VisorCentral.com - Hawkin's Keynote

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- Visor General Chat (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=31)
-- Hawkin's Keynote (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=19647)

Posted by Felipe on 11-14-2001 10:10 PM:

Hawkin's Keynote

Jeff poked a lot of fun at MS and all its stabs at trying to get a working PDA. I was suprprised that he still feels that they don't have a future, but what can he say?

I only saw the speach and not any of the slides he was using. Does anyone know what slide he used to represent reliability? It got a lauch and I think it probably had something to do with MS.

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Felipe Garcia
Happy Treo 600 user, so far. Thanx Cingular for having an unlocked phone.

My Treo 600 is my phone, my PDA, my watch, and my MP3 player. Oh yeah, I take a picture once in a while with it. Convergence is such a great thing.

Posted by MarkEagle on 11-14-2001 10:22 PM:

Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by Felipe
Does anyone know what slide he used to represent reliability?

According to James' article he was showing a shot of the ScanDisk screen so many Windows users see after a crash.

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Posted by foo fighter on 11-15-2001 06:20 PM:

Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by Felipe
Jeff poked a lot of fun at MS and all its stabs at trying to get a working PDA. I was suprprised that he still feels that they don't have a future, but what can he say?

I actually enjoyed that part of the keynote. Where Jeff really starts to lose my interest is when he keeps rehashing his old rhetoric about features not belonging on a handheld. I really believe that Hawkins is a "has been". His company is in the toilet, he really has no "visionary" ideas to bring to the table (other than the Treo), and I don't think he understands that there is anything wrong with the Palm platform.

Right now, I have MUCH more confidence in Palm than I do Handspring. David Nagel seems to be very bullish on new innovative stategies for the PalmOS. That's what the Palm platform needs desperately...EXCITEMENT! New innovations.

It's funny that Jeff doesn't believe PocketPC will be a long term player. I was thinking the exact same thing about his company.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 11-15-2001 06:31 PM:

Re: Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
It's funny that Jeff doesn't believe PocketPC will be a long term player. I was thinking the exact same thing about his company.

I was thinking that Hawkins would be a good choice for heading Palm's hardware division. Jean-Louis Gass�e would head the OS division nicely. There would finally be a marriage of wireless and multimedia.

Oh, and Dubinsky could be in charge of PR and advertising.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by foo fighter on 11-15-2001 06:46 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson

I was thinking that Hawkins would be a good choice for heading Palm's hardware division.

I not sure about that. My impression is that he would be nothing more than a roadblock to further development. Hawkins has made it adamantly clear that he is opposed to adding any new features to his products. He still doesn't believe that higher resolution displays add any value, and that color is just an expensive luxury. Forget about digital audio or other bells and whistles, he wouldn't dream of adding those "unnecessary" functions to his hardware. If Hawkins were heading Palm's hardware div, you would see the exact same rehashed product's that Palm is offering now. Nothing would change.

quote:
Jean-Louis Gass�e would head the OS division nicely. There would finally be a marriage of wireless and multimedia.

Now there you have something. Gassee is bold, intelligent, and knows how to build a platform. It's a shame that BeOS couldn't find it's niche, but it could work miracles with the PalmOS...and he has the vision to pull it off.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 11-15-2001 10:22 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
I not sure about that. My impression is that he would be nothing more than a roadblock to further development. Hawkins has made it adamantly clear that he is opposed to adding any new features to his products. He still doesn't believe that higher resolution displays add any value, and that color is just an expensive luxury. Forget about digital audio or other bells and whistles, he wouldn't dream of adding those "unnecessary" functions to his hardware. If Hawkins were heading Palm's hardware div, you would see the exact same rehashed product's that Palm is offering now. Nothing would change.

He would make the hardware - the features you think he would oppose would be part of the OS division - headed by Gass�e. He would be an idiot not to give the hardware support. Whether or not you agree with his vision, he's no idiot. His adament opposition to features is what started the Pilot on the road to success.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by miradu on 11-15-2001 10:37 PM:

foo?!?! YOU WERE THERE? *sigh*....

I was also disapointed in hawkins keynote - I myself thought that for ereliability they would show a BSOD - I was surprised when they showed scandiskc running - still fun though!

