lack of that in a PDA really makes this so-called "new" Zaurus look pretty fucking old.
You'll still be waiting months while the idiotic game developers port their shitty code to PowerPC.
You'd get better luck out of Mac OS X being available on x86. That way, all your games will still be on the platform which gets the first release.
Putting Windows on a PowerPC wouldn't be so much like polishing a turd, as it would be like smearing shit on a diamond.
When did this name change happen? I didn't see any news on Slashdot about this. :-)
Renting a game costs, what, $5? I don't think many 13 year olds would have trouble rustling up this much cash.
They should be glad over in Canada. Australia outright banned Manhunt (and even the new Leisure Suit Larry remake!), so even adults don't get to see it.
I don't even see why such an intuitive system is considered "news", let alone "stuff that matters."
Indeed. The name Mozilla is a contraction of "Mosaic killer."
Yeah... the masses of idiots. :-/
I dunno. It says that no one may buy or sell except the person with 666 on them. If this were true, the person with 666 would be the ultimate monopoly, right? Does Bill Gates have this tattooed on him somewhere?