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-miradu

Posted by foo fighter on 11-15-2001 10:43 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hawkin's Keynote

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
He would be an idiot not to give the hardware support. Whether or not you agree with his vision, he's no idiot.

Agreed. But I'm not calling him an idiot. On the contrary, Hawkins is really the father of the PDA industry. I just think that his track record over the past two years has been very lackluster. And he hasn't demonstrated anything truly new to the PDA market. A few interesting ideas, but nothing groundbreaking.

quote:
His adament opposition to features is what started the Pilot on the road to success.

Yes, but that's also what will rob Handspring of its success. The market has changed dramatically over the past 2-3 years, but the Palm platform hasn't changed with it. It has pretty much remained stagnant for over 5 years. Consumers want more from thier PDA than just a basic PIM. Just look at the sudden success of SONY. They had virtually no marketshare with the original Clie, it was a flop. But SONY listened to its customers and released innovative new devices. The result: Sony went from .1% marketshare to over 10% in less than 5 weeks, and they are still growing...because they gave consumers what they wanted.

Most of the real innovations will have to come from Palm, through a new OS. That's coming. But both Palm and Handspring are equally guilty of dictating to its customers, rather than listening to them. Palm has resolved this by pushing hard to add long requested features to its new OS, but I believe that HS is still playing the same old song and dance routine. There's nothing new under the sun.

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Posted by Gameboy70 on 11-17-2001 10:28 AM:

foo fighter wrote:

Agreed. But I'm not calling him an idiot. On the contrary, Hawkins is really the father of the PDA industry. I just think that his track record over the past two years has been very lackluster. And he hasn't demonstrated anything truly new to the PDA market. A few interesting ideas, but nothing groundbreaking.

There hasn't been a groundbreaking PDA since the Newton. Every PDA since then has been an incremental improvement: more memory, more screen resolution, better form factors, etc. Breaking new ground isn't what makes a PDA successful; it's leveraging one or more of those incremental improvements. The Palm V offered nothing new in terms of memory or processor speed, but it sported a superior form factor -- only one innovation, but the right one.

An acceptably small cell phone with an acceptably large screen (for a cell phone), an alphanumeric keypad and email/web/sms capability may not seem revolutionary within the ubergeek sewing circles of VC, PDABuzz, Slashdot and the like; nongeeks, on the other hand, will immediately "get it." My own mother, after seeing a picture of the Treo, asked me when it was coming out. She's usually bored by discussions of PDAs and cell phones.

Yes, but [Hawkins' alleged opposition to features is] also what will rob Handspring of its success. The market has changed dramatically over the past 2-3 years, but the Palm platform hasn't changed with it. It has pretty much remained stagnant for over 5 years. Consumers want more from thier PDA than just a basic PIM.

The market has changed dramatically over the past 2-3 years -- on the supply side. Palm has a surfeit of licensees cannibalizing its market share. And as the PDA market grows, the number of power users demanding luxury features grows with it, even if their proportion remains the same; and a more vocal minority is still a minority.

One of the biggest problems for PDA manufacturers is consumer satisfaction, not dissatisfaction. Talk to any owner of the lowly m100 series. I have yet to find a single owner of one who's unhappy with it, despite its pedestrian feature set. Why? Because it's a basic, inexpensive, uncomplicated PIM. Unfortunately, besides being boring, it's also a low-margin device that helping to commoditize the industry. It's becoming clear that without the resources of companies like Sony or Microsoft, R&D needs to be approved more judiciously than ever. Psion recently concluded that it wasn't worth the effort, and has ended a great product line.

Just look at the sudden success of SONY. They had virtually no marketshare with the original Clie, it was a flop. But SONY listened to its customers and released innovative new devices. The result: Sony went from .1% marketshare to over 10% in less than 5 weeks, and they are still growing...because they gave consumers what they wanted.

The Cli�, part deux, is a great product. But rather than attribute Sony's current success to some rare ability to receive public input, I submit that the jump in the company's market share has more to do with the fact that the first Cli� sucked (@ $400).

Most of the real innovations will have to come from Palm, through a new OS. That's coming. But both Palm and Handspring are equally guilty of dictating to its customers, rather than listening to them. Palm has resolved this by pushing hard to add long requested features to its new OS, but I believe that HS is still playing the same old song and dance routine. There's nothing new under the sun.

Except the Treo

